Initial Match and Career Outcomes: Evidence from the NFL Draft

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the impact of the initial employer-employee match on future career outcomes. To avoid potential endogeneity problems due to the matching process, we exploit the NFL draft, which is the mechanism used to allocate new players to teams in professional football. The draft rules create exogenous variation in team quality among similar ability players. By leveraging these discontinuities, we can identify the effects of the initial match on the career outcomes of drafted players. We examine multiple performance measures and find no substantial effect of the quality of the team drafting the player on their career outcomes. Our findings suggest that the market is able to correct any inefficiency in the initial match, resulting in no discernible effects on long-run player performance.