Influence of the Transfer Portal On Player Retention vs Player Acquisition

The transfer portal has changed the landscape of college sports tremendously. Student-athletes now have more freedom when it comes to finding the right environment for them.

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“The Transfer Portal was created as a compliance tool to systematically manage the transfer process from start to finish, add more transparency to the process among schools and empower student-athletes to make known their desire to consider other programs.” – “What the NCAA Transfer Portal Is And What It Isn’t” by Greg Johnson of NCAA Champion Magazine.

Because of the change to an athlete empowering process, things have really changed for college coaches as well. In the past, college coaches were able to focus more on player acquisition and a bit less on retention. But the scale is starting to tip in the other direction as we see athletes all over the country taking advantage of the new system.

However, as of the time that this is being written, there are no metrics that we can find that indicate student-athlete retention rates for schools, coaches, and athletic programs. But according to a study done by NCAA.com “13% of current Division I student-athletes transferred from another school.”

With the landscape of college sports continuing to change with the NIL as well as the transfer portal, the effort that a coach needs to put in to make sure that his or her athletes are happy where they are increases a little more each day.