research topics for college football

333 Football Research Topics & Essay Titles

Football is a game that millions of people around the world enjoy watching and playing. With 3.57 billion views of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, this sport appears to be the most popular. Besides, each match is more than just a game — football is all about passion, skill, and teamwork.

In this article, our expert team has collected great football topics to write about and research that you can use for your school or college assignments.

🔝 Top 12 Football Topics to Write About

✍️ football writing prompts, 📝 football titles for essays, 🗣️ football speech topics, 💡 football topics for presentation, 🔎 football research topics, ⚽ football essay outline, 🔗 references.

• The history of football.
• Football as the world’s most popular ball game.
• The development of modern football.
• The greatest football moments.
• Why do tactics play a vital role in football?
• Football as a traumatic kind of sport.
• What is football’s most prestigious competition?
• The legends of American football.
• The impact of football on society.
• Advantages of playing football.
• Men’s and women’s football.
• The issue of racism in football.

Are you looking for some prompts on the football topic? Then you are at the right place! Below, you can find ideas for writing your essay.

Why Football Is the Best Sport: Essay Prompt

Football is a global sport that connects practically everyone on the planet. It has the power to bring an entire city or nation to a standstill. In the essay that explains why football is the best game, you can share your own experience or the emotions of your friend who is passionate about this game. Also, you can list the reasons why people love this sport. For example:

• Football connects millions of people.
• There are no age restrictions to enjoy the match.
• The world’s best talents are football players, such as Lionel Messi.
• Watching or participating in football evokes genuine emotions.

Prompt for Panyee Football Club Essay

Have you ever heard about a football club that is floating on water? Panyee FC is one of them! Since there is not enough space on the island, football fans and players built a football pitch in the middle of the sea. Find the answers to the following questions about Panyee Football Club and use this information in your essay:

• What is the history behind Panyee Football Club?
• Why is a Panyee FC pitch built on water?
• What are the core values of Panyee Football Club?
• Can we say that Panyee FC is a symbol of passion for football?

Why Football Is Dangerous: Essay Prompt

The fact that football has the greatest injury rate of any other kind of sport should not come as a surprise. Football players often incur injuries like ankle sprains, knee injuries, concussions, and acromioclavicular sprains. In your essay on the dangers of football, you can raise the following questions:

• Why is it so easy for football players to get injured?
• What types of injuries are most common during a football game?
• What precautions must be taken to prevent trauma?
• How does injury impact the future career of a football player?

Prompt for Essay on Concussions in Football

While every sport has some risk of getting hurt, football, as a high-impact sport , is infamous for causing severe injuries. Concussions are a common injury among football players. They happen when the head is hit hard enough to cause a minor brain injury. To research the topic of concussions in football, write your essay based on the following aspects:

• The effect of concussion on the brain.
• Statistics on concussion in American football.
• Medical concussion protocol.
• The recovery process after a concussion.
• Screening procedures examining football players for brain damage.

If you’re looking for the most engaging football essay titles, check out the ideas we’ve collected below!

Topics for a Descriptive Essay on a Football Game

• The thrill of a last-minute goal in football.
• The intensity of the players’ warm-up and last-minute preparations.
• Sports psychologist: working with athletes .
• The different styles of play in football around the world.
• The rapid movement of players and the choreography of their tactics.
• The role of a coach in football.
• Capturing the joys and frustrations of the players and fans.
• The interaction between players and referees: decisions, protests, and resolutions.
• A description of a football stadium and its architecture.
• The art of dribbling in football.
• How do players and fans celebrate a goal?
• Describing pre-match rituals and superstitions in football.
• How do fans create a supportive atmosphere for their team during the game?
• The joy and excitement of attending a live football match.
• Describing how coaches handle their emotions on the sidelines.
• The description of food served during the football game.
• The magnetic pull of the scoreboard: watching the numbers change.
• The vibrant fan gear and merchandise in a football stadium.
• The drama of penalty kicks: tension, hope, and heartbreak.
• The description of a goalkeeper’s save.
• The sounds of the football match.

Football Argumentative Essay Topics

• Is football too dangerous for young children to play?
• Does football develop leadership skills and teamwork?
• Title IX in the female sports development .
• College football players should be paid for their performance on the field.
• Should football stadiums have stricter security measures?
• Is the use of performance-enhancing drugs in football acceptable?
• Reasons why the NFL should expand to include more teams.
• Why paying college athletes is beneficial .
• Is the NFL doing enough to prevent concussions and other injuries in players?
• Should football games be played on artificial turf or natural grass?
• Is it ethical for colleges to recruit high school football players?
• Should players be allowed to protest during games?
• Does youth sports play a part in the character formation ?
• Reasons why cheerleading should be considered a sport in football.
• Should the Super Bowl be considered a national holiday?
• The economic influence of football: the benefits and costs.
• Is football too focused on commercialization and profit?
• Should football players be allowed to use marijuana for medical purposes ?
• The NFL should have a shorter season to reduce the risk of injuries to players.
• Using performance-enhancing drugs in the world of sport .
• Should college football teams be allowed to schedule games against non-college teams, such as high school teams?
• Should the NFL have a salary cap to ensure fairness among teams?
• Football players should wear full body armor to reduce injuries.
• Is football too expensive for schools and communities to support?
• Should the NFL allow players to use alternative therapies for pain management ?
• Should football players be required to take regular drug tests ?
• Should the NFL have stricter penalties for players who break the rules, such as suspensions or fines?
• Children participation in sports .
• Football players should take classes on financial management to prepare for life after football.
• Should the NFL have a quota for hiring minority coaches and executives?
• High school football players should pass a physical exam before being allowed to play.
• Should the NFL have stricter rules on player conduct off the field?
• College football players should be allowed to transfer to other schools without penalty.
• Should the NFL have a policy on players using social media ?
• Football players should attend media training to prepare for interviews and press conferences.
• Sport psychology: biases and influence of external rewards .
• Should the NFL have a policy on players participating in political activism ?
• Football players should undergo regular psychological evaluations.
• Should the NFL have a policy on players using alcohol and drugs off the field?
• Should football players be required to wear protective eyewear to reduce eye injuries?
• College football teams should provide mental health resources for their players.
• Should high school football teams limit the number of weekly practices to reduce the risk of injuries?
• Paying college athletes: reinforcing privilege or promoting growth ?
• Should college football players be allowed to unionize?
• Should football be banned in schools to protect students from injuries?
• Is playing football in college detrimental to academics?
• Should college football players be allowed to hire agents?

Ideas for a Narrative Essay about Football

• The first time I stepped onto the football field: an unforgettable experience.
• Overcoming adversity: how I bounced back from a football injury.
• A story of teamwork : how football taught me the value of collaboration.
• The most memorable football match I have ever witnessed.
• Coping with stress in athletes .
• The importance of football in building lifelong friendships.
• From underdog to champion: my journey with the football team.
• A day in the life of a football player: behind the scenes.
• The role of football in shaping my identity.
• A tale of rivalry: the intense football match against our arch-nemesis.
• The impact of football on my physical fitness and well-being.
• How a football coach changed my life.
• The thrill of scoring the winning goal: a football victory to remember.
• The evolution of football: from my grandfather’s time to the modern era.
• A football match that taught me the importance of humility .
• The emotional rollercoaster of supporting a football team.
• Lessons learned from defeat: how football taught me resilience .
• A football game that tested my leadership skills.
• Football and community: how the sport brings people together.
• A football camp experience: training, team building , and friendship.
• From fan to player: fulfilling my football dream.

Football Essay Topics: Compare and Contrast

• Regular football vs. American football: a comparative analysis.
• Lionel Messi vs. Cristiano Ronaldo: contrasting two football legends.
• Comparing football and soccer .
• College football vs. professional football: similarities and differences.
• The World Cup vs. the Super Bowl: contrasting two major football events.
• The roles and impact of offensive and defensive players.
• The Premier League vs. La Liga: comparing two dominant football leagues.
• Contrasting playing styles and cultural significance of football in Europe and South America.
• Club football vs. international football: examining the differences in competition and loyalty.
• Football stadiums vs. arenas: comparing the experiences of live football events.
• The similarities and differences between Olympic football and FIFA World Cup.
• Football in the past vs. modern-day football.
• Comparing the roles and responsibilities of quarterbacks and goalkeepers.
• Football fan culture in Europe vs. the US: contrasting fan traditions and behaviors.
• Amateur football vs. professional football.
• Football uniforms vs. gear: analyzing the equipment used in the sport.
• Comparing and contrasting famous football team rivalries.
• Football team dynamics vs. individual brilliance: contrasting the impact of teamwork and individual performances.
• Football referees vs. video assistant referees (VAR).
• Club vs. country: comparing the passion and loyalty for club and national teams.
• Football and injuries: comparing the risk and types of injuries in the sport.
• Football leagues during the pandemic vs. regular seasons.
• Football commentary vs. live match experience: comparing the different ways of engaging with the sport.
• The impact of football on local vs. global economies.
• Football documentaries vs. fictional football movies.
• The role of football in promoting diversity vs. perpetuating stereotypes.
• Football fandom vs. player idolization: contrasting how fans engage with the sport.
• Comparing the traditional grass pitches vs. artificial turf.
• The impact of social media on football vs. traditional media.
• Comparing the challenges of football in different weather conditions .
• Football in mainstream culture vs. football subcultures.
• The health benefits of football vs. injuries and health risks.
• Betting in football vs. gambling .
• The cultural significance of football in different regions.
• Football literature vs. football films: contrasting different forms of storytelling about the sport.
• Football stadiums: traditional vs. modern architecture .
• College football vs. professional football: differences in gameplay and culture.
• Offensive vs. defensive strategies: which is more important?
• Comparing traditional and modern football training methods.
• The history of football in America and Europe.
• Injuries in football vs. soccer: which sport is more dangerous?

American Football Topics

• The evolution of American football: from its origins to the present day.
• The impact of race on American football.
• Concussions and brain injuries in American football.
• The psychology of football: understanding the mental game of players and coaches.
• The role of women in American football: from cheerleaders to coaches and executives.
• The strategies and tactics used in American football.
• The role of coaches in American football: leadership and game planning.
• The significance of the offensive line in American football.
• The impact of college football on the NFL.
• The influence of the media on American football.
• The role of the head coach in American football.
• The importance of physical fitness in American football.
• The impact of technology on American football: from instant replay to virtual reality training.
• The economic impact and financial aspects of American football.
• The history of Super Bowl halftime shows.
• American football and national identity.
• The impact of weather on American football games.
• The influence of player protests on American football.
• The role of American football in the entertainment industry (movies, TV shows, etc.).
• The development of American football youth programs: benefits and challenges.
• The importance of the running back in the offense in American football.
• The role of the defensive line in stopping the run and rushing the passer in American football.
• The influence of American football on sports marketing and sponsorship.
• The impact of fan behavior on American football.
• Exploring the legacy of American football’s great players and their impact on the sport.
• The influence of a new coach on team culture and performance in American football.
• The consequences of player suspensions in American football.
• Player trades in American football: exploring how teams acquire new talent.
• American football and sportsmanship: fair play and ethical considerations.
• The impact of player injuries on American football: exploring the recovery process.
• The role of American football in building teamwork and camaraderie.
• The impact of American football on society’s perception of masculinity .
• The history and cultural significance of American football rivalries.
• The role of American football in promoting community engagement and volunteerism.
• The influence of American football on US pop culture.
• American football and social justice : protests, activism, and athlete empowerment.
• The role of American football in public health and fitness initiatives.
• The ethics of sports gambling in American football.
• American football and sports diplomacy: international relations and competitions.
• The future of American football: challenges and opportunities.

Are you looking for exciting football topics to talk about? Check out our suggestions for persuasive and informative speeches about this sport!

Football Persuasive Speech Topics

• The benefits of playing football for overall physical fitness.
• The importance of youth football programs in fostering teamwork.
• Kids and sports: lack of professional sports guides .
• The positive impact of football on character development and leadership skills.
• The role of football in promoting gender equality and inclusion.
• The economic benefits of hosting major football events like the World Cup or Super Bowl.
• The need for increased safety measures and concussion protocols in football.
• The necessity of providing proper healthcare and support for retired football players.
• The role of football in breaking down cultural and racial barriers.
• Balancing college sports and academic mission .
• The benefits of investing in football infrastructure and facilities for communities.
• The positive influence of football in reducing youth involvement in crime and drugs.
• The potential of football as a tool for empowering disadvantaged communities.
• The role of football in promoting a healthy and active lifestyle among fans and spectators.
• The benefits of including football as part of the physical education curriculum in schools.
• The positive effects of football in promoting national pride.
• Corporate social responsibility in sports organizations .
• The use of football as a platform for raising awareness and funds for charitable causes.
• The importance of football in boosting tourism and international visibility of cities.
• The potential of football in fostering international diplomacy and cultural exchange.
• The importance of providing equal opportunities for females in football at all levels.
• The impact of football on local economies through job creation and tourism revenue.
• The significance of iconic moments in football history.

Football Informative Speech Topics

• The different positions in football and their roles.
• The psychology of football fans and their passion for the game.
• Agencies in the international football industry .
• Famous football stadiums around the world and their significance.
• The rules and regulations of football: understanding the game’s structure.
• The role of referees and their importance in enforcing the rules of football.
• Positive self-talk and its impact on athletes .
• The evolution of football equipment: from leather balls to high-tech gear.
• The most successful football clubs in history and their achievements.
• Exploring the tactics and strategies used in modern football.
• The science behind successful football coaching.
• Sports coaching career and its history .
• Football rivalries: the history and intensity behind classic match-ups.
• The art of scoring goals: techniques and skills of top goal scorers.
• Football and media: the influence of broadcasting and coverage on the sport.
• The psychological aspects of football: mental preparation and performance.
• The cultural impact of football around the world.
• The development and growth of women’s football.
• Physical therapy services for sports injuries .
• The importance of nutrition and fitness in football.
• The significance of football academies in nurturing young talent.
• The role of technology in modern football: VAR, goal-line technology, and more.
• Football hooliganism : understanding the causes and efforts to combat it.
• Famous football managers and their managerial styles: strategies for success.

If you need compelling topics about football for your presentation, here are some ideas you can consider:

• The FIFA World Cup: the most significant event in international football.
• Techniques and skills in football: dribbling, shooting, passing, and more.
• Leadership development in football management .
• The rules and regulations in football.
• Football tactics: exploring different formations and strategic approaches.
• Famous football players of all times: their achievements and impact on the sport.
• Football and sports injuries: common types, prevention, and treatment.
• Steroid use effects on professional young athletes .
• Football stadiums around the world: architecture and unique features.
• The business side of football: sponsorship, transfer fees, and revenue streams.
• Football and social media: the influence of digital platforms on the sport.
• Football documentaries and films: capturing the drama and passion of the sport.
• The effects of football on fashion and popular culture.
• Virtual reality technology in soccer referee training .
• The financial impact of football on cities and regions.
• Football and sports journalism: media coverage and analysis of the sport.
• Football stats and analytics: how data is revolutionizing the sport.
• The causes and consequences of fan violence in football.
• The cultural rituals and traditions associated with football matches.
• Football and the environment: sustainable practices and stadiums.
• The impact of football on tourism.
• Health care site: fitness, sports, and nutrition .
• Football and celebrity culture: players as icons and brand ambassadors.
• Football in video games: the popularity of virtual football experiences.
• The importance of infrastructure in hosting major football events.
• Football tactics in different eras: from Catenaccio to Tiki-Taka.
• Football and broadcasting: the growth of televised matches and media rights.
• Football training drills for improving agility and speed.
• Physical activity and sports team participation .
• Strategies for effective team communication on the football field.
• The importance of proper warm-up exercises in preventing injuries in football.
• Tips for strengthening and conditioning specific muscle groups for football players.
• Defensive formations and tactics for shutting down opponents in football.
• Analyzing football game films to improve performance and strategy.
• Recovering from football injuries: rehabilitation exercises and protocols.
• Sports-related problems and conflicts .
• Sports psychology techniques for boosting confidence and mental resilience in football.
• Nutrition and hydration guidelines for optimal performance in football.
• The connection between globalization and football.
• The role of stretching routines in preventing muscle imbalances in football players.
• Practical strategies for successful penalty shootouts in football.
• Steroid usage in professional sports .
• Football scouting and player evaluation techniques for talent identification.
• The use of technology in football training and performance analysis.
• Football equipment maintenance and safety guidelines for players.
• Preparing and executing penalty kicks in pressure situations in football.
• Advanced passing techniques in football: long passes, through balls, and more.

