... