Office Hours: Is the NCAA Transfer Portal a Broken Labor Market? 

The NCAA transfer portal and Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) compensation have rapidly transformed college athletics, especially in men’s basketball. With constant roster turnover and players moving more freely between programs, many fans are struggling to understand the new landscape.

But according to Brooks Holtom, professor of management at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, the transfer portal is functioning much like a modern labor market. Drawing on decades of workforce turnover research, Holtom explains why player movement is often predictable, and why the same forces shaping employee mobility are now reshaping college sports.

Why are so many college basketball players entering the transfer portal?

The common assumption is that players transfer because they’re unhappy; maybe they want more playing time, a different role, or to join a team with a winning record. That’s certainly part of it, but it’s only half the story.

Research on workforce turnover shows that people usually leave because of a combination of “push” and “pull” factors. Push factors include dissatisfaction or lack of opportunity. Pull factors are attractive alternatives, such as better compensation, greater visibility, or stronger career opportunities.

That same dynamic is now playing out in college basketball. Some players transfer because they aren’t playing enough. Others transfer because another program offers more NIL opportunities, better exposure, or a clearer path to professional basketball. Increasingly, player movement is driven not just by dissatisfaction but by optimization.

Can player movement actually be predicted?

Yes, at least to a degree. If the transfer portal operates like a labor market, then we should be able to model it similarly to how organizations predict employee turnover. That’s the idea behind what I call the Transfer Risk Score, or TRS. It estimates how likely a player is to transfer based on several observable factors:

• Role and usage: Minutes played, depth chart position, and role clarity
• Performance and demand: Efficiency, production, and NBA or NIL potential
• History: Prior transfers and patterns of short tenure
• Context: Coaching changes, team success, and program stability

What’s interesting is that the players most likely to transfer are not always the most frustrated. Often, they’re the players whose market value is rising the fastest.

Why are successful programs still losing players?

Traditionally, we assumed winning programs would naturally retain talent because players would want stability and success. But success can actually increase transfer risk.

When players perform well at smaller or mid-major programs, they become more visible to larger schools with bigger NIL resources, national exposure, and stronger professional pipelines. Winning can increase a player’s value in the marketplace.

Coaching changes can also accelerate movement. What looks surprising from the outside is often a predictable response to incentives and opportunity.

What does this mean for the future of college athletics?

College athletics is increasingly behaving like a professional labor market. Coaches now have to think not only about recruiting talent but also about retention, risk forecasting, and understanding what motivates player movement.

In the corporate world, organizations use predictive tools to identify employees who may leave. College sports are moving in that same direction. The transfer portal may feel disruptive because it’s new, but the underlying behavior is familiar. Player movement is not random; it follows patterns shaped by opportunity, incentives, and market dynamics.