Do you need to write a research paper about football but don’t know where to start? Consider our list of football research questions and topics:

• How have football tactics evolved over the past decade?
• The impact of technology on decision-making in football.
• Business industry: trend analysis for soccer .
• The psychology of team cohesion and its effects on football performance.
• What is the role of nutrition and diet in optimizing football players’ performance?
• What is the relationship between football and concussions?
• How do FIFA World Cup events affect host countries’ economies?
• What is the carbon footprint of major football events?
• The effects of climate conditions on football matches.
• Shortage of officials at the high school sports level .
• The influence of social media on football players’ image and brand.
• The role of VAR in the fairness of football matches.
• The impact of home-field advantage in professional football.
• How does the football stadium atmosphere affect player performance?
• The rise of women’s football and its impact on gender equality.
• The economic implications of football player transfers and fees.
• The correlation between a team’s wage bill and on-pitch success.
• Factors influencing fan loyalty in football.
• Research handbook of employment relations in sport .
• The role of leadership and coaching in a team’s success.
• The impact of sponsorship deals on football clubs’ financial stability.
• The relationship between player positioning and successful goal scoring.
• The effects of VAR on the emotions and behavior of fans during football matches.
• How does football influence youth development and participation in sport?
• How can big data analytics improve football performance and decision-making?
• The effects of football on cultural identity and national pride.
• How do sports affect disabled people psychologically ?
• The impact of football on the local community and economy.
• The influence of crowd noise on football referee decisions.
• The role of sports psychology in enhancing football performance.
• The impact of financial fair play regulations on football clubs.
• How does football betting affect match outcomes and integrity?
• The cultural significance of football chants and songs in fan culture.
• Steroid abuse in the world of sports .
• The influence of doping scandals on the reputation of football players and clubs.
• The role of football in promoting social inclusion and breaking down barriers.
• How do international football competitions affect tourism?
• The effects of player transfers on team dynamics and performance.
• The correlation between player height and success in football.
• The influence of different playing surfaces on football player performance and injury rates.
• How do referees maintain fairness and order in football matches?
• Achievement motivation theory in sports psychology .
• The impact of football on academic performance and school attendance.
• The role of football hooliganism in shaping public perceptions of the sport.
• The influence of football sponsorship on brand image and consumer behavior.
• The effects of football on social integration and community cohesion.
• How do rule changes affect football game dynamics?
• The influence of football on individual and societal gender norms.
• Sports analysis: steroids and HGH in sports .
• Investigating the impact of celebrity endorsement on football merchandise sales.
• The role of technology in improving football player performance and injury prevention.
• The correlation between alcohol consumption and football-related violence.
• The impact of fan protests and boycotts on football clubs and leagues.
• The effects of retirement on the mental well-being of former professional football players.
• The influence of football on urban development and infrastructure investment.
• How does football affect students’ academic motivation and educational attainment?
• The impact of football on destination marketing in tourism.

Structuring your essay on football is a piece of cake, and we’re going to prove it! Follow our mini guide with valuable tips and examples!

Football Essay Introduction

The first paragraph of an essay is crucial to creating a strong paper. A successful introduction often starts by addressing broad ideas related to the essay’s topic. Follow the steps below to write a compelling introduction:

1. Start with a hook.

Make a good first impression by using a captivating hook . In football essays, it can include a surprising fact, statistics, a question, or a relevant quote. Here’s an example:

What is the one thing that can unite a country and foster its pride? Yes, it is football!

2. Provide background information.

Give essential details on the essay’s main subject. This part can include the history of your topic, an explanation of key terms, and anything that can help your reader understand the context of your issue.

Football is a group of team sports that involve kicking a ball to score goals.

3. End with a thesis statement.

Put a concise thesis statement at the end to outline your motivation for the paper and present central arguments. Let’s talk about this element in detail.

Thesis Statement about Football

The thesis statement is a sentence expressing the primary idea of a piece of writing and guiding the thoughts within the work.

There are several steps that you should take to develop a thesis statement:

• Research information on your issue.
• Limit your topic to a specific area.
• Brainstorm to come up with interesting ideas.

Look at the example of a football thesis statement:

Football offers the chance to feel pride for the favorite team and positively impacts physical, social, and emotional development.

Essay about Football: Body Paragraphs

The main body of an essay is the most crucial part where you deliver your arguments. Here are some tips on writing a good body paragraph:

• Start with a topic sentence to capture the key points.
• Provide additional information to support your opinion.
• Use a transition sentence to get to the next paragraph smoothly.

Here’s an example of what your topic sentence and supporting evidence might look like:

Topic sentence : Football requires effective communication and listening skills since the game will not work without them. Supporting evidence : Communication helps athletes perform and focus better on the pitch and improves the decision-making process.

Conclusion for Football Essay

A conclusion brings your discussion to a close. The following outline may assist you in completing your essay:

• Restate your thesis.
• Explain why your topic is significant.
• Summarize the core points.
• Call for action or provide an overview of future research opportunities

Check out an example of a paraphrased thesis and the summary of the main points:

Rephrased thesis : Football is a fascinating sport with many societal benefits. Summary : To sum up, football can be considered a hobby, a sport, or an obsession. But still, its most important role is to unite people or even entire countries.

We hope you will find our football topics to write about and research beneficial! Want to receive some more ideas? Try our free online title generator ! Just click the button, and the result will not keep you waiting!

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150 Football Essay Topics & Soccer Research Topics

Are you a soccer player? If yes, then you will enjoy writing a soccer-themed essay! To make the writing process even easier, we present to you our list of football essay topics and samples. Check them out below!

• 🔝 Top 10 Football Research Topics for 2024

🏆 Best Football Topics to Write About

✍️ football essay topics for college, 👍 good football research topics & essay examples, 🎓 most interesting soccer research topics, 💡 simple football essay ideas, ❓ research questions about football, 🔝 top 7 football research topics for 2024.

• The 2022 FIFA World Cup
• Liverpool Football Club’s Strategic (PESTLE) Analysis
• Football Watching as Entertaining Action
• Soccer and Basketball Differences
• Environmental Impact of the Football Stadium Construction
• The Physics Behind Football
• Advertisement in Soccer Overview
• Spanish Football League Spain is one of the countries that have dominated the game of football over the last couple of years. The country has achieved success with its senior and junior national teams.
• American Football League v. National Football League Case The American Football league, abbreviated as AFL, filed a lawsuit against the national football league (NFL) on the grounds of the Anti-Trust Act breach.
• FIFA and Corruption In other words, FIFA is a kind of a football image, and it has to be deprived of various unethical and immoral practices.
• Should Football Be Banned for Being Too Violent and Dangerous? The essay ponders whether the game of football is dangerous and violent, and it should be banned, or are there other ways to reduce the possibility of players’ injuries.
• Football in Ghana and Its Relationship with the Rest of the World (Player Transfers) Football is one of the most popular sports not only in Ghana but in the region of Africa and the global society.
• Event Management Analysis: Local Soccer Championship Even management requires careful and detailed analysis and planning in order to avoid a project failure and create an impressive and amazing setting for visitors.
• Soccer in the US, Its Development and Popularity The main factor which impacted the development and popularity of soccer in the United States is the public’s area of interest.
• FIFA World Cup: History and Future The FIFA World cup is a soccer competition that is contested internationally by national soccer teams composed exclusively of male players.
• Organizational Theories in Australian Football League (AFL) This essay applies these two concepts to the operations of the Australian Football League. A brief background to the AFL will be presented before applying the individual theories.
• American Sports: Football, Soccer, Basketball Some games have grown to be recognized as official sports with strict rules, governing institutions, and international events.
• Impact of Qatar Hosting FIFA World Cup 2022 This paper discusses the impact of Qatar hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2022, specifically on its brand image and business operations.
• “Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football” Documentary “Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football” is a film about a community of Muslim Americans, who are focused on their passion and support for the Fordson High School football team.
• The National Football League Team Moving to the City of Omaha Moving the National Football League team to the city of Omaha, Nebraska, will have a positive financial influence on the citizens residing within its boundaries.
• The Football Impact on the European Region The European region has been considered to be the world’s most prominent fan organization, with around three million football fans.
• Reasons Why Kids Should Not Play Tackle Football The brain might repair itself, but the consequences of the injury usually last longer and include memory loss, headaches, and similar cognitive dysfunctions.
• Real Madrid and Barcelona Football Clubs History Real Madrid and Barcelona are the top European Football Clubs, which are usually opposed to each other. During the long time they applied different strategies to achievements in sport.
• Soccer and Other Sports as a Communication Medium The paper discusses the ways sports communication potential is exploited by companies and organizations and how they use sports personalities charisma.
• Training Programs for a High School Quarterback Football Player The article addresses the specific exercises that the quarterback player should take and the duration, the number of sets, the reps, and the rest intervals.
• Sport and Television: Football Support To retain its target audience and remain a popular activity, the sport needs the support of television as one of the main media tools.
• Football Banned for Being Too Violent and Dangerous American football is a popular kind of sport in the United States, but scientific evidence demonstrates that this activity should be banned for being violent and dangerous.
• The Negotiation Process in Football The main issue being negotiated is the extension of a playing contract for A. J. Washington, a quarterback participating in the Los Angeles Spartans of National Football League.
• Planning Franz Beckenbauer Charity Football Match Today I will be presenting my event management plan for the upcoming Franz Beckenbauer Charity Football Match.
• Qatar Hosting FIFA World Cup 2022 FIFA World Cup is one of the largest soccer tournaments in the world. It is scheduled to occur in 2022, and the host country will be Qatar.
• The Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup Bid The award of hosting the World Cup in 2022 for Qatar came as a surprise to Australia and the USA, which many people thought could win the rights.
• How to Play Defense in Football In fact, a strong defense and a well-developed strategy can cause turnovers from the rival, and turnovers can significantly influence football game results.
• Soccer League and Grassroots Strategy Soccer is one of the most popular sports in the world, with over 240 million registered players at all levels, and at least 3.5 billion fans.
• Is Watching Football Morally Acceptable The public opinion on the morality of watching football, or other competitive sports, is divided, as there are clear dangers associated with participating in football matches.
• FIFA, Zidane and Materazzi 2006 Debacle This paper examines FIFA, Zidane and Materazzi 2006 debacle. FIFA punishing both players was fair and helped them preserve their image.
• Opposing American Football Ban Due to Health Reasons One of the opposing views regarding American football from the perspective of players’ health is the dubious nature of the claim that the described risks are universal.
• Rhetorical Strategies of FIFA Franchise The website central to this review provides its viewers with reasons for either pre-ordering or waiting on the newest instalment in the FIFA franchise, FIFA 22.
• Negotiations Between National Football League and NFL Players Association Approving the proposed 2020 NFL CBA faced a significant amount of backlash from the players due to some of the issues that were not addressed in the agreement.
• Racial Disparity in Professional Football: Rooney Rule An open conversation about equal rights and workplace diversity is reaching its peak in the form of viral social media campaigns and public demonstrations.
• The National Football League Anti-trust Law The National Football League (NFL) during its long-lasting development is colored today, as the sphere where business interests seem to be more significant.
• American Football Is Too Dangerous and It Should Be Banned Regardless of American football being a major source of entertainment for many, it should be banned due to significant harm dealt with players’ brains, cognitive performance.
• The Review of Literature: American Football The articles included in the annotated bibliography research how violent and dangerous American football could be.
• American Football as a Popular Kind of Sport in the US American football is a popular kind of sport in the United States. A severe issue refers to the fact that professional players are often subject to health problems.
• Speed Drill: Agility Training in Young Elite Soccer Players The purpose of this paper is to describe and explain a speed drill for a specific athlete, using logical arguments and visual elements.
• Organizational Behavior Analysis: Japanese Soccer School Kurt Lewin’s theory of change is a framework most often used to describe and plan organizational change due to its relative simplicity, intuitive nature, and ease of use.
• Soccer: Effects of Sprint Training Training soccer players is an engaging and demanding activity, and it is crucial to make the most of this process to be a successful coach.
• Football and other Sports: Influence on Children’s Life Football is a very unique sport, as it helps a person establish a framework for life and attitude. It helps develop character and strengthen individuality.
• Training Football Athletes: Key Aspects Monotonous exercises should not bore them; trying activities appear to be more productive. Using many drills similar to deep ball drills in training practice is advantageous.
• 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup Stadia Development in Cape Town: Resident Perceptions Bob & Swart’s Resident Perceptions of the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup Stadia Development in Cape Town assessed suggestions of the people on the venues of the FIFA.
• Nike’s Ad for Football Women’s World Cup 2019 Nike released its empowering advertisement ahead of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019 hosted in France. It claims that football is a game enjoyed by people of all races.
• Soccer and Sport as a New Medium of Communication Execution of physical tasks calls for smooth, self-controlled, and concerted effort. Athletes need emotional control if they are to successfully engage in sporting events.
• Soccer and Sport: New Medium of Communication The concentration of wealth in certain clubs and leagues makes them more lucrative and more entertaining. This influences and entices more fanatics to join the clubs and leagues.
• Ranking Systems: FIFA and US College Football The purpose of this paper is to compare the FIFA ranking system for international soccer and the Matrix-based Methods system used in US College football.
• FIFA, Corruption, and Its Effects on Business The paper studies how unethical behavior affects FIFA and how business relates to FIFA will be affected by news and how it can deal with such a situation.
• Goal Line Technology and Football Football matches are not only about the issue of teamwork but also about strict competition and the importance of the defining last-minute goal which can tip the scale between victory and defeat.
• Football Tactics and How They Evolve over Time
• Long-Term Effects of Concussion on Football Players
• Commercialization’s Impact on Football Club Performance
• Football Hooliganism and Fan Violence
• The Role of Video Assistant Referee in Football
• American Football: Technology and Regulation of Helmet Safety
• Race and Quarterback Survival in the National Football League
• National Football League and Player Compensation Issues
• Competitive Balance and Consumer Demand in the English Football League
• Quarterback Mobility and Its Impact on College Football
• Action Plan For Fundraising for the Penn Hills Football and Cheer Association
• American Football and Coin Toss
• Fitness Requirements for Football
• Broadcaster and Audience Demand for Premier League Football
• Assessing Methods for College Football Rankings
• Football Scholarships and Football Recruiters
• Being Special: The Rise of SuperClubs in European Football
• Ajax Football Club: Strategic Alternatives
• College Football Players Should Get Paid
• Beer Availability and College Football Attendance
• Exercise Program for Football Team
• American Football and Positive Latitude
• Concussions and American Football
• Football Helmets Are Insufficient to Stop Concussions
• American Football and Ice Hockey
• Strategic Behaviour and Risk-Taking in Football
• Professional Asian Football Leagues and the Global Market
• Concussions Are the Most Common Football Injury
• Justice, Professional Football, and Minority Coaches
• Market Size and Attendance in English Premier League Football
• Spanish Football: Competitive Balance and the Impact of the Uefa Champions League
• Cheshire Football Club and Management of a Soccer Team
• College Football and Its Social and Cultural Importance in the USA
• Motor and Cognitive Growth Following a Football Training Program
• High School Football Women Play
• The Growth and Challenges of Women’s Soccer
• Football Talent Identification and Training Programs
• The Impact of Football Events on Local Economies
• Analysis of Mental Strategies in Football
• How Digital Platforms Influence Soccer Fan Engagement
• America’s Football and the World’s Soccer
• Football Concussions and Head Injuries
• Football: The United Kingdom and English Public
• Joe Robbie Professional Football Stadium History
• American Football and High School
• Football Has Impacted Our Society in Many Ways
• Greatest Football Players Throughout History
• Domestic Violence and the National Football League
• British Culture, Economy and Society and the Role of Football
• High School and School Football Team
• Baseball, Football, and Basketball: Models for Business
• Football and Its Effect on Society
• International Women’s Football and Gender Inequality
• College Football Conferences and Competitive Balance
• Globalization and the Future of Indigenous Football Codes
• Football Hooliganism, Society, and Culture
• Acquiring and Performing the Football Passing Skill
• Football: History, Rules, and Influential Individuals
• Floating European Football Clubs in the Stock Market
• Gender-Specific Relative Age Effects in Politics and Football
• Health Risks Involved With Playing Football
• College Football Rivalry Between Ohio and Michigan
• Economics, Uncertainty, and European Football
• Deviations From Equity and Parity in the National Football League
• Professional Sports and Its Impact on the National Football
• Fantasy Football Provides Fans With Interactivity
• Concussions and Head Injuries in the National Football League
• Migrating Football Players, Transfer Fees, and Migration Controls
• Fantasy Sports and Its Effect on the National Football League
• Eliminating College Football Team
• What Are the Risk Factors for Injuries in Football?
• How Does the Players Behavior Off Field Affect the Game of Football?
• What Is the Role of Football in Everyday Life?
• How Did the Financial Crisis Influence European Football?
• What Is the Americanization of European Football?
• What Is Italian Football’s Status in an Age of Globalization?
• What AI Can Do for Football, and What Football Can Do for AI?
• What Are the Dynamics of Group Sports With Special Reference to Football?
• What Is the Data Collection on the Incidence of Injuries in Football?
• What Is the Network Theory Analysis of Football Strategies?
• What Is the Role of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Football Business?
• What Is the Impact of College Football Telecasts on College Football Attendance?
• Is There a Relationship Between Climatic Conditions and Injuries in Football?
• What Are the Determinants of Football Match Attendance?
• What Are the Biomechanical Properties of Concussions in High School Football?
• What Are the Fitness Determinants of Success in Men’s and Women’s Football?
• What Is Bayesian Hierarchical Model for the Prediction of Football Results?
• What Is the Effect of Altitude on Football Performance?
• What Are the Psychological and Sport-specific Characteristics of Football Players?
• What Is the Relationship Between Football Playing Ability and Performance Measures?
• What Is the Predictive Power of Ranking Systems in Association Football?
• What Are the Peculiar International Economics of Professional Football in Europe?
• What Are the Medical, Morphological and Functional Aspects of Football Referees?
• What Is the Epidemiology of Injuries in First Division Spanish Football?
• What Are the Common and Unique Network Dynamics in Football Games?

