I was wondering.  

Team A is recruiting a player 50 miles away:  spends $3000 and gets 10 Evals and 2 home vome visits.

Team B recruits the same player at a distance of 300 miles:  spends $4000 and gets 9 Evals and 1 home visit.

Which team has the advantage, the team who spent more or the team that got more value for his buck?

I was inder the impression that outspending was the key but I don't think it is ??????????????????????

Its all about the total effort, not the total money spent. In your example, Team A has put in more effort regardless of the money spent so as long as prestige is equal Team A has a clear advantage.

The team that gets more value, that's why it's easier to recruit players closer to you.

And if you look carefully, you'll notice that the different recruiting tools don't change cost at the same rates.

So, two schools that are both 500 miles away can spend the same amount of money, but one can end up with significantly greater recruiting effort depending on how they spend that money.

yup, its all about the credit. each tool is worth a certain amount of credit, that doesn't change depending how many you give, and that is what determines who wins. for example, if an eval was 1 point, a home visit was 2, and a campus visit was 3 (its not), and one guy spent 20K and got 40 evals (40 points), and the other spent 9k and got 30 home visits (60 points), the guy who spent 9k would win by a huge margin. those $ amounts are reasonable at a distance of 400 miles vs 10 miles, and actually the home/eval difference is more than 2:1 (which means my example is less extreme than reality), so you can see how much distance and picking the right tool can outweigh how much you spend, drastically.