What is an “NCAA-Certified” Recruiting Service?

Some athletic recruiting services promote themselves as “NCAA-Certified” services. So, what does it mean to be “NCAA-Certified?”

The NCAA certifies recruiting services ONLY if they are going to be used by the basketball and football programs at a Division I university. Those two sports can’t use a recruiting or scouting service unless it’s been expressly approved by the NCAA.

There are conditions that all recruiting services are supposed to follow if they want NCAA sports programs to subscribe to their services. To satisfy those conditions, recruiting services are required to:

• Be available to all universities that choose to subscribe and at the same fee charged to all subscribers.

• Provide information about each recruit in a standardized format that ensures the same information is provided to all subscribers.

• Live phone reports, discussions, or individualized email or text messages don’t satisfy the above requirement.

However, in sports other than Division I basketball and football, those services aren’t certified with a “stamp of approval” as they must be for basketball and football.

The bottom line – buyer beware when it comes to signing up with a recruiting service.

For more information about recruiting issues, visit the Recruiting Rules section on our website.