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These essay examples and topics on Football were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

This essay topic collection was updated on December 31, 2023 .

218 Football Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

In your paper, you can talk about famous soccer players, or you could discuss the physics involved in a standard game. Our team came up with 130 football topics to write about in this article to help you find the right idea.

🏈Top 10 Football Research Topics

✅ most interesting football topics to write about, 🏆 best football topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 unique football topics to write about, 🔎 good research topics about football, ⚽ interesting football essay topics, ❓ football research questionss.

• The differences between American football and rugby.
• The history of football.
• Controversial football scandals.
• Corruption in the football business.
• How football and soccer became different games.
• Psychological strain of losses in football.
• The medicine of soccer training.
• What is Gaelic football?
• Economic impact of football championships.
• Recovery from trauma in rugby players.
• Football and Soccer: Differences and Similarities The team usually consists of eleven players and the game is played on a field that has goals on either end of the field.
• Arsenal Football Club PESTEL Analysis Finally, advertising using the new technologies in the market has helped Arsenal Football Club to reach a large portion of football fans.
• Playing Soccer Game: Personal Experience During the game, I paid the main attention to team strategy and the configuration of players around the point of action.
• Football Impact on England’s Culture This paper will study the various impacts of football both on the social life of people and on the economy of the country.
• Manchester United Football Club The outcomes are measured in the line of success in financial management, performance at the pitch, the number of games won and lost, the number of trophies won within certain duration of time and also […]
• How Football Has Impacted Our Society in Many Ways To observe this, it is best to take a look at the current National Football League system and how it became the most profitable sports league in the U.S.
• Amateur Football Club Database Design For the enhancement of data management, a local amateur football club needs database program to keep personal data of its member in order to have the record of attendance of the club member, best club […]
• Project Charter for Construction of Football Pitch at Coventry University The main purpose of the project is to construct a high-tech football pitch for use of the students at Coventry University, which shall minimize the cost of renting playgrounds and avail easy access of the […]
• American Football’s and Soccer Comparison It is possible to say that the thirst to be better than the rest of people and to be the winner is in the nature of human being.
• FC Barcelona: Achievements and Impact The team also boasts of Lionel Messi who is arguably the best player of the current generation of footballers in the world.
• Which Is More Profitable, Baseball or Football? There are other sports which are more profitable than the two but the argument here boils to which sport between the two is more profitable. In regard to the ticket price, baseball becomes more profitable […]
• National Football League’s Digital Media Strategy Louis and the Riders to Oakland, as well as the creation of the Carolina Panthers and the Jacksonville Jaguars, increased the sport’s popularity.
• Cultural Values Embeded in Soccer One of the cultural values embedded in soccer is socialization; socialization is promoted by the soccer events that are organized by the world soccer governing body FIFA.
• The Developement of Soccer in the Past Century The side that will have put in the most goals at their opponents’ side by the ending of the game is the winner.
• The Development of Soccer Analysis The fifth chapter is devoted to the analysis of interesting and relevant issues of the reasons of low popularity of soccer in the United States where other sports like baseball and basketball are dominant.
• Manchester United – Football and Finance Football is a game that is played all across the globe; millions of fans watch the game each day and enjoy the experience of watching it.
• Subcultures: The American Football Fan According to Anderson, the concept of community was fashioned by regional religious traditions previous to the surfacing of mass access to the printed forms of communication that were not of the church and were written […]
• Real Madrid Football Club: Business Model On the whole, it is difficult to assess who has more power: the players of the club of Real Madrid, or the club itself as an organization.
• Price of Football Players The theory of marginal revenue product of the players demonstrates that the price of a product or marginal revenue of a product depends on the price of the last good that was sold and on […]
• Statistical Analysis: Soccer Premier League Because all of the data used in this project were of the quantitative type, it was relatively easy to calculate the values of the central tendency measures for them.
• The Usage of VR Technologies in Football In sports, VR is on its way to becoming one of the essential tools for a sports organization that aims to acquire a competitive advantage.
• Relation Between Money and Football In the English league, clubs have been spending millions to sign up a player in the hope that the player will turn the fortunes of the company for the good.
• FIFA World Cup The aim of the sport was to direct a ball towards a miniscule hole with players being allowed to touch the ball with any part of part of their body but the hands.
• Football Fundraising Charity Project As for the first one, namely the establishment of the tournament, it is planned to gain profit from selling tickets to see the match.
• Personal Experience and Impressions of Watching a Football Match This restricts Manchester United’s players from accessing the last quarter of the area to Aston Villa’s goal post. The goal of the match was scored by Agbonlahor who shielded off Manchester United’s Wes Brown.
• How Soccer Influences Society and Resolves Issues The fans are interested in the moves of the players and the scores. It is a game which the youngsters and parents alike.
• “Superstar Effect” in Soccer and Its Importance The importance of the “superstar effect” in soccer is hard to overestimate because superstar players generate more revenues for the team by drawing more interest to it, providing it with better sports results, and being […]
• The Problem of Racism in Brazilian Football Skidmore describes it as the relationships that could result into conflict and consciousness and determination of the people’s status in a community or a particular group. In football, racism damages pride of the players and […]
• Real Team Football Club’s Business and Marketing Plan Our mission: “Through commitment, Innovation, and Creativity to raise and sustain the brand of football success on the field by providing moral, physical and psychological support and ensuring financial stability of the group and the […]
• The Use of Technology in Soccer Additionally recent events starting from the 2010 world cup where England’s midfielder Frank Lampard was denied a goal and Chelsea being awarded a goal that the ball had not crossed the line attest to the […]
• How governments and global processes influence football The involvement of government in football activities basically seeks to: promote public order; maintain the health fitness through promotion of the sport; promote the prestige of a community or nation; create and promote a sense […]
• The Social Media Effects on Football Clubs Throughout the season, the English Premier League uses its social media channels to connect with fans, share updates and highlights, and promote the league and its teams.
• Quality of Customer Experience in Football It should be mentioned that Yoshida’s determination of the listed encounters, quality dimensions, and attributes in the sport will be utilized to investigate the phenomenon of the quality of customer experience in football.
• History of the Oakland Raiders in the National Football League The AFL admitted the Raiders partly due to the lobbying of the Los Angeles Chargers owner, effectively inheriting the draft picks of the Minneapolis club.
• Football in Ghana and Its Relationship With the Rest of the World Due to the formation of the first regulating body of soccer in England, 1866 would prove to be one of the most crucial years in the sport’s history.
• The Soccer Industry: Overview Soccer has become a major actor in the business sector around the globe today. In fact it has become a major industry worth billions of dollars a year.
• Football Industry as a Socially Responsible Business The process extends much beyond the mandatory rules and regulations and is more of giving back to the society in which the organisation operates and using resources in a responsible and sustainable manner.
• The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar For the first time in the history of the FIFA World Cup, it will take place in the Middle Eastern region.
• Negotiation Beetween the National Football League and the National Football League Players Association NFLPA has players and the board to represent in this negotiation. The parties must redefine and broaden the problem to make it tractable.
• Football and media in the UAE The UAE government has been putting in a lot of effort to promote good media relations between stakeholders in the game and the media.
• Brazil’s Bid’s to Host the 2014 FIFA World Cup The main purpose of this section is to elucidate the internal strengths and weaknesses of the FIFA World Cup event which, in the view of the Brazil bidding board, could substantially influence the trajectory and […]
• Football and Rugby The first one is in the measurements of the playing field. Moreover, two rows are marked to run parallel to the side lines and are close to the middle of the field.
• Cranial Brain Injury Implications for a Football Player In the case of a severe blow to the back of the head, the brain performs concussive movements between the back and front walls of the skull.
• Rhetorical Modes to Use When Discussing Soccer The advancement of urbanization and industrialization led to a reduced leisure period coupled with constant violence that undermined and slowed the game’s development. The team that outscores the rival is the winner, while scoring the […]
• Medical Examination Before Joining a Football Team To detect any cardiac issues that may exist but are not manifested in the boy’s daily life, the school uses a stress test or exercise tolerance test can help record the heart’s activity and how […]
• Is Headgear Necessary in Football? Indeed, it is essential to consider the consequences of wearing headwear in football to understand whether it can be mandatory or not.
• Football and Nationalism in Argentina Among the most popular sports in Argentina is football with Boca Juniors and River Plate as some of the best-performing clubs hailing from the country. Despite political turmoil, Boca Juniors and River Plate transformed the […]
• The Scandal during the Soccer Match between Brazil and Tunisia Such incidents interfere with cohesion in society and the state because there is a division between supporters and sympathizers. People and organizations sanction those at the center of the scandal, which, from a sociological point […]
• Innovations and Culture of British Football Consisting of some of the best clubs and with a significant number of fans, this football league is an example of sport as entertainment.
• Inter Families’ Football Competition Event Based on my analysis, the COVID-19 pandemic affected the inter families football competition, the most important and interesting event in my community.
• Sport Management: Analysis of Roy Keane – Football Player In the case of Roy Keane, playing perfectly well was his priority when he joined Nottingham Forest, as that was the only way for him to realize his dream.
• The National Football League Tailgating Rituals The social activities associated with fun that fans enjoy serve as a motivator for members to show their loyalty to the team by attending or watching all of the team’s matches.
• The New Orleans Saints Football Club’s Social Activity The name of the team is a reference to the legacy of New Orleans jazz music. Against this background, the relations of the charitable sector with business and organizations began to develop in a completely […]
• Soccer Participation Issues in New York City My goal today is to describe the problem we as a soccer community face, discuss some of the solutions that would help resolve it, and the projections for the future with the benefits for a […]
• Commercialization of College Football in the United Kingdom The author offers to focus specifically on college football in that it is one of the most popular sports in the United Kingdom.
• Aspects of Intercollegiate Football In the United States, this type of intercollegiate athletics football is supported by many collegiate sports associations, including the NCAA, the NSAIDs, the NCCAA, and the USCAA.
• Football Association of Ireland’s CSR and Sustainability Strategy Analysis The debate over the issue of corporate social responsibility has started in the 1950s and its definition has been changing in practice and meaning since then.
• Player Performance Metrics in National Football League One of the key business issues in regards to the selected sport is the evaluation of player performance metrics, which is especially critical in regards to quarterbacks, who are responsible for scoring touchdowns.
• Emirian Football Fundraising Charity’s Fund-Raising Project Therefore, the project charter for the Emirian Football Fundraising charity project will cover the scope of the goals and the people that will be involved in meeting the project milestones.
• Bobby Bowden, the Greatest College Football Coach Unfettered by his successes as one of the most triumphant college coaches in the history of football, Bowden said his relationship with Jesus was more significant than any of his accomplishments as a player and […]
• Fifa Football Organization: Marketing Strategy Prospective marketing partners are categorically divided as, FIFA partner, FIFA world cup sponsor and national supporter.
• Strategies of Football and Tennis Coaches in the UK To identify the coaching leadership styles used by football and tennis coaches To compare the motivations for using coaching leadership style in football and tennis To uncover the effect of the coaching leadership styles on […]
• Plyometric Training for Female Soccer Players Jump performance capabilities were confirmed to improve in all the studies except the one by Ramirez-Campillo et al, who found the implementation of plyometric training is not associated with the extra impacts on female soccer […]
• Geometry Web Quest for Soccer, Baseball, Basketball, Bowling, Golf, Volleyball and Pool Field for golf is the biggest and made of grass, sand and water and is the biggest and it has no fixed shape. Soccer field is made of grass or synthetic material and is the […]
• Brain Injury While Football Playing The main reason for conducting this research is to understand the dependency of the head injuries got in childhood after the development and changes in the human brain in adulthood.
• Impediments to Football Development This could not be attributed to the standard of the game in the leagues but probably other factors within the administration and the players and fans. Of importance is the structure of the administration of […]
• Academic Economics in International Football Business The contribution of the academic economists is that they help in the integration of the labor impact of football business to the households.
• Legislations and Their Contributions to Football Safety This was largely as a result of a collision between two sets of people who were leaving and entering the stadium; these fans were reacting to the activities going on in the field and most […]
• The Lack of Soccer Popularity in the U.S. Lack of soccer popularity can be traced from historic events as well as the lifestyle of Americans.”American children grow up with the mentality that soccer is to be played for fun which is not an […]
• The Offside Rule Concept in Football An offside position is a situation when a player of the attacking team is closer to the opponent’s goal than the ball and the opponent’s last player except for the goalkeeper during passing.
• FIFA’s Public Image: Issues and Mitigate the Damage It is strongly recommended that the president does everything in their power to assist the FBI and any other authorities in reviewing the conduct of FIFA’s executives.
• 2014 FIFA World Cup Analysis Thus, the given essay will focus on various effects that this event had on Brazil and the challenges that the nation faced while hosting the given international tournament.
• Ernie Davis as a Football Role Model He was an exceptional player born ahead of his time, as he stood out on the football field as the first African American to win the Heisman trophy in 1961, and to be chosen for […]
• Soccer Articles About Kings of Diving Further, it is intriguing to realize that not only is it a commonplace practice, but it is utilized by some of the top players in the league.
• FIFA 10 Football Simulation Video Game A lack of consistency is evident in the various versions of this game as FIFA 10 played on a PC lacks the realism that is exhibited when the game is played on XBOX 360 and […]
• FIFA: The World Football Governing Body This paper examines an article on how FIFA, the world football governing body is successful in marketing activities.”The Federation International de Football Association, an organization that was founded in 1904 by a few cosmopolitan football […]
• Manning’s Leadership Within and Beyond Football Sport is a field where the competition is the core of the whole activity, and the quality of the teamwork defines the whole result.
• Economic Climate Impact on Football Clubs in the UK This raises the question of the impact of the present and future economic trend of the UK on football clubs of the country.
• Soccer and National Identity The jubilation and merry that is evident during the topmost soccer challenge in the world commonly referred to as FIFA world cup is testimony to the immense love that fans have for this game as […]
• The Modernization of the Global Football Industry The popularity and development of the football industry is a result of multiple factors and events which had an impact on football fans and proliferation of facts.
• Marshall University’s Football Team After the 1970 Tragedy The tragedy that befell the Marshall University’s football team on 14th November 1970 and the appointment of the new football coach Jack Lengyel represents a scenario when managers can be faced with difficulties in their […]
• International Relations, Development and the Football Industry The paper is proposed to be divided into two parts: first will deal with football and its usage in political diplomacy will be discussed along with football as a means of creating national identity in […]
• Gold Coast United Football Club Marketing Situation They have made several efforts to ensure the success of this goal by hiring the winner of the golden boot, the goal of the year in 2008/9 Shane Smeltz and Jason Culina, the captain of […]
• European Soccer: The Final UEFA Cup Match On the whole with the rest of Shakhtar players the game spread out on the whole area of the field and change for rather long periods of time the halves of the field provoking alternate […]
• UEFA Cup Football Competition Winners and Histor With the merging of the UEFA Cup Winner’s Cup to the UEFA Cup in 1999, domestic cup competition winners could now enter the UEFA Cup competitions.
• Gaming Industry: FIFA 09 Analysis The advertisement which will be analyzed in this paper is of FIFA 09, the game is a sequel to the FIFA series which is released by EA sports each year.
• The History of Alabama Football: The Stadium, Team and Passion Before the home game began there was a video that was sent showing the famous play from Alabama history which had the voice of the founder of this team that is the bear Bryant and […]
• Football Industry in Africa: Socially Responsible Business? Football is a game that is played all across the globe; millions of fans watch the game each day and enjoy the experience of watching it.
• Soccer in America: Its History, Origin, Evolution, and Popularize This Sport Among Americans The coverage of the history of this game which is also popularly known as soccer is quite diverse and different ideas have been put across as to where the game originated and its evolution to […]
• Canadian Women’s Soccer Team’s Sport Marketing This paper identifies the best sponsor for the Canadian Women’s Soccer Team and how the two can collaborate to deliver positive results.
• Promoting Tumi Bags at the National Football League The audience will want to win Tumi products subconsciously, and in the future, fans will associate the goods of this manufacturer with excitement and victory.
• The First Aid Knowledge of Youth Soccer Coaches To establish the interrelationship between the years of work and success in the First Aid Assessment test, a Pearson Product Correlation was used.
• Soccer: Transmitting Real Information on the Game However, a significant degree of controversy in the ways soccer players are depicted in the media tend to create a negative image of the game of millions.
• Soccer Influence on Sociopolitical Aspects of WWI During this period, many footballers and athletes were tempted or encouraged to join the militaries of their respective countries and become part of the ongoing war.
• Soccer in the US and American Exceptionalism Soccer is one of the most popular sports in the world in terms of viewership and participation. The fact that America is not the best in terms of producing the best soccer talents explains why […]
• Senior Management: Soccer Tournament It is chosen as the central deliverable because the successful organization of the tournament is the most desirable outcome of the project.
• Pharmaceutical Firm as a Football Association Sponsor The image of the pharmaceutical industry is that of a bastion of health which is inconsistent with what most FIFA sponsors the project.
• Medical Marijuana Legalization by National Football League However, it must be realized that some of these players are usually in excruciating pain to the point that some may have lost consciousness.
• Sports Science Principles in Melbourne Football Club The intervention will involve a three-pronged approach designed to tackle most of the causes of poor on-field performance in Melbourne Football Club.
• Racism in Australian Football League Sporting Clubs In the context of the Australian environment, the readiness to accept the ideas of racial tolerance and cultural diversity can be considered the key assets. The theory of ethnocentrism can be used to analyze the […]
• Virtual Reality Technology and Soccer Training Moreover, the level of interactivity needs to be significant, and the most attention should be devoted to the modeling of situations that are viewed as the most problematic.
• Federation International Football Association Management Specifically, in a later section, the paper will highlight issues such as poor governance, the flouting of various ethical principles, and mismanagement of the organization’s resources as key elements that triggered the need for leadership […]
• Concussion Occurring Among Football Athletes Moreover, the criticality of the situation is reflected in the fact that many people believe that a concussion can be obtained as a result of a serious collision solely, but it is not so.
• Virtual Reality Technology in Soccer Training Therefore, it is imperative to invest in this area to protect the safety of our technology and ensure that we have a viable product.
• Superstar Effect in Soccer: When Fame Makes a Difference The Superstar Effect, which manifests itself in football stars receiving incentives and financial rewards that other team members do not, can be viewed as a graphic example of the phenomenon analyzed.
• Soccer Team, Its Positions and Their Roles You are the last player on the field and as such, are at a vantage position to not only see how other players are organized in the field of play, but can actually predict the […]
• Football History and Rule-Based Management The sport is governed by 17 laws that are contained in the official Laws of the Game published by the International Federation of Association Football.
• Soccer in England, Its History and Popularity With this in mind, it is possible to say that is the most popular game nowadays, soccer can be taken as a unique phenomenon in the world of sport.
• Football, Its Objective, Players, and a Coach This game is very intense, and it is hard for one official to keep track of all the action, and assistant referees are needed.
• Arsenal Ladies Football Club’s History and Effects The main intention of the Arsenal Ladies Soccer group is to recognize the outstanding feminine players with football aptitudes and admitting them in the educational and technical programs.
• Soccer Players Market and Transfer Contracts The aim of this essay is to provide the insight into the soccer players market and to describe some of the deals. The increase in the popularity of the game led to the creation of […]
• Professional Soccer Player’s Training Methods As of the disadvantages of this method, it is, for the most part, limiting because using only words cannot help in developing new skills in the case of professional soccer players, as they need visualization […]
• Biosensors in Soccer Players’ Preparation The second step is associated with the formation of the movements and their absorption to specific imperatives in a situation where a few alterations will be required.
• National Football League’s Social Performance The success of NFL is also attributed to the ‘survivalist’ mentality of the organization. Community members are very significant and influential to the operations of NFL.
• Fantasy Football: Gambling Regulation and Outlawing Taking this into consideration, it can be stated that fantasy football and its other iterations on sites like Draft Kings is not a form of gambling.
• Planning for an Intramural Soccer Event The same goes for the organization of games, recruitment of referees, and raising the money required to hold the event. The operational plan was a significant determinant of the success of the event.
• The Australian Football League Expansion The Australian Football League is the most competitive professional competition in the sport of Australian Rules football. The final marks the end of the season and the winning team is crowned as ‘the ‘premiers.
• Total Quality Management in the EU and Football Association The European Commission and the council of the European Union are the chief institutions of the EU. In addition, the court of Justice of the European Union is a key legal institution of the EU.
• Football in Saudi Arabia: The Soccer Al Nasser Club The sport was introduced to the Kingdom following the relations between the Europeans and the Saudis in the 20th century. The club has many supporters in Riyadh and the rest of the country.
• Addicted 2 Football Business Plan Principally, the advertising of the filming will show the quality of the work I will be producing. The equipment to be purchased will show the quality of the professionals.
• Melbourne Football Club Marketing Analysis Members and supporters of the players want to see an overhaul of the operation and management of the Club. Rationale The Demons need to rebuild their brand by making changes to the club and marketing […]
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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

