Comparative Sports: The Big Business of NCAA College Basketball

While the bulk of my blog is about soccer statistics, I've routinely maintained that they are only a method to better understand the beautiful game. In my recreational reading, I often focus on another aspect of soccer and sports in general - the culture in which they exist today and the culture that has affected their success or failure over the years. Understanding sports culture - both inherent to the game itself and the wider national or international culture in which it operates - helps us better understand the rules, conventions, strategies, and opinions that permeate the game. To divorce the manmade creation of sport from the culture that created it and maintains it is to miss a major element of the sport itself.

One of the more interesting contrasts in worldwide sports is the realm of college athletics - so dominant in America but non-existant elsewhere in the world.  Gaming the World does an excellent job of providing a historical perspective to the rise of college athletics in the United States, and none is bigger than college basketball.  College basketball's national championship game is tonight, which will be contested by Butler and the University of Connecticut.  It is the culmination of nearly three weeks of a basketball orgy where every game is win-or-go-home.   I plan on watching the game, as will nearly 50 million people in the United States with a median viewing household income of $75,000 or more.  That's a lot of potential customers, and as such there is a ton of money involved in the tournament.

For a great summary of the money involved view the video below, and then check out this fact sheet. The video provides an excellent commentary put together by the PBS program Frontline, and includes interviews with NCAA President Mark Emmert, the man responsible for Nike being so intertwined with college athletics (Sonny Vaccaro), and numerous other key figures including former players now seeking a cut of the financial action. I'd highly encourage readers to let the video player go through all the chapters to get a full picture of what's involved in college basketball and March Madness before reading the rest of my blog entry.

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Some of the highlights from the video include:

• 90% of NCAA revenue (that's the revenue for the governing body, not the individual schools) comes from the college basketball tournament. That begs the question - if a basketball tournament can generate such revenue, why hasn't college football gone to such a tournament to determine its champion and generate similar revenue?
• The basketball tournament's current television contract is for $10.8 billion (yes, billion) over 10 years.
• 16 teams in this year's tournament have a graduation rate of less than 50%. Very few reach a graduation rate of 100%. This reminds me of a phrase a former collegiate swimmer friend of mine uses - there are "student athletes" and then there are "athlete students". It appears the major sports have many more of the latter.
• NCAA President Mark Emmert refers to the athletes as "pre-professionals", whereas critics recognize that college athletics are professional if every regard but one - the athletes aren't paid a dime.
• The fact that even after college athletes have forfeited their amateur status - either in becoming a professional athlete for being paid for some other professional job - they are still denied any compensation for their likeness due to the contract they're required to sign. DVD's full of highlights and video games with an athlete's signature moves make millions for the NCAA and manufacturers of such content, but former stars never see a cent.

To be honest, I find the idea of amateur athletics in college to be a bit of a sham.  The reality is that lots of people are getting rich on the backs of these athletes, while the athletes get a shoddy education and often never earn a degree. During those years in college they've lost several years of real earnings, and are one significant injury away from never making a dime from their talents. Beyond shortchanging the athletes, the conflicts of interest, continual ethics violations by coaches and athletic department staff, and pitifully low standards of "student" athletes compromises the core mission of the university which is to educate students.

On the opposite side, college athletics has evolved for more than 100 years in the United States and their big business nature is due to that gradual evolution.  College athletics prominence grew out of a time when professional athletics wasn't a realistic option for most athletes.  The penultimate level of athletics through the 1950's, outside of baseball, was the college game.  By the 50's and 60's the emergence of the NFL as the top football league and the ascendancy of the NBA heralded an era where three major professional leagues competed for athletes and consumer dollars.  At the same time, the two newer leagues did not have a minor league system like baseball and continued to rely on colleges to develop players for them.  Given that colleges provide the only permanent sports attachment for rural areas, and increasingly for urban areas when leagues relocate their professional franchises, it should be no surprise that college teams remain as popular as they do today.

For two-and-a-half hours tonight I will forget about the wider cultural context of the event, and root for the underdog Butler Bulldogs (apologies to any Connecticut fans!).  But to understand the pressure of the event, as well as the pre- and post-game pageantry full of corporate sponsorships, requires an understanding of the finances and history that surround it.