A new National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) study reveals that while an Ivy League degree provides an entry point to Wall Street, college sports teams form the actual pipeline for hiring.
Researchers tracked 120,306 Ivy League graduates (1950–2020) to measure how specific social ties influence top-tier job placement in finance, insurance, and consulting.
The "Teammate Multiplier" Effect
The study demonstrates that broad institutional ties matter far less than intensive, shared sports experiences:
Same University Only: Sharing a school with employees increases hiring odds by 4.6%.
Same Sport, Different School: Sharing a sport (e.g., Brown rugby player to Harvard rugby alum) increases odds by 16.4%.
Same Team & School (Former Teammates): Having just one former teammate at a firm increases hiring odds by 193.7% (nearly tripling the odds).
Same Team, Different Era (Alumni Network): Older team alumni who never played concurrently with the candidate still boost hiring odds by 171.9%.
"If anything, I think the old boys’ club looks less like a club and more like a roster."
— Sachin Srivastava, study co-author and Wharton PhD candidate
Why Teammates Boost Hiring
Co-author Paul Gompers (Harvard Business School) highlights two distinct mechanisms driving these numbers:
Direct Pipeline (Recent Teammates): Immediate peers provide direct referrals, inside tips, and active networking support.
Reputational Bias (Older Alumni): Senior leaders who played the same sport view candidates through a lens of shared discipline, goal-setting, and resilience, shaping how recruiters evaluate applicants.
Wall Street & Extracurricular Gatekeeping
While Ivy League athletes made up roughly 5% of the total sample, they secured 7.08% of all entry-level finance roles.
Top Athlete Employers: Morgan Stanley, Bank of America
Top Overall Ivy Employers: Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, McKinsey, Bain
Notable Examples
Many high-profile business leaders attribute their career trajectories to elite college athletics:
Brian Moynihan (Bank of America CEO) – Rugby at Brown University
Brian Roberts (Comcast CEO) – Squash at UPenn