The Anatomy of American Football: Evidence from 7 Years of NFL Game Data

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States of America

Affiliation Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA, United States of America

• Konstantinos Pelechrinis, 
• Evangelos Papalexakis

• Published: December 22, 2016
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168716
• Reader Comments

How much does a fumble affect the probability of winning an American football game? How balanced should your offense be in order to increase the probability of winning by 10%? These are questions for which the coaching staff of National Football League teams have a clear qualitative answer. Turnovers are costly; turn the ball over several times and you will certainly lose. Nevertheless, what does “several” mean? How “certain” is certainly? In this study, we collected play-by-play data from the past 7 NFL seasons, i.e., 2009–2015, and we build a descriptive model for the probability of winning a game. Despite the fact that our model incorporates simple box score statistics, such as total offensive yards, number of turnovers etc., its overall cross-validation accuracy is 84%. Furthermore, we combine this descriptive model with a statistical bootstrap module to build FPM (short for Football Prediction Matchup) for predicting future match-ups. The contribution of FPM is pertinent to its simplicity and transparency, which however does not sacrifice the system’s performance. In particular, our evaluations indicate that our prediction engine performs on par with the current state-of-the-art systems (e.g., ESPN’s FPI and Microsoft’s Cortana). The latter are typically proprietary but based on their components described publicly they are significantly more complicated than FPM . Moreover, their proprietary nature does not allow for a head-to-head comparison in terms of the core elements of the systems but it should be evident that the features incorporated in FPM are able to capture a large percentage of the observed variance in NFL games.

Citation: Pelechrinis K, Papalexakis E (2016) The Anatomy of American Football: Evidence from 7 Years of NFL Game Data. PLoS ONE 11(12): e0168716. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168716

Editor: Kimmo Eriksson, Mälardalen University, SWEDEN

Received: July 23, 2016; Accepted: November 23, 2016; Published: December 22, 2016

Copyright: © 2016 Pelechrinis, Papalexakis. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are available within the manuscript and deposited in Github: https://github.com/kpelechrinis/footballonomics .

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

1 Introduction

While American football is viewed mainly as a physical game—and it surely is—at the same time it is probably one of the most strategic sports games, a fact that makes it appealing even to an international crowd [ 1 ]. This has led to people analyzing the game with the use of data analytics methods and game theory. For instance, after the controversial last play call of Super Bowl XLIX the Economist [ 2 ] argued by utilizing appropriate data and game theory that this play was rational and not that bad after all.

The ability to analyze and collect large volumes of data has put forward a quantification-based approach in modeling and analyzing the success in various sports during the last few years. For example, pertinent to American football, Clark et al. [ 3 ] analyzed the factors that affect the success of a field goal kick and contrary to popular belief they did not identify any situational factor (e.g., regular vs post season, home vs away etc.) as being significant. In another direction Pfitzner et al. [ 4 ] and Warner [ 5 ] studied models and systems for determining a successful betting strategy for NFL games, while the authors in [ 6 ] show that the much-discussed off-field misconduct of NFL players does not affect a team’s performance. Furthermore, the spatial information collected from the RFID sensors on NFL players has been used to evaluate quarterbacks’ decision making ability [ 7 ], while efforts to assess the impact of individual offensive linemen on passing have been presented by Alamar and Weinstein-Gould [ 8 ]. Similarly, Correia et al. [ 9 ] analyzed the passing behavior of rugby players—the most similar sport to that of American football. They found that the time required to close the gap between the first attacker and the defense explained 64% of the variance found in pass duration and this can further yield information about future pass possibilities. Nevertheless, despite the availability of play data for American football and the proliferation of the sports analytics literature as well as the literature surrounding the NFL, there are only few—publicly open—studies that have focused on predicting a game’s outcome. Furthermore, some of the existing models make strong theoretical assumptions that are hard to verify (e.g., the team strength factors obeying to a first-order autoregressive process [ 10 ]). Close with our work, Cohea and Payton developed a logistic regression model to understand the factors affecting an NFL game outcome [ 11 ]. The benefit of our model as compared to the one presented by Cohea and Payton [ 11 ] is that the number of exploratory variables we are using is much smaller, making it easy for a fan to follow. Most importantly though we combine our model with statistical bootstrap in order to facilitate future game predictions (something that the model presented in [ 11 ] is not able to perform). Of course, predictive models for NFL games have been developed by major sports networks. For example ESPN has developed the Football Power Index, which is used to make probabilistic predictions for upcoming matchups [ 12 ]. Software companies have also developed their own models (e.g., Cortana from Microsoft [ 13 ]). Nevertheless, these models are proprietary and are not open to the public.

In this study we are first interested in providing a simple model that is able to quantify the impact of various factors on the probability of wining a game of American football. How much does a turnover affect a team’s probability of winning? Can you really win a game after having turned the ball over 5 times? While coaches and players know the qualitative answer to similar questions, the goal of our work is to provide a quantitative answer. For this purpose we use play-by-play data for the last seven seasons of the National Football League (i.e., between 2009 and 2015) and we extract specific team statistics for both the winning and losing teams. We then use the Bradley-Terry regression model [ 14 , 15 ] to quantify the effect and statistical significance of each of these factors on the probability of wining a game of American football. This model is a descriptive one, i.e., it quantifies the impact of several factors on the success of an NFL team. Similar descriptive models can be useful to the coaching staff since they provide an exact quantification of the importance of each aspect of the game. They can also be helpful for the fans—especially the novice ones—for better understanding of the game. Evaluating the obtained model through cross validation provides an accuracy of 84% in predicting the winning team of a matchup.

The above descriptive model is able to provide accurate predictions when the features are known, i.e., when the performance of the two competing teams of a matchup is known. This can be helpful in post analysis of games by comparing the actual outcome of the game with the expected probability of winning the game for each team given their performance. For instance, one can identify “unexpected” wins from teams that underperformed . However, even more challenging, and one of the most intriguing tasks for professional sports analysts, is predicting the winners of the upcoming NFL matchups, which is the second objective of our work. This task can not be completed simply by the regression model that quantifies the impact of various factors on the probability of winning a game. As we will elaborate on in following sections the majority of the features in the developed model includes performance statistics (e.g., total offensive yards, number of interceptions etc.). Hence, the winner prediction problem involves also predicting the features—i.e., the performance of each team—themselves.

Predicting the upcoming performance of a team can be based on its past performance. A factor that makes this task particularly hard for American football is the small number of games during a season, which translates to high uncertainty. Using a central tendency metric—e.g., mean—is not able to fully capture the variability of the performance. To tackle this problem we propose to use statistical bootstrap. In brief, resampling with replacement the features from the past games of a team will allow us to simulate the matchup between the teams several times and obtain a set of winning probabilities that will allow us to predict the final winner of the game. Our approach, FPM , is shown to exhibit an accuracy of approximately 64% over the past 7 seasons, which is comparable to that of the state-of-the-art systems such as Microsoft’s Cortana and ESPN’s FPI. However, given FPM ’s simplicity it should be treated as a baseline estimation. Simply put the output probability of our model can be thought of as an anchor value for the win probability. Further adjustments can be made using information about the specific matchup (i.e., roster, weather forecast etc.), hence, making it possible to significantly outperform existing proprietary systems. We further discuss this point in detail later in this work.

Our work complements the existing literature by contributing a descriptive and easily interpretable model for American football games. We further provide a prediction engine for upcoming matchups based on statistical bootstrap and the developed Bradley-Terry regression model. We would like to emphasize here that our regression model is rather simple and easy to implement. This, in fact, is one of our main contribution, since we demonstrate that such a simple and transparent approach is able to perform on par with state-of-the-art commercial tools for which due to their proprietary nature we have no telling of how complex they are. We view this as a first step towards exploring how we can maintain a simple and interpretable model that at the same time bears high predictive quality. In the rest of the study we present the data and methods that we used (see Section 2 ). We then present our regression model as well as FPM (see Section 3 ). We finally conclude and discuss the implications of our study (see Section 4 ).

2 Materials and Methods

In this section we will present the dataset we used to perform our analysis as well as the different methodological pieces of our analysis.

NFL Dataset: In order to perform our analysis we utilize a dataset collected from NFL’s Game Center for all the games (regular and post season) between the seasons 2009 and 2015. We access the data using the Python nflgame API [ 16 ]. The dataset includes detailed play-by-play information for every game that took place during these seasons. In total, we collected information for 1,792 regular season games and 77 play-off games. Given the small sample for the play-off games and in order to have an equal contribution in our dataset from all the teams we focus our analysis on the regular season games, even though play-off games are by themselves of interest in many perspectives.

Statistical Bootstrap: In order to perform a game outcome prediction, we first need to forecast the performance of each of the contesting teams. However, we only have a (small) set of historic performance data for each team. Furthermore given that the performance of a team is not stable , using a measure of central tendency (e.g., sample mean) does not accurately capture the variability in the data. To overcome this problem we will rely on statistical bootstrap [ 17 ]. Statistical bootstrap is a robust method for estimating the unknown distribution of a population’s statistic when a sample of the population is known. The basic idea of the bootstrapping method is that in the absence of any other information about the population, the observed sample contains all the available information about the underlying distribution. Hence resampling with replacement is the best guide to what can be expected from the population distribution had the latter been available. By generating a large number of such resamples allows us to get a very accurate estimate of the required distribution. Furthermore, for data with dependencies (temporal or otherwise), appropriate block resampling retains any dependencies between data points [ 18 ]. We will utilize bootstrap in the design of FPM .

3.1 Descriptive Model

In this part of our study we will present our descriptive generalized linear model. In particular, we build a Bradley-Terry model to understand the factors that impact the probability of a team winning an American football game. This model will be later used in our future matchup prediction engine, FPM , as we describe in Section 3.2.

Let us denote with W ij the binary random variable that represents the event of home team i winning the game against visiting team j . W ij = 1 if the home team wins the game and 0 otherwise. As aforementioned our model for W ij will provide us with the probability of the home team winning the game given the set of input features, i.e., y = Pr( W ij = 1| z ). The input of this model is vector z that includes features that can potentially impact the probability of a team winning.

The features we use as the input for our model include:

Total offensive yards differential: This feature captures the difference between the home and visiting teams’ total yards (rushing and passing) produced by their offense in the game.

Penalty yards differential: This features captures the differential between the home and visiting teams’ total penalty yards in the game.

Turnovers differential: This feature captures the differential between the total turnovers produced by the teams (i.e., how many times the quarterback was intercepted, fumbles recovered by the opposing team and turns on downs).

Possession time differential: This feature captures the differential of the ball possession time between the home and visiting team.

This ratio captures the offense’s balance between rushing and passing. A perfectly balanced offense will have r = 0.5. We would like to emphasize here that r refers to the actual yardage produced and not to the passing/rushing attempts. The feature included in the model represents the differential between r home and r visiting .

Power ranking differential: This is the current difference in rankings between the home and the visiting teams. A positive differential means that the home team is stronger , i.e., ranks higher, than its opponent. For the power ranking we utilize SportsNetRank [ 19 ], which uses a directed network that represents win-lose relationships between teams. SportsNetRank captures indirectly the schedule strength of a team and it has been shown to provide a better ranking for teams as compared to the simple win-loss percentage.

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168716.t001

Based on the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test the features’ ECDFs for the winning and losing teams are statistically different (at the significance level α = 0.01). The probability mass function for the home team advantage is also presented.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168716.g001

Our basic data analysis above indicates that the distribution of the statistics considered is significantly different for the winning and losing teams. However, we are interested in understanding which of them are good explanatory variables of the probability of winning a game. To further delve into the details, we use our data to train the Bradley-Terry regression model and we obtain the results presented in Table 2 . Note here that, as it might be evident from the aforementioned discussion, we do not explicitly incorporate a feature for distinguishing between the home and the visiting team. Nevertheless, the response variable is the probability of the home team winning, while the features capture the differential of the respective statistics between the home and road team (i.e., the difference is ordered). Therefore, the intercept essentially captures the home team advantage—or lack thereof depending on the sign and significance of the coefficient. In fact, setting all of the explanatory variables equal to zero provides us a response equal to Pr( W ij | 0 ) = 0.555, which is equal to the home team advantage as discussed above. Furthermore, all of the coefficients—except the one for the possession time differential—are statistically significant. However, the impact of the various factors as captured by the magnitude of the coefficients range from weak to strong. For example, the number of total yards produced by the offense seem to have the weakest correlation with the probability of winning a game (i.e., empty yards). On the contrary committing turnovers quickly deteriorates the probability of winning the game and the same is true for an unbalanced offense. Finally, in S1 Text we present a standardized version of our model.

Significance codes: ***: p < .001, **: p < .01, *: p < .05.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168716.t002

While the direction of the effects for these variables are potentially intuitive for the coaching staff of NFL teams, the benefit of our quantifying approach is that it assigns specific magnitude to the importance of each factor. Clearly the conclusions drawn from the regression cannot and should not be treated as causal. Nevertheless, they provide a good understanding on what is correlated with winning games. For example, if a team wins the turnover battle by 1 it can expect to obtain an approximately 20% gain in the winning probability (all else being constant), while a 10-yard differential in the penalty yardage is correlated with just a 5% difference in the winning probability. Hence, while almost all of the factors considered are statistically significant, some of them appear to be much more important as captured by the corresponding coefficients and potential parts of the game a team could work on. Again, this descriptive model does not provide a cause-effect relationship between the covariates considered and the probability of winning .

Before turning to the FPM predictive engine we would like to further emphasize and reflect on how one should interpret and use these results. For example, one could be tempted to focus on the feature with the coefficient that exhibits the maximum absolute magnitude, that is, the differential of ratio r , and conclude that calling only run plays will increase the probability of winning, since the negative differential with the opposing team will be maximized. However, this is clearly not true as every person with basic familiarity with American football knows. At the same time the regression model is not contradicting itself. What happens is that the model developed—similar to any data driven model—is valid only for the range of values that the input variables cover. Outside of this range, the generalized linear trend might still hold or not. For example, Fig 2 depicts the distribution of ratio r for the winning and losing teams. As we can see our data cover approximately the range r ∈ [0.3, 0.98] and the trend should only be considered valid within this range (and potentially within a small ϵ outside of this range). It is interesting also to observe that the mass of the distribution for the winning teams is concentrated around r ≈ 0.64, while it is larger for the losing teams ( r ≈ 0.8). We also present at the same figure a table with the range that our features cover for both winning and losing teams. Furthermore, to reiterate, the regression model captures merely correlations (rather than cause-effect relations). Given that some of the statistics involved in the features are also correlated themselves (see Fig 3 ) and/or are result of situational football, makes it even harder to identify real causes. For instance, there appears to be a small but statistically significant negative correlation between ratio r and possession time. Furthermore, a typical tactic followed by teams leading in a game towards the end of the fourth quarter is to run the clock out by calling running plays. This can lead to a problem of reverse causality; a reduced ratio r for the leading team as compared to the counterfactual r expected had the team continued its original game-plan, which can artificially deflate the actual contribution of r differential on the probability of winning. Similarly, teams that are trailing in the score towards the end of the game will typically call plays involving long passes in order to cover more yardage faster. However, these plays are also more risky and will lead to turnovers more often, therefore, inflating the turnover differential feature. Nevertheless, this is always a problem when a field experiment cannot be designed and only observational data are available. While we cannot claim causal links between the covariates and the output variable, in what follows we present evidence that can eliminate the presence of reverse causality for the scenarios described above.

Our model is trained within the range of input variable/statistics values on the left table. The figure on the right presents the probability density function for r for the winning and losing instances respectively.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168716.g002

Correlations between the different variables considered for obtaining the features for FPM . Insignificant correlations are crossed out.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168716.g003

Reverse Causality: In what follows we examine the potential for reverse causality. To fast forward to our results, we do not find strong evidence for it. To reiterate, one of the problems with any model based on observational data is the direction of the effects captured by the model. For example, in our case teams that are ahead in the score towards the end of the game follow a “conservative” play call, that is, running the football more in order to minimize the probability of a turnover and more importantly use up valuable time on the clock. Hence, this can lead to a decreasing ratio r . Therefore, the negative coefficient for the r differential in our regression model might be capturing reverse causality/causation. Winning teams artificially decrease r due to conservative play calling at the end of the game. Similarly, teams that are behind in score towards the end of the game follow a more “risky” game plan and hence, this might lead to more turnovers (as compared to the other way around).

One possible way to explore whether this is the case is to examine how the values of these two statistics change over the course of the game. We begin with ratio r . If the reverse causation hypothesis were true, then the ratio r for the winning team of a game would have to reduce over the course of the game. In order to examine this hypothesis, we compute the ratio r at the end of each quarter for both the winning and losing teams. Fig 4 presents the results. As we can see during the first quarter there is a large variability for the value of r as one might have expected mainly due to the small number of drives. However, after the first quarter it seems that the value of r is stabilized. There is a slight decrease (increase) for the winning (losing) team during the fourth quarter but this change is not statistically significant. Therefore, we can more confidently reject the existence of reverse causality for ratio r .

Ratio r is stable after the first quarter for both winning (left figure) and losing (right figure) teams, allowing us to reject the reverse causation hypothesis for r .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168716.g004

We now focus our attention on the turnovers and the potential reverse causation with respect to this feature. In order to examine this hypothesis, we obtain from our data the time within the game (at the minute granularity) that turnovers were committed by the winning and losing teams. We then compare the paired difference for the turnover differential until the end of the third quarter for each game. Our results show that the winning teams commit fewer turnovers than their losing opponents by the end of the third quarter ( p -value < 0.01), further supporting that avoiding turnovers will ultimately lead to a win. Of course, as we can see from Fig 5 , there is a spike of turnovers towards the end of each half (and smaller spikes towards the end of each quarter). These spikes can be potentially explained from the urgency to score since either the drive will stop if the half ends or the game will be over respectively. However, regardless of the exact reasons for these spikes, the main point is that by committing turnovers, either early in the game (e.g., during the first three quarters) or late, the chances of winning the game are significantly reduced.

Turnovers spike towards the end of each quarter, with the highest density appearing during the two-minute warning.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168716.g005

In conclusion, our model provides quantifiable and actionable insights but they need to be carefully interpreted when designing play actions based on it.

3.2 FPM Prediction Engine

We now turn our attention on how we can use the above model to predict the outcome of a future game. In a realistic setting, in order to be able to apply this regression model we will need to provide as an input the team statistics/features. This is by itself a separate prediction problem, namely, a team performance prediction problem. Hence, we begin by evaluating the prediction performance of the Bradley-Terry regression model itself using traditional machine learning evaluation methods. In particular, we evaluate the prediction accuracy of our model through cross validation. In this way we do not need to predict the value of the features but we explore the accuracy of the pure regression model. Using 10-fold cross validation we obtain an accuracy of 84.03% ± 0.35% . To reiterate this performance is conditional to the input features being known. From the inputs required for our model only two are known before the matchup, namely, the home team (which will allow us to formulate the response variable and the rest of the features appropriately) and the SportsNetRank differential. Thus, how can we predict the rest of the features, since in a realistic setting we will not know the performance of each team beforehand? Simply put, our FPM prediction engine will need to first estimate the two teams statistics/features (i.e., total yards, penalty yards, etc.) and then use the Bradley-Terry regression model to predict the winning team.

The proposed prediction engine consists of 3 modules; a bootstrap module, a regression module and a statistical test module.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168716.g006

Delving more into the evaluation of our predictive engine we present the accuracy for each season in Table 3 . We also provide the accuracy of a baseline system, where the winner of a game is predicted to be the team with the better running win-loss percentage through the current week. If two teams have the same win-loss percentage the home team is chosen as the winner since there is a slight winning bias for the home team as we have seen earlier. Note here that the baseline is very similar to the way that the league ranks the teams and decides on who will qualify for the playoffs (excluding our tie-breaker process and the league’s rules with respect to the divisions). As we can see our predictive engine improves over the baseline by approximately 9%.

FPM outperforms the baseline prediction based on win-loss standings every season in our dataset. The overall accuracy of our system is 63.4%.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168716.t003

One of the reasons we utilize bootstrap in our prediction system is to better capture the variability of the teams’ performances. As one might expect this variability is better revealed as the season progresses. During a stretch of few games it is highly probable to have a team over/under-perform [ 22 ]. Hence, the bootstrap module during the beginning of the season might not perform as accurately as during the end of the season. In order to examine this we calculate the accuracy of our prediction system focusing on games that took place during specific weeks in every season. Fig 7 presents our results, where we see that there is an increasing trend as the season progresses.

During the last part of the season the bootstrap engine can exploit the variability of a team’s performance better, hence, providing better prediction accuracy. The linear trend slope is 0.01 (p-value<0.05, R 2 = 0.41).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168716.g007

Finally, we examine the accuracy of FPM ’s predicted probabilities. In order to evaluate this we would ideally want to have the game played several times. If the favorite team were given a 75% probability of winning, then if the game was played 100 times we would expect the favorite to win 75 of them. However, we cannot have the game play out more than once and hence in order to evaluate the accuracy of the probabilities we will use all the games in our dataset. In particular, if the predicted probabilities were accurate, when considering all the games where the favorite was predicted to win with a probability of x %, then the favorite should have won in x % of these games. Given the continuous nature of the probabilities we quantize them into groups that cover a 5% probability range (with only exception being the range (90%, 100%], since there are very few games in the corresponding sub-groups). Fig 8 presents on the y-axis the fraction of games where the predicted favorite team won, while the x-axis corresponds to the predicted probability of win for the favorite. As we can see the data points—when considering their 95% confidence intervals—fall on the y = x axis, which translates to an accurate probability inference. The corresponding linear regression provides a slope with a 95% confidence interval of [0.76, 1.16] ( R 2 = 0.94), which essentially means that we cannot reject the null hypothesis that our data fall on the line y = x where the slope is equal to 1.

The win probability provided by our model is in alignment with the fraction of the games won by the favorite for the corresponding win probability.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168716.g008

4 Discussion and Conclusions

Finally, the models themselves can be helpful to many different involved entities associated with the sport. For example, it can facilitate better understanding of the game by novice fans. The impact and importance of ratio r will allow the newcoming fans to appreciate the running game. Similarly, agents and players can use knowledge obtained by similar models for negotiating purposes. It is well-known that running backs are among the least paid players in an NFL roster for a number of reasons (e.g., high risk of serious injuries etc.). Nevertheless, they are extremely important for the success of a team as our model indicates. Moreover, our descriptive regression model can be used by media personnel for a post-game analysis. For instance, “surprising” wins can be identified, while critical parts of the game that led to the final results can also be pinpointed.

Supporting Information

S1 text. standardized fpm ..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168716.s001

Author Contributions

• Conceptualization: KP.
• Data curation: KP.
• Formal analysis: KP EP.
• Investigation: KP.
• Methodology: KP EP.
• Project administration: KP EP.
• Resources: KP EP.
• Software: KP.
• Supervision: KP.
• Validation: KP.
• Visualization: KP.
• Writing – original draft: KP EP.
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• 16. (2012). Nfl game center api. https://github.com/BurntSushi/nflgame . Accessed: 2016-01-12.
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2023 Michigan Ranks 5th All Time in Billingsley's Top 200.

The 2023 Final Reports have been updated in the Historical Data Section of Billingsley's College Football Encyclopedia. The Wolverine's 385.611 points landed Michigan as #5 on the Top 200 Teams of All-Time list. The updating of the All-Time Scores Section has begun and is scheduled to be completed in May. The question of whether or not the Billingsley Report will be published in 2024 is dependent on Billingsley's health which continues to decline. Stay tuned, a decision will be announced sometime in August.&nbsp;

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Michigan Wallops Washington 34-13 to Win National Championship

The game never really seemed in doubt, although Washington had moments of momentum and kept the score within 7 points most of the game, the Michigan defense stole the show and the Wolverines walked away with a resounding 34-13 victory. The process of updating the Billingsley Encyclopedia will begin in the next few weeks and all of the files should be updated by early to mid March.&nbsp;

Washington and Michigan Will Play For Championship

Houston's NRG Stadium will host the 2023 National Championship Game Monday January 8. Washington and Michigan both qualified for the final in dramatic fashion. In the Rose Bowl Michigan topped the Tide in overtime 27-20 and in the Sugar Bowl Washington held off a furious Texas rally to nip the Longhorns 37-31. Billingsley's projection for the title game will be posted tomorrow.&nbsp;

Army , Navy

Navy Comeback Falls Short

In one of the most dramatic finishes in the 124 year history of the series Navy fell inches short of the Army goal line as time ran out. After controlling the game for 4 quarters the Army defense was unable to stop the Midshipmen on their last drive until a powerful goal line stand on 4th down with inches to go. With 1 second on the clock the Black Knights took a safety and the game ended Army 17 Navy 11.&nbsp;

Nation Awaits CFP Rankings

The Championship Games are in the record books and chaos reigns in college football after Alabama defeated two time defending National Champ Georgia 27-24 Saturday afternoon. Three teams maneuvered their way through the 2023 regular season unbeaten and will no doubt finish #1,2,3 in some order, but the 4th place will be the hardest decision the playoff committee has ever had to make. Three teams, all 12-1, have a legitimate argument for the #4 position. The just released Billingsley Report shows Alabama rising to secure the final spot, edging out Georgia followed by Ohio State with Texas coming in at #7. The Longhorns certainly have a good claim considering they beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa in September, but the Horns later lost to arch rival Oklahoma and Alabama sailed on to 11 straight victories playing a more difficult schedule. Still, the CFP is known to place a lot of value to head to head competition so it's going to be interesting to see the final results scheduled to begin releasing ay 11 AM this morning CT. The Bowl matchups will be released throughout this afternoon. &nbsp;

Rivalry Weekend closes out Regular Season

Although the Army/Navy game officially closes the regular season, the Conference Championship Games are all set with the final piece of the puzzle falling into place this morning when the Mountain West announced Nevada-Las Vegas will host Boise State for the title crown. Friday night Liberty will host New Mexico State for the C-USA title while Oregon and Washington will play for the Pac 12 crown in Las Vegas. Saturday morning games find Texas and Oklahoma State battling for the Big 12 Title in Arlington along with Miami (Ohio) and Toledo squaring off in Detroit. Afternoon games include Boise State at Nevada-Las Vegas, Georgia and Alabama in Atlanta, SMU at Tulane, and Appalachian State at Troy. The night games are Michigan and Iowa in Indianapolis and Louisville and Florida State in Charlotte. &nbsp;The four teams selected for the CFP will be announced next Sunday morning. Expect some major surprises if Alabama beats Georgia or Iowa beats Michigan. Projections post Monday.&nbsp;

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Articles on college football

Displaying 1 - 20 of 22 articles.

College athletes still are not allowed to be paid by universities − here’s why

Cyntrice Thomas , University of Florida

How Black male college athletes deal with anti-Black stereotypes on campus

Jonathan Howe , Temple University

Nick Saban’s ‘epic era’ of coaching is over, but the exploitation of players in big-time college football is not

Joseph N. Cooper , UMass Boston

A tweak to the University of Nebraska’s logo shows how the once benign ‘OK’ sign has entered a ‘purgatory of meaning’

Roger J. Kreuz , University of Memphis

As March Madness looms, growth in legalized sports betting may pose a threat to college athletes

Jason W. Osborne , Miami University

Calling Deion Sanders a sellout ignores the growing role of clout-chasing in college sports

Jabari M. Evans , University of South Carolina

Colleges must choose whether to let athletes wear school gear for paid promotions

John Holden , Oklahoma State University

As U.S. football season kicks off, climate change threatens the game

Madeleine Orr , University of British Columbia

When the NCAA permitted colleges to pay stipends to student-athletes , the colleges also raised their estimated expenses

Willis A. Jones , University of Miami

Why it’s such a big deal that the NFL’s Carl Nassib came out as gay

John Affleck , Penn State

Colleges are eliminating sports teams – and runners and golfers are paying more of a price than football or basketball players

Molly Ott , Arizona State University and Janet Lawrence , University of Michigan

NCAA amateurism appears immune to COVID-19 – despite tide in public support for paying athletes having turned

Chris Knoester , The Ohio State University

Is NCAA football too big to fail?

David Ridpath , Ohio University

Colleges expect athletes to work but not to air any grievances – here’s why that’s wrong

Erin Hatton , University at Buffalo

Top football recruits bring in big money for colleges – COVID-19 could threaten revenue

Trevon Logan , The Ohio State University

I traveled to American Samoa 5 times to study the secret to its football success

Rob Ruck , University of Pittsburgh

Let’s get real with college athletes about their chances of going pro

Angela Farmer , Mississippi State University

In the name of ‘amateurism,’ college athletes make money for everyone except themselves

Jasmine Harris , Ursinus College

How big bonuses for winning coaches became a tradition in college football

DJ Durkin’s firing won’t solve college football’s deepest problems

Joseph Cooper , University of Connecticut and Jasmine Harris , Ursinus College

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February 9, 2023

We Can Make Football Safer

Through better equipment, improved knowledge of head injury and better medical care, we can mitigate the effects of concussion at all levels of football

By Steven Broglio

Ted Kinsman/Science Source

Several years ago, I was at a pre-season football practice at a high school where I was working with the team on a concussion research project.  The players were lined up in two rows facing each other and with little more instruction from the coach than, “on the whistle, hit the man across from you,” grave concern rushed through my mind.

Professional sports get the lion’s share of attention, but concussions are a significant medical issue at all levels of play. While roughly 1,700 athletes play professional football each year, over three million children and adolescents in the United States play the same game. This squarely places concussions as a significant public health concern in homes from coast to coast.   

For decades, athletes, parents, coaches and medical professionals considered concussion a temporary injury with no long-term consequences. Athletes commonly played through it as a sign of toughness. Our thinking on concussion shifted around 2005, when the brain tissue pathology report of Mike Webster, a retired National Football League player , was published. The report was the first to identify chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in a football player and suggested the disease was linked to concussions the player had suffered on the field. Since then, public attention has focused on this link between brain injury and blows to the head, and much of that conversation has centered around football.

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Participation in any sport carries injury risk, and concussion will always be part of that calculus. This was never more evident than early in the 2022 season, when Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was concussed while playing against the Cincinnati Bengals, his contorted hands on full display in front of a national audience. Concussion prevention and care is better now than it has ever been, but short of ending all sports, we need to do more to prevent them. This means improvements in equipment, better training for coaches and players, and better medical care.

In the early 1900s football was played without helmets, but severe injuries, like skull fractures, lead to the sporadic use of leather helmets in the 1920s. The plastic shell helmet was invented in 1939 and became mandatory a few years later. The first face mask entered the game in the 1950s, and foam padding wasn’t added until the 1960s. Over the years, engineers updated the basic design with more robust face masks and newer internal padding such as air bladders and gel padding. Until recently, these changes were all made with an eye toward reducing the most severe brain injuries such as brain bleeds and skull fractures, and they have been largely successful. But as our understanding of concussion evolved to understand its significance as an injury, so too did the scrutiny of player equipment.

The fundamental problem is that regardless of how much impact force is mitigated by protective equipment, we cannot stabilize the brain inside the skull following an impact – likely making a concussion-proof helmet an impossible engineering challenge. That hasn’t stopped helmet improvements, however. With a new eye toward concussion prevention, researchers at Virginia Tech introduced a helmet rating system specific to concussion risk in 2011. The five-star system (one being the worst, five the best) rates the ability of the helmet to reduce concussion risk. This gives consumers tangible evidence to make an informed purchase. In its first year, only a single helmet was awarded a five-star rating, but now, the most recent rankings list more than 25 five-star helmets. Modern helmets use advanced shell materials that flex upon impact, have moveable panels to absorb forces, and multi-layered padding that responds to different impact velocities. Companies will continue to improve helmets as new materials become available, guided by the newest science .

But engineering limitations should not stop us from closely examining other factors that can reduce concussion risk. For example, in one study of head impacts and concussion across five college football seasons, nearly 50 percent of concussions occurred during the four-week pre-season ; the rest occurred over the next 12 weeks of in-season play. Such data led the NCAA to reduce the number of allowable full contact pre-season practice sessions. Others have shown that reducing the number of high school football practices in which contact is allowed reduces head impacts by as much as 46 percent. Moving the kickoff line forward to the 40-yard line reduced the number of times the ball is run back by the receiving player. This is one of the riskiest plays of the game in terms of concussion.

As players get older and start playing contact football, the coaching staff must teach appropriate tackling technique—not leading with the head and wrapping their opponent up with their arms. Learning how to do this properly has the added benefit of more playing time (i.e., you can't play if you're injured). In addition, having medical providers with training in concussion management at practices and competitions can help identify and rapidly remove injured players, a known factor in reducing injury severity and the time out of sport .

While injury prevention is the best approach, concussions will always be a part of sport participation. This is broader than just football. This injury occurs in all sports and affects athletes regardless of sex. Women, who make up about 45 percent of college athletes, tend to report more concussions in sex-comparable sports , but represent only 20 percent of the medical literature . Some researchers have speculated women are more likely in general to report a medical concern to a health provider, but they also have smaller neck musculature relative to their head mass limiting their ability to stabilize their head when hit. Some data indicate an increased risk of concussion at different points in the menstrual cycle . This all suggests that concussion is not unique to football and unless we intend to ban all sports, it is urgent that we continue working to better understand concussions and how to prevent them.

In the interim, several medical and organizations have created concussion guidelines that did not exist in the early 2000s, and every four years a group of international experts meets to review the relevant medical literature and make recommendations on the best approach to concussion care. The latest guidelines are due later this year. Like all medical advances, change will be incremental and often hard to perceive, but concussion prevention and care is better now than it has ever been. Regardless, many athletes will do just about anything to stay on the field and “play through the pain.” It is imperative to create a culture that supports athletes and encourages them to come forward when injuries happen, empowers them to be their own health advocates, and allows them to protect their overall brain health while playing competitively and safely.

Change is happening in how we view sports-related concussions. In my 20 years of doing concussion research, I can attest that we now take concussion seriously as an injury, better understand impact biomechanics and other risk factors, are making strides to prevent it, and are improving the management and recovery process. Sports are an integral part of American culture, and they give millions of children much-needed exercise. As those children become adults and make sport their hobby or even vocation, ensuring they play safely at all levels is essential.

This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of  Scientific American.

Revenue Redistribution in Big-Time College Sports

Football and basketball, which attract many players from lower-income backgrounds, subsidize money-losing sports which are often played by more affluent athletes.

S trict limitations on player compensation in revenue-generating college sports such as men’s football and basketball result in a transfer of resources away from student-athletes in those sports, who are more likely to be from lower-income households, to those in other sports. The student-athletes in the sports receiving subsidies are more likely to be from affluent backgrounds, according to research reported in Who Profits from Amateurism? Rent-Sharing in Modern College Sports (NBER Working Paper 27734 ).

Craig Garthwaite , Jordan Keener , Matthew J. Notowidigdo , and Nicole F. Ozminkowski examine the socioeconomic impact of collegiate rules that restrict player compensation to scholarships and living expenses. They find that the college football and basketball players who are seen on network television capture less than 7 percent of the revenues they generate. Their professional counterparts receive about 50 percent of the revenues from their sports.

By compensating college players at levels below what they could command in an unfettered market, athletic departments realize economic rents that are used to subsidize non-revenue-generating sports — other sports that would otherwise earn negative net income — to pay the salaries of coaches and other administrative personnel, and to build sports facilities.

The study focuses on schools where most athletic department revenue is generated by ticket sales, media contracts, and promotional deals, primarily from football and basketball. The 65 universities analyzed are members of the Power Five conferences: the Big Ten, Pac-12, Big 12, Southeastern, and Atlantic Coast conferences. More detailed budget breakdowns were available from the 46 public institutions in the sample, but not from sports powerhouse private universities such as Notre Dame and Stanford.

Based on data from the public universities, average revenue for the athletic departments stood at $125 million in 2018, up 60 percent from a decade earlier. The surge in proceeds from football and basketball more than offset a 71 percent increase in the losses incurred by non-revenue-generating sports such as men’s golf and baseball and women’s basketball, soccer, and tennis.

The researchers report stark demographic differences between players in revenue-producing sports and other student-athletes in Power Five athletic programs. Black players account for nearly half the football and basketball players, but only 11 percent of the players in money-losing sports. Revenue-sport athletes attended high schools with a median family income of $58,400; players in other sports came from high schools with a median family income of $80,000. The researchers also note that only 12 percent of the men’s coaches, 9 percent of the women’s coaches, and 16 percent of the athletic directors were Black.

Between 2008 to 2018, when support for athletes rose by 47 percent, the average salaries of Power Five football coaches at public universities more than doubled, and those for coaches of other sports increased by 70 percent.

What if college players were paid? The researchers estimate a wage structure based on collective bargaining agreements in professional sports. They calculate that salaries would range from $2.4 million for starting quarterbacks to $140,000 for backup running backs. Starting basketball players, whose professional pay tends to be more uniform, would make between $800,000 and $1.2 million. The researchers caution that these values may be overestimated, since in the absence of labor unions, such as those representing professional players, the college athletes would likely command lower salaries, and the student-athletes’ pay might also be depressed if their loss of amateur standing reduced fan interest in college competition.

The researchers say the business model of the Power Five athletic departments resembles that of commercial enterprises, with one big difference: “While rent-sharing is theoretically possible in any commercial venture, the potential for rent-sharing in college sports is particularly great because of the NCAA rules limiting the amount of compensation athletes can earn.”

— Steve Maas

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Football Research Topics

• The Contrast between American Football and Rugby
• Historical Development of Football
• Debatable Football Scandals
• Corrupt Practices in Football Business
• Football and Soccer: How it Became a Different Sport?
• Strain of Psychological Losses in Football
• Soccer & Health: The Medicine of Soccer Learning
• What is Gaelic Football?
• The Economic Contributing Quota of Football Championships
• Trauma Revitalization of Rugby Players

Good Research Topics about Football

• The Similarities Between Football and Basketball
• Full Study of Football as the most seen Sport in the World
• The Debate between the Football Finest Messi vs. Ronaldo
• The Study of Drugs in Football and Allocating the Proper Breaking Laws in Football
• Audit Section in the European Football Organization under Groups of European Football Associations Financial Fair Play
• Comparative Analysis of Experts’ Opinions on Impediments of Sponsors’ Pull to Iran’s Professional Football
• The Study of the Cheers that Resounds from a Football Pitch
• The Comparison between Men’s and Women’s Football
• Does the Presence of a Marching Band Influence College Football Game Attendance?
• Why Does Fair Play Matters?
• Do Football Clubs Gain from Initial Public Offering?
• How Does the Super Bowl Influence Football?
• What does the European Financial Fair Play Stands for in Football?
• The Reasons and Consequences for Football Accidents
• The Relationship of Football and Aristotle’s Philosophy of Friendships
• The Past and Present of Football
• Football: Significant Differences in American Football and the Others
• What Factors Influences the Increase in Football Club Ticket Sales?
• Media’s Opinion of Football Hooliganism
• Football: How the Game Has Birthed a Tradition
• How can development in football be achieved?
• Is Football a Risky Game for Our Youths?
• Quantitative Study for Football Managers
• What Improves European Football Club’s Value Returns and Volatility?
• My Lessons from Football
• Football Criminology: What is Hooliganism?
• Based on Stats: Who is the Current World Best Footballer?
• Why is Football Regarded as an Important Sport?
• Why Malaysian Football Cannot Advance

Interesting Football Essay Topics

• The Accounting Department in Footballing
• Comparative Study of Football in the United States and Canada
• Artificial Pitches: Improper Home Advantage in Elite Football
• Advantages of Youth Football
• Concussions and Player Misconduct in Football
• Issues in Sport Today- Football Hooliganism in the UK
• Joint Social Obligations in English Football: The Past and the Present
• Sugar Daddies in Top European Football Clubs
• Challenges that Newly Relegated Burnley Club Faces When Implementing Budgetary Strategies
• What is the Meaning of FIFA?
• Football as a Social Event
• The Various Impacts of Football on our Society
• Footballing on the Coast of Saudi Arabia
• Football is an Irregular Team Based Sport
• The Basics of Football: Philosophy of Offensiveness & Defensiveness
• Cultural Identity of Spanish Football: Examinations and Observations
• Football’s Greatest Throughout History
• The History of England’s Football: Men’s Category
• The History of England’s Football: Women’s Category

Football Research Questions

•  How do the Styles of Leadership and Motivational Theories Affect the Success and Failure of Football Clubs?
• Does Pro Football have a Good or Bad Effect on Society?
• What are the Impacts Reaped from the Commercialization of English Football?
• How Does American Football Operate?
• Are Football Referees Partial in their Judgements and Inconsistent?
• What are the Effects of Concussion Amongst High School Students?
• Are more Statistics needed in Football?
• What does the Future holds for Football?
• How is Women’s Football Seen Compared to Men’s Football in America?
• Did UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) Disrupt Competitions in European Football Leagues?
• How does the Media Display Hooliganism in Football?
• Do Sports Performance affect the Incomes and Economic Results in Spanish Football?
• How does Stadium Atmosphere at a College Football Match Influence the Behavioral Intentions across Gender Lines?
• Football Wages: Are Wages Outrageous in Contemporary Football?
• Football’s Financial Fair Play (FFP): How “Fair” are the Regulations of the FFP?
• Does College Football Affect the Size of the University Applicants’ Admission System?
• How Far do Football Stadia take from the Old Roman Colosseum in their Provision for Spectators?
• Does the Australian Football League Draft Make Less Indigenous Australian Footballers?
• How has the NFL Evolved over the History of Football?
• Should College Athletes be given Remuneration?
• Football: How Much Does the Air Pressure Matter?
• Female Football: Should Girls Have Equal Representation?
• How Does the NCAA Get Revenue on College Football?
• Should High School Football Be Prohibited?
• Football: Why the Name “Football?”
• Should Children Be Allowed to Play Tackle Football?
• How are Useful Skills Developed by Playing Football?
• What Enhances European Football Clubs’ Stock Returns and Changes?
• How Did Marketing in Sports Changed College Football?
• What Does the Motivation of Coaches Result to in Football Players?

Making Practice Tests More Effective

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Nutrition Knowledge of Collegiate Athletes in the United States and the Impact of Sports Dietitians on Related Outcomes: A Narrative Review

Aaron j. riviere.

1 Department of Education and Human Development, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA

2 Department of Nutrition, Dietetics, and Hospitality Management, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA; ude.nrubua@6000lnr (R.L.); ude.nrubua@1400mmh (H.M.); ude.nrubua@2000bod (D.O.B.); ude.nrubua@brnagej (J.R.B.); ude.nrubua@egurf (A.D.F.)

Haleigh Mann

Samuel robinson.

3 Advent Health, Tampa, FL 33613, USA; moc.liamg@32xnosnibors

Donna O. Burnett

Jeganathan r. babu, andrew dandridge frugé, associated data.

All data are reported in Table 1 and Table 2 .

In the last decade, the number of full-time registered dietitians (RDs) serving intercollegiate athletes in the United States has more than quadrupled. However, many student athletes may be at increased risk of nutrition-related problems that impact physical and academic performance, which include inadequate macronutrients, inadequate micronutrients, and excessive macronutrients. This narrative review reports the current literature to date on nutrition-related knowledge in collegiate athletes and the impact of sports RDs on student athletes’ nutrition knowledge and behaviors. To date, only observational and quasi-experimental studies have been published with regard to changes in nutrition knowledge and behaviors in NCAA athletes. While these studies report benefits of the RD as a member of the interdisciplinary student athlete support team, more well-designed randomized control trials are warranted to determine benefits related to health outcomes and sport-specific performance outcomes.

1. Introduction

The first full-time registered dietitian (RD) was hired by an American university athletic department in 1994 [ 1 ]. The Collegiate and Professional Sports Dietitians Association (CPSDA) was chartered in 2010 to provide continuing education for and advancement of sports RDs. Since the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) deregulation of feeding in 2014, the number of sports RDs in the collegiate setting has grown exponentially to meet the new demand [ 2 ]. Over the past decade, studies have been conducted to assess nutrition needs and problems of collegiate athletes. These problems can be summarized in three categories: inadequate macronutrients, inadequate micronutrients, and excessive macronutrients.

1.1. Inadequate Macronutrition

A wide variety of nutrition-related issues commonly affect student athletes across the spectrum of body composition and type of sport. Low energy availability (EA), defined as an inadequate amount of dietary energy remaining for physiological function after exercise, is commonly seen in all categories of student athletes [ 3 ]. Low EA may arise from either an intentional or unintentional caloric deficit and is often accompanied by an athlete’s lack of knowledge about their nutrition needs. Athletes with relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S) are in prolonged states of low EA and are at increased risk for infection, illness, fatigue, and nutrient deficiencies, as well as musculoskeletal, endocrine, gastrointestinal, renal, psychological, cardiovascular, and performance detriments. Athletes present with altered hormone levels, unfavorable body composition, catabolic markers, and menstrual dysfunction in females when large energy deficits are maintained long-term [ 3 , 4 ]. Poor carbohydrate, iron, and calcium intakes are commonly observed, especially among female athletes [ 5 ]. Likewise, as many as 80% of competitively trained male endurance athletes may be at risk for low EA [ 6 ], which is accompanied by impaired athletic performance, fatigue, basal metabolic rate, mood, and higher visceral fat deposition as well as increased risk for dehydration, injury, and illness [ 7 ]. The total energy needs for female volleyball players can be as high as 2815 kcals (±306) per day, or 39 to 44 kcal/kg of body weight, to support their higher percentage of lean mass [ 8 ]. Many female athletes consciously or unconsciously restrict their intake of carbohydrate below the recommended range of 6–10 g/kg of body weight, or what is needed for the maintenance of glycogen stores [ 9 ]. It is important for proper nutrition intake to be completed so that the current energy and nutrient consumption can be assessed, and changes can be made. These methods include 24-h recalls, food frequency questionnaires, diet history, and food records. Twenty-four-hour recalls can either be completed as a single day or for multiple days. The accuracy of this method is improved by proper training and using a multi-pass system that makes sure to catch any forgotten foods and drinks. Food frequency questionnaires look at trends in usual intake instead of single days individually. These are better for addressing whole-team diet trends and may under-estimate individual differences in dietary patterns. Diet histories are conducted by trained professionals who ask about typical diet patterns and behaviors that are associated with the diet pattern. These may include clinical symptoms, sleep, supplement, lifestyle, and exercise factors that may influence or be influenced by the individual’s diet. A final way for nutrient assessment is food records. These are written journals of everything the individual eats and drinks throughout the day and can include weights of foods and more details than other methods. Food records often require training of the individual on measuring food quantities and individuals may alter diet patterns since they are more aware of diet choices and the nutrients associated with each food [ 10 ].

Eating disorders are common in athletic populations, with recent estimates indicating as many as half of all athletes in aesthetic-focused sports, such as track and field, may present with features of disordered eating [ 11 ]. The gender gap in eating disorder risk may be narrower in athletic populations than in normal populations, with as many as 19% of male college athletes presenting with symptomology of a clinically relevant eating disorder [ 12 , 13 ]. A study of 111 male student athletes found previous food insecurity was associated with disordered eating behaviors such as preoccupation with food and hiding food in athletic locker rooms [ 14 ]. Disordered eating that results in insufficient dietary intakes may be associated with additional negative physical consequences similar to RED-S and may include symptoms such as urinary incontinence in female athletes [ 15 ].

1.2. Inadequate Micronutrition

Outside of micronutrient deficiencies associated with inadequate energy intake, several micronutrients have direct correlations with athletic health and performance. Research is limited on ideal micronutrient intakes, but many micronutrients have the potential to impact sports performance if they are deficient. Thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, and pyridoxine all have important roles in energy status and metabolism within the cell. Since athletes have higher metabolic need and increased energy usage, they may see performance decrements even at subclinical levels. B12 and folic acid aid in hemoglobin formation while vitamins A, C, and E are all crucial for reducing oxidative damage. These vitamins all could decrease endurance performance if subclinical deficiencies exist [ 16 ]. Adequate iron status and fitness have been observed to yield combined positive effects on performance in classes [ 17 ]. The prevalence of iron deficiency is greater in athletes and active people, with occurrence rates in 20–50% in female athletes and 4–50% in male athletes [ 18 , 19 ]. Vitamin D deficiencies are common in student athletes, especially in indoor sports and during winter months when sun exposure is limited. Halliday et al. found that supplementation could play a role in disease prevention for college athletes. Further research may support nutrition’s role in cognition and injury prevention [ 20 ].

1.3. Excessive Macronutrition

Sport-specific events and positions, such as American football linemen and track and field throwers, attain mechanical advantages by maximizing their body size. The deliberate accumulation of large amounts of body mass, with body weights often exceeding 300 pounds, may place undue strain on the heart [ 7 , 21 , 22 ]. Several longitudinal studies have observed concentric left ventricular hypertrophy among football players, with mortality due to hypertensive heart disease and coronary artery disease increased by more than half (52%) among former football linemen [ 17 , 18 ]. Former football players with a BMI greater than 30 during their years in sport had close to double the risk of CVD mortality of other players (hazard ratio: 2.02 [95% CI, 1.06–3.85]) [ 23 ]. Other research studies have included metabolic syndrome (MetS) in order to investigate both cardiovascular risk and other factors to see the greater picture of the health of college football players. Linemen were more likely to meet MetS criteria in both high school and college settings than any other position or skill player. Higher body fat levels were also predictive of arterial blood pressure, HDL, and waist circumference [ 24 ].

Given the previously outlined nutrition-related problems in collegiate athletes, we sought to answer the following questions through this narrative review of the published literature: “Are current nutrition knowledge and practices among NCAA student athletes sufficient to meet established needs?” and “Do sports RDs positively impact nutrition knowledge and behavior in NCAA student athletes?”.

2. Materials and Methods

A narrative review process was selected due to insufficient studies examining the impact of sports dietitians on the health and performance of student athletes. The narrative review allowed for an evaluation of the limited research while showing the extensive literature base on the nutrition deficits and needs of this population. The literature search was conducted through the PUBMED and Web of Science databases by combining the keywords (dietitian AND athlete) OR (athlete AND nutrition AND knowledge) through 31 March 2021. The search results were limited to human studies that were written in English and conducted in the past ten years. The participants in the studies were required to be collegiate athletes in the United States.

3.1. Nutrition Knowledge Needs of Student Athletes

One hundred twenty-one papers and 253 papers were retrieved from the (dietitian and athlete) and (athlete and nutrition and knowledge) searches, respectively. One hundred sixty-one and 72 were excluded due to geographic location, and the remaining exclusions were due to the wrong study population and/or not an observational or interventional study. The remaining fourteen studies are presented as assessing nutrition knowledge ( Table 1 , n = 8) or reporting the efficacy of dietitians ( Table 2 , n = 6).

Summary table of articles used demonstrating nutrition knowledge of student athletes.

Summary table of articles used demonstrating efficacy of sports dietitians.

In a 2016 study by Andrews et al., 123 student athletes from a Division I (DI) university with no sports dietitian on staff completed a questionnaire to determine their sports nutrition knowledge. While a predetermined mean score of 75% represented adequate knowledge, the mean score for this group was 56.9%. Only 12 student athletes out of the group scored 75% or higher, and there were no differences by team, class level, gender, or completion of prior nutrition coursework [ 25 ]. A group of 77 male and female college-aged indoor or sitting Paralympic volleyball players were given the sports nutrition knowledge questionnaire (SNKQ) developed by Zinn, Schofield, and Wall (2005). The mean raw score on the SNKQ of this group was 40.22 ± 8.39 out of a possible 88.00, a percentile score of 46 ± 9%. No athlete made the established passing score of greater than 70% on the quiz [ 26 ].

Madrigal et al. surveyed 196 student athletes about their nutrition knowledge and regrets over past eating and drinking habits. The strongest regrets were related to diet quality and inadequate fueling. Average scores were 48% for males and 49% for females and less than 25% for questions related to supplements, all of which were below the minimum values representing adequate knowledge. There was no association between nutrition knowledge and nutrition-related regrets, suggesting that even with the knowledge that they do have, student athletes need more help with behavior change [ 27 ]. Shriver et al. assessed the dietary intakes and eating habits of NCAA DI female college athletes and found that there were several sports nutrition standards that most were not meeting. The total calorie and carbohydrate intakes were below recommended minimums ( p < 0.001), with only 9% meeting their daily energy needs and only 25% consuming the minimum amount of carbohydrate required for training. In addition, the vast majority (73%) did not eat a regular breakfast, and only 16% monitored their hydration status [ 28 ].

Brown et al.’s research suggests that football teams have a high degree of interest in working with a sports dietitian. One study assessed the nutritional needs of a DI football team who did not have an RD or training table, as well as their attitudes towards expanding the provision of nutrition services. Sixty-seven football players (90% of the team) completed a questionnaire, and their fueling and hydration strategies were noted to be insufficient for promoting optimal performance. A majority of the team (80–92%) did not comply with well-known nutrition strategies for football teams (92% did not consume a pre-game snack, 88% did not consume a pre-practice snack, 80% only drank water during exercise), and 75% reported a lack of energy during workouts. Interest in food and nutrition assistance was widespread, as 93.4% believed that they would benefit from a training table, 91% would be willing to meet with a dietitian, and 97% believed that proper nutrition would enhance their football performance [ 29 ].

In a similar study with DIII football athletes, a mean score of 55.2% on a nutrition knowledge questionnaire showed a poor understanding of nutrition. Less than half of the athletes consumed a daily fruit and vegetable while lineman had the greatest health-adverse dietary choices. Athletes that had been exposed to nutrition education through coursework had significantly higher results than the others [ 30 ].

A study of DIII student athletes at multiple universities examined energy drink consumption and nutrition knowledge, comparing these factors with GPA and team to determine the association between student athlete knowledge and practices. The results included a negative correlation between energy drink use and nutrition knowledge, and also between energy drink use and GPA [ 31 ]. Barrack et al. found that nearly half of a group of 557 NCAA DI athletes reported habitual supplement use [ 32 ]. It is estimated that 12–58% of all dietary supplements marketed for sport and exercise performance may contain ingredients prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Code (WADC) which may lead to halted sport participation [ 38 ]. Osterman et al. surveyed 307 male and female NCAA DI athletes about supplement knowledge needs, and found that athletes with the least perceived knowledge were more likely than those with greater perceived knowledge to list a question related to supplement quality or composition ( p = 0.030) [ 39 ].

3.2. Efficacy of Sports Dietitians

Few studies to date have directly assessed the efficacy of the sports RD in the collegiate setting, particularly randomized control trials with an analysis of causal relationships ( Table 2 ). Rossi et al. performed a matched control study with D1 baseball players. Participants were given a sports nutrition education intervention (SNEI) and compared to position-matched teammates. They found that intakes of kilocalories, protein, and carbohydrates increased significantly ( p < 0.001) post-nutrition intervention in the SNEI group though body weight increases were similar between groups. In the intervention group, body fat percentage decreased significantly ( p = 0.010), while the control group had a nonsignificant increase. The only performance outcome improved by the intervention was the 5-10-5 shuttle test ( p = 0.030). This study showed an overall body composition improvement and a single performance outcome improvement when implementing an off-season nutrition intervention [ 33 ].

Both coaches and athletes are often unaware of the inadequate calorie and macronutrient intakes that are common among female athletes [ 11 ]. Valliant et al. reported findings in which volleyball players received individualized nutrition education from a sports RD over a four-month period, with a focus on increasing the knowledge of types and amounts of foods specific to personal dietary needs and activity level. The athletes completed a sports nutrition knowledge survey at the beginning and end of the intervention. Data from the non-intervention period indicated that athletes did not meet the recommended energy requirement of 37–41 kcal/kg. At the start of the intervention season, the participants consumed 56% of their estimated energy needs, with a range of 25–88%. At the end of the intervention season, the average intake rose to 70% with a range of 44–95%, representing a significant improvement ( p = 0.002). The team’s average carbohydrate intake also fell short of the recommended 6–10 g/kg, with an average of 48% of estimated needs at the beginning of the intervention season, and a range of 29–76%. After the intervention, the average carbohydrate intake rose to 66% with a range of 33–101%, a significant improvement ( p = 0.010). The average protein intake at the beginning of the intervention season was 59% of the estimated needs, with a range of 16–88%; at the end, it improved significantly ( p = 0.010) to 72% of needed protein with a range of 37–102%. Nutrition knowledge improved significantly across the intervention ( p = 0.001), with every participant answering more questions accurately on the post-test than they did on the pre-test. The mean scores were 24.7 (±5.9) for the pre-test and 31.5 (±6.1) for the post-test, out of a possible 55 points [ 8 ].

In a case study of a DI track and field female athlete, nutrition counseling was shown to positively affect aspects of the female athlete triad. The athlete presented with an energy deficit and menstrual dysfunction while showing continued weight loss prior to the nutrition program. After the one-month nutrition counseling program, weight loss stopped, body fat percentage increased, and performance was not negatively impacted over a 16-month follow up period [ 34 ].

At two universities that employed sports RDs, 383 student athletes were surveyed about their sports nutrition knowledge and habits, as well as about their primary source of nutrition information. When student athletes indicated the sports RD as their primary source, they demonstrated a greater understanding of nutrition periodization (47.12% vs. 32.85%), were more likely to consume school-provided boxed meals while on team trips (21.29% vs. 6.77%) and were less likely to consume fast food while on the road (9.90% vs. 19.55%). It was also noted that female athletes tended to eat more nutritiously than male athletes—they were more likely to prepare their own meals, eat breakfast 7 days a week, and consume school-provided boxed meals while on team trips. Male athletes, on the other hand, ate more fast food and restaurant meals, and had more frequent and higher weekly alcohol intake during their competitive seasons [ 1 ].

One study investigated nutrition behaviors in NCAA DI baseball players from three universities. Two universities employed a full-time sports RD (schools 1 and 2), while a third (school 3) had no sports RD on staff. All universities had a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) on staff, who tended to serve as the primary source of nutrition information at school 3. The majority of athletes sought individual nutrition counseling at schools 1 (61%) and 2 (53%), while those who did not seek personalized assistance utilized team services. Surveys indicated significant differences in dietary habits between student athletes who worked with a sports RD and those who did not. More student athletes from schools 1 and 2 reported never consuming fast food (31% vs. 7%, p = 0.020) or soda on a weekend day (50% vs. 26%, p = 0.080). The RD groups were also more likely to take a multi-vitamin daily (56% vs. 26%, p = 0.020) and consume fast food less frequently on team trips (45% vs. 70%, p = 0.010). The group who primarily received nutrition information from a strength and conditioning coach ate more frequently at hamburger restaurants (21% vs. 6%, p = 0.020), while the schools with a sports RD were more likely to have meals pre-planned when traveling on team trips (48% vs. 13%, p = 0.010). School 3 reported sport coaches who were less aware of healthy food options for the team when traveling (42% vs. 27%, p = 0.050). Regarding nutrient timing, there were also significant differences in responses between groups. Student athletes at schools 1 and 2 found it easier to eat within 1–2 h of activity (92% vs. 67%, p = 0.030), were more likely to have a pre-workout breakfast (67% vs. 38%, p = 0.020), and were more likely to prepare three or more meals on their own each week (86% vs. 74%, p = 0.070). Overall, the availability of a sports RD was correlated with the presence of positive nutritional habits in NCAA DI baseball athletes [ 35 ].

Sports RDs do not only have the role of educating student athletes, but they also have a role in training other staff members [ 36 ]. Torres-McGehee et al. assessed nutrition knowledge in multiple staff groups as well as with student athletes. They found most collegiate coaches and athletes do not have adequate nutrition knowledge, while some athletic trainers and strength and conditioning specialists may have adequate knowledge. Since these staff groups have daily interactions with the athletes, unlike many sports RDs, the authors discussed how proper nutrition training for all of these groups by a nutrition professional could have a major impact [ 36 ]. Evidence suggests that nutrition education programs should be taught by qualified nutrition professionals in order to be effective due to extensive training and knowledge. Zuniga et al. observed that most collegiate athletes use non-nutrition professionals as their sources for nutrition information but would be interested in using mobile applications for nutrition information [ 37 ]. These apps could be designed and maintained by nutrition professionals, which would allow for daily interactions by these trained professionals and further increase the use of their services by student athletes.

4. Discussion

Current observational and quasi-experimental studies suggest that sports nutrition knowledge among NCAA collegiate athletes is poor and does not meet current recommendations [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 30 ]. These changes have the potential to decrease athletes’ risks for issues including chronic energy deficits and injury, disordered eating behaviors, and long-term metabolic and cardiovascular risks [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ]. Spronk et al. found that there is a positive correlation between nutrition knowledge and eating habits [ 40 ]. This correlation has also been shown in collegiate football players, though more populations need to be studied to assess if this is seen across all sports [ 30 ]. With this clear need for nutrition intervention, the next step is to find a solution to improve the performance and health of the athletes. Athletes often look towards their coaching and athletic staff to fill this knowledge gap. Though these staff members are experts in their respective fields, they often lack the needed nutrition knowledge to address the deficits and needs of the athletes, as shown in the systematic review by Trakman et al. [ 41 ]. A solution to this lack of nutrition expert is the addition of a sports RD. Sports RDs in the collegiate setting have increased the nutrition knowledge of student athletes, as well as improved their dietary intake [ 8 , 33 , 34 , 35 ]. As stated in the introduction, basic tasks for understanding current nutrition assessment requires trained professionals to be able to interview the athlete and properly record all foods consumed that may be missed by untrained professionals. Many institutions across collegiate and professional settings have already implemented some level of nutrition support, but there are still numerous universities that lack a nutrition professional to help their athletes. According to the Collegiate and Professional Sports Dietitians Association, 61 of the 65 Power Five schools (the five largest conferences in college athletics (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC)) have at least one sports dietitian while only 31 schools outside of the Power 5 schools have a sports dietitian on staff [ 42 ]. This means that thousands of student athletes are left without proper nutrition support. This review supports the benefit of a sports dietitian for all student athletes in order to meet their nutrition needs. Universities can start with contracting a dietitian for part time work to assess what needs are present and develop a plan for the university.

Though the general benefit of a sports RD has been shown in numerous observational studies as discussed in this review, well-designed studies are warranted to better determine the effects of the RD on nutrition knowledge, behaviors, academic performance, and sport performance. Assessment of the effect of the RD on injury risk and time to recovery may be most beneficial to universities seeking to justify the addition of one or more full-time RDs to their student athlete support staff. Many universities have introduced dining facilities, training tables, and many other nutrition-related improvements at once, so it may be difficult to identify which of these factors provides the most benefits to student athletes. More research is needed on the effect of the sports RD separate from other behaviors to determine best practices to increase their effectiveness. Though these other nutrition support options can help the athletes, a sports RD is needed on staff in order to ensure the training table is meeting each athlete’s needs and nutrition information spread through these other options, such as social media, is adequate and appropriate [ 43 ]. There has been a lack of structure for how a sports dietitian aids their athletes due to the recent creation of the position, but there have been efforts by the professionals in the field to further standardize their practice [ 44 ]. This will further increase the benefits of the sports RD on staff as well as help universities validate the position by looking at how the sports RD is benefiting similar schools and programs.

This narrative review has limitations. Current research lacks controlled studies that have properly matched control groups and other variables isolated, such as equal access to performance-optimizing food options. Other studies investigate changes in nutrition knowledge before and after a sports RD presents education material. This is often not followed up to investigate if it translates to improved eating habits or performance outcomes. There is a need for more thoroughly designed studies that evaluate hard endpoints of performance outcomes rather than simply improved knowledge since sports nutrition is focused on optimizing athletic performance as well as improving the knowledge and overall health of the athlete.

5. Conclusions

Given the well-documented nutrition risks of student athletes and the observed efficacy of the RD as a nutrition expert and facilitator of improved nutritional outcomes in this population, prospective cohort studies and clinical trials are warranted as the next step in conducting further research with more rigorous methodology. These studies can further explore the nutrition needs of student athletes and how dietitians can impact this population.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, R.L.; methodology, R.L. and A.D.F.; investigation, R.L., A.D.F., A.J.R., H.M.; writing—original draft preparation, R.L.; writing—review and editing, R.L., A.J.R., A.D.F., D.O.B., H.M., S.R., J.R.B. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Colleges adding football teams do not experience long-term enrollment or tuition advantages, study shows

Over the past two decades, numerous colleges have added football teams in a quest to add students, particularly male students, and to use the notoriety of athletics to build their brands. However, new research from UGA’s Carmical Sports Media Institute and the Louise McBee Institute of Higher Education finds that adding a football team does not give a college enrollment or tuition advantages over its peers. 

The study, “Institutional Effects of Adding Football: A Difference-in-Difference Analysis,” was published this month in the journal Research in Higher Education. Authors Welch Suggs , Alex Monday , Jennifer May-Trifiletti and James C. Hearn used a difference-in-difference analysis to compare NCAA member institutions that added football to peers that never had the sport.  

Colleges that added football saw a modest one- or two-year spike in overall enrollment around the time of adding football compared to other institutions. After that, those gains became statistically indistinguishable from other institutions. The same trend could be found in male enrollment and the enrollment of Black students. Moreover, colleges adding football never realized a statistically-significant increase in tuition revenue per student, according to the analysis.  

The study used data from the NCAA and the U.S. Department of Education to compare the fortunes of 36 football-adding colleges to their peers that did not add a football program during the same period. Much of the statistical modeling and analysis was done by Monday and May-Trifiletti, graduate students at the McBee Institute. 

“This is the closest we can come to saying, what would have happened to a college if it never added football?” said Suggs, lead author of the study and associate director of the Carmical Sports Media Institute, housed at Grady College. “It’s often said that sports is the front porch of the university. But what we’re seeing is that colleges that didn’t build that front porch are likely getting the same number of students and tuition dollars as those that recently did.” 

A particular college might well have seen an enrollment boost since adding football, but it also might have taken several other steps at the same time, such as awarding more merit scholarships or adding other activities to attract students. This study could not take these factors into account at each of the institutions under consideration.  

The findings are particularly relevant at a time when many colleges are facing significant enrollment challenges. The college-going population is shrinking and institutions are facing a particular challenge beginning in 2026 because of a decline in birth rates during the Great Recession. This study suggests that adding a football team is unlikely to give a college advantages over its competitors for increasingly scarce students.  

Evaluating the costs and benefits of adding football requires considering other factors, says Suggs. The number of high school football players nationwide has declined somewhat amid concerns about concussions and long-term impacts on health and safety, although those numbers rebounded in 2023. Football also requires much higher investments in equipment, facilities and staff than most other college sports.  

This research had its origins in a project that the co-authors completed under contract for the Council of Independent Colleges in 2020. That study had similar findings for members of the CIC. 

“As always, this study raises more questions than it answers,” Suggs said. “Football has become a big deal at many colleges that added the sport recently. What separates the ones that have prospered from the ones that haven’t? What does a successful enrollment strategy look like? What role can shifts in athletic programming play in effective adaptation to emerging challenges facing institutions?” 

The co-authors hope to employ new data and methods to explore these increasingly significant questions.  

The article’s formal citation: Suggs, W.; Monday, A.B.; May-Trifiletti, J.; and Hearn, J.C. (2024). “Institutional Effects of Adding Football: A Difference‑in‑Difference Analysis.” Research in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-024-09786-7   An unpaywalled copy can be found at https://rdcu.be/dE36O .  

For more information, please contact Welch Suggs at [email protected] and @welchsuggs on most social platforms.

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 113 great research paper topics.

General Education

One of the hardest parts of writing a research paper can be just finding a good topic to write about. Fortunately we've done the hard work for you and have compiled a list of 113 interesting research paper topics. They've been organized into ten categories and cover a wide range of subjects so you can easily find the best topic for you.

In addition to the list of good research topics, we've included advice on what makes a good research paper topic and how you can use your topic to start writing a great paper.

What Makes a Good Research Paper Topic?

Not all research paper topics are created equal, and you want to make sure you choose a great topic before you start writing. Below are the three most important factors to consider to make sure you choose the best research paper topics.

#1: It's Something You're Interested In

A paper is always easier to write if you're interested in the topic, and you'll be more motivated to do in-depth research and write a paper that really covers the entire subject. Even if a certain research paper topic is getting a lot of buzz right now or other people seem interested in writing about it, don't feel tempted to make it your topic unless you genuinely have some sort of interest in it as well.

#2: There's Enough Information to Write a Paper

Even if you come up with the absolute best research paper topic and you're so excited to write about it, you won't be able to produce a good paper if there isn't enough research about the topic. This can happen for very specific or specialized topics, as well as topics that are too new to have enough research done on them at the moment. Easy research paper topics will always be topics with enough information to write a full-length paper.

Trying to write a research paper on a topic that doesn't have much research on it is incredibly hard, so before you decide on a topic, do a bit of preliminary searching and make sure you'll have all the information you need to write your paper.

#3: It Fits Your Teacher's Guidelines

Don't get so carried away looking at lists of research paper topics that you forget any requirements or restrictions your teacher may have put on research topic ideas. If you're writing a research paper on a health-related topic, deciding to write about the impact of rap on the music scene probably won't be allowed, but there may be some sort of leeway. For example, if you're really interested in current events but your teacher wants you to write a research paper on a history topic, you may be able to choose a topic that fits both categories, like exploring the relationship between the US and North Korea. No matter what, always get your research paper topic approved by your teacher first before you begin writing.

113 Good Research Paper Topics

Below are 113 good research topics to help you get you started on your paper. We've organized them into ten categories to make it easier to find the type of research paper topics you're looking for.

Arts/Culture

• Discuss the main differences in art from the Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance .
• Analyze the impact a famous artist had on the world.
• How is sexism portrayed in different types of media (music, film, video games, etc.)? Has the amount/type of sexism changed over the years?
• How has the music of slaves brought over from Africa shaped modern American music?
• How has rap music evolved in the past decade?
• How has the portrayal of minorities in the media changed?

Current Events

• What have been the impacts of China's one child policy?
• How have the goals of feminists changed over the decades?
• How has the Trump presidency changed international relations?
• Analyze the history of the relationship between the United States and North Korea.
• What factors contributed to the current decline in the rate of unemployment?
• What have been the impacts of states which have increased their minimum wage?
• How do US immigration laws compare to immigration laws of other countries?
• How have the US's immigration laws changed in the past few years/decades?
• How has the Black Lives Matter movement affected discussions and view about racism in the US?
• What impact has the Affordable Care Act had on healthcare in the US?
• What factors contributed to the UK deciding to leave the EU (Brexit)?
• What factors contributed to China becoming an economic power?
• Discuss the history of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies  (some of which tokenize the S&P 500 Index on the blockchain) .
• Do students in schools that eliminate grades do better in college and their careers?
• Do students from wealthier backgrounds score higher on standardized tests?
• Do students who receive free meals at school get higher grades compared to when they weren't receiving a free meal?
• Do students who attend charter schools score higher on standardized tests than students in public schools?
• Do students learn better in same-sex classrooms?
• How does giving each student access to an iPad or laptop affect their studies?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Montessori Method ?
• Do children who attend preschool do better in school later on?
• What was the impact of the No Child Left Behind act?
• How does the US education system compare to education systems in other countries?
• What impact does mandatory physical education classes have on students' health?
• Which methods are most effective at reducing bullying in schools?
• Do homeschoolers who attend college do as well as students who attended traditional schools?
• Does offering tenure increase or decrease quality of teaching?
• How does college debt affect future life choices of students?
• Should graduate students be able to form unions?

• What are different ways to lower gun-related deaths in the US?
• How and why have divorce rates changed over time?
• Is affirmative action still necessary in education and/or the workplace?
• Should physician-assisted suicide be legal?
• How has stem cell research impacted the medical field?
• How can human trafficking be reduced in the United States/world?
• Should people be able to donate organs in exchange for money?
• Which types of juvenile punishment have proven most effective at preventing future crimes?
• Has the increase in US airport security made passengers safer?
• Analyze the immigration policies of certain countries and how they are similar and different from one another.
• Several states have legalized recreational marijuana. What positive and negative impacts have they experienced as a result?
• Do tariffs increase the number of domestic jobs?
• Which prison reforms have proven most effective?
• Should governments be able to censor certain information on the internet?
• Which methods/programs have been most effective at reducing teen pregnancy?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Keto diet?
• How effective are different exercise regimes for losing weight and maintaining weight loss?
• How do the healthcare plans of various countries differ from each other?
• What are the most effective ways to treat depression ?
• What are the pros and cons of genetically modified foods?
• Which methods are most effective for improving memory?
• What can be done to lower healthcare costs in the US?
• What factors contributed to the current opioid crisis?
• Analyze the history and impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic .
• Are low-carbohydrate or low-fat diets more effective for weight loss?
• How much exercise should the average adult be getting each week?
• Which methods are most effective to get parents to vaccinate their children?
• What are the pros and cons of clean needle programs?
• How does stress affect the body?
• Discuss the history of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
• What were the causes and effects of the Salem Witch Trials?
• Who was responsible for the Iran-Contra situation?
• How has New Orleans and the government's response to natural disasters changed since Hurricane Katrina?
• What events led to the fall of the Roman Empire?
• What were the impacts of British rule in India ?
• Was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki necessary?
• What were the successes and failures of the women's suffrage movement in the United States?
• What were the causes of the Civil War?
• How did Abraham Lincoln's assassination impact the country and reconstruction after the Civil War?
• Which factors contributed to the colonies winning the American Revolution?
• What caused Hitler's rise to power?
• Discuss how a specific invention impacted history.
• What led to Cleopatra's fall as ruler of Egypt?
• How has Japan changed and evolved over the centuries?
• What were the causes of the Rwandan genocide ?

• Why did Martin Luther decide to split with the Catholic Church?
• Analyze the history and impact of a well-known cult (Jonestown, Manson family, etc.)
• How did the sexual abuse scandal impact how people view the Catholic Church?
• How has the Catholic church's power changed over the past decades/centuries?
• What are the causes behind the rise in atheism/ agnosticism in the United States?
• What were the influences in Siddhartha's life resulted in him becoming the Buddha?
• How has media portrayal of Islam/Muslims changed since September 11th?

Science/Environment

• How has the earth's climate changed in the past few decades?
• How has the use and elimination of DDT affected bird populations in the US?
• Analyze how the number and severity of natural disasters have increased in the past few decades.
• Analyze deforestation rates in a certain area or globally over a period of time.
• How have past oil spills changed regulations and cleanup methods?
• How has the Flint water crisis changed water regulation safety?
• What are the pros and cons of fracking?
• What impact has the Paris Climate Agreement had so far?
• What have NASA's biggest successes and failures been?
• How can we improve access to clean water around the world?
• Does ecotourism actually have a positive impact on the environment?
• Should the US rely on nuclear energy more?
• What can be done to save amphibian species currently at risk of extinction?
• What impact has climate change had on coral reefs?
• How are black holes created?
• Are teens who spend more time on social media more likely to suffer anxiety and/or depression?
• How will the loss of net neutrality affect internet users?
• Analyze the history and progress of self-driving vehicles.
• How has the use of drones changed surveillance and warfare methods?
• Has social media made people more or less connected?
• What progress has currently been made with artificial intelligence ?
• Do smartphones increase or decrease workplace productivity?
• What are the most effective ways to use technology in the classroom?
• How is Google search affecting our intelligence?
• When is the best age for a child to begin owning a smartphone?
• Has frequent texting reduced teen literacy rates?

How to Write a Great Research Paper

Even great research paper topics won't give you a great research paper if you don't hone your topic before and during the writing process. Follow these three tips to turn good research paper topics into great papers.

#1: Figure Out Your Thesis Early

Before you start writing a single word of your paper, you first need to know what your thesis will be. Your thesis is a statement that explains what you intend to prove/show in your paper. Every sentence in your research paper will relate back to your thesis, so you don't want to start writing without it!

As some examples, if you're writing a research paper on if students learn better in same-sex classrooms, your thesis might be "Research has shown that elementary-age students in same-sex classrooms score higher on standardized tests and report feeling more comfortable in the classroom."

If you're writing a paper on the causes of the Civil War, your thesis might be "While the dispute between the North and South over slavery is the most well-known cause of the Civil War, other key causes include differences in the economies of the North and South, states' rights, and territorial expansion."

#2: Back Every Statement Up With Research

Remember, this is a research paper you're writing, so you'll need to use lots of research to make your points. Every statement you give must be backed up with research, properly cited the way your teacher requested. You're allowed to include opinions of your own, but they must also be supported by the research you give.

#3: Do Your Research Before You Begin Writing

You don't want to start writing your research paper and then learn that there isn't enough research to back up the points you're making, or, even worse, that the research contradicts the points you're trying to make!

Get most of your research on your good research topics done before you begin writing. Then use the research you've collected to create a rough outline of what your paper will cover and the key points you're going to make. This will help keep your paper clear and organized, and it'll ensure you have enough research to produce a strong paper.

What's Next?

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Want to know the fastest and easiest ways to convert between Fahrenheit and Celsius? We've got you covered! Check out our guide to the best ways to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit (or vice versa).

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Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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Most Americans don’t closely follow professional or college sports

Roughly 115 million people watched the Super Bowl in 2023, making it the most widely viewed U.S.-based telecast in history. Large numbers of Americans also watch or attend college sports. In August, for example, more than 92,000 people attended an outdoor women’s volleyball match in Nebraska – breaking the attendance record for any women’s sporting event in the United States.

Yet for all the fanfare surrounding professional and college sports, most Americans do not closely follow or often talk about them, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

Pew Research Center conducted this study to explore sports fandom in the United States and the reasons why Americans do or don’t follow sports.

This analysis is based on a survey of 11,945 U.S. adults conducted Aug. 7-27, 2023. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. Address-based sampling ensures that nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the  ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and the  survey methodology .

About six-in-ten Americans (62%) say they follow professional or college sports not too or not at all closely. Another 21% say they follow sports somewhat closely, while just 16% follow them extremely or very closely, according to the August survey of 11,945 U.S. adults.

Sports also aren’t an especially frequent topic of conversation for most Americans – whether that’s in person, by text, online or some other way. Some 63% of U.S. adults say they talk about sports with other people a few times a month or less often. Another 26% say they talk about sports once a week or a few times a week, and 10% say they talk about sports once a day or several times a day.

Adults under 50, women and people in lower-income households are among the demographic groups most likely to say they follow sports not too or not at all closely. Women and those in lower-income households are also among the groups most likely to talk about sports less often than once a week.

Among the other key takeaways from the survey:

• When asked how many sports they follow, the largest share of Americans (39%) say they don’t follow any sports. Smaller shares say they follow one (18%), two (22%), three (11%), or four or more sports (9%).
• By a large margin (51% vs. 5%), Americans believe sports get too much attention in society today, rather than too little, while 43% say they get about the right amount of attention.

Why most Americans don’t closely follow sports

When given a list of possible reasons why they don’t follow sports, the most common one that people choose is lack of interest. About seven-in-ten adults who don’t closely follow sports (69%) say this is a major reason why. Another 17% cite this as a minor reason, while 13% say it’s not a reason.

The next-most common major reasons for not following sports closely – each cited by 26% – are that sports are boring and that there’s too much money involved in sports.

Just 13% of Americans who don’t follow sports closely say a major reason why is that sports are too political. Though people in both political parties are equally likely not to follow sports, Republicans and those who lean toward the Republican Party are more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to say this is a major reason why (22% vs. 5%).

Small shares also say that a major reason why they don’t closely follow sports is that some sports are too violent (9%) or that they don’t like the competitive nature of sports (4%).

There are some age differences in the reasons Americans cite for not following sports. Among those who don’t closely follow sports, adults ages 18 to 29 are more likely than those 65 and older to say they’re just not interested (76% vs. 65%) or that they find sports boring (35% vs. 21%). On the other hand, older adults who don’t closely follow sports are more likely than younger adults to say there is too much money in sports (by 22 percentage points), sports are too political (9 points), or some sports are too violent (8 points).

Why some Americans closely follow sports

Among the smaller group of Americans who follow sports extremely, very or somewhat closely, 71% say a major reason why is to cheer for a specific team or teams. A similar share (69%) says a major reason is to be entertained.

Much smaller shares say a major reason why they follow sports is to cheer for specific players (32%), because someone in their family follows sports (23%), or to be part of a community (13%). Just 4% say a major reason is because they bet on sports. A separate Center survey from 2022 found that about one-in-five Americans had bet money on sports in the previous 12 months.

Again, some age differences emerge in the reasons people give for following sports.

Adults ages 18 to 29 are much more likely than those 65 and older to say a major reason they follow sports is because someone in their family does (38% vs. 16%). Younger adults are also 9 percentage points more likely than older adults to say they follow sports to cheer for specific players , but by the same margin, older adults are more likely than their younger counterparts to follow sports to cheer for specific teams .

Who are sports ‘superfans’?

A small subset of Americans are what might be called “superfans.” These fans say they follow sports extremely or very closely and talk about sports at least daily. Only 7% of U.S. adults fall into this category.

Men are about three times as likely as women to be superfans (10% vs. 3%), but there are no differences by age, race or ethnicity, or education level.

Superfans and more casual fans cite similar reasons for following sports. As is the case among more casual fans, the top two major reasons superfans cite for following sports are to cheer for a specific team or teams (84%) and to be entertained (84%). (Casual fans include those who follow sports at least somewhat closely but are not superfans.)

However, superfans are more likely than casual fans to cite nearly every reason asked about in the survey. The reason that produces the largest gap between superfans and casual fans is cheering for a specific player or players: Half of superfans cite this as a major reason why they follow sports, compared with about three-in-ten more casual fans (29%).

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and the  survey methodology .

• Entertainment

Jenn Hatfield is a writer/editor at Pew Research Center

Ted Van Green is a research analyst focusing on U.S. politics and policy at Pew Research Center

5 facts about Americans and sports

By a wide margin, americans say football – not baseball – is ‘america’s sport’, teens and internet, device access fact sheet, true crime podcasts are popular in the u.s., particularly among women and those with less formal education, a profile of the top-ranked podcasts in the u.s., most popular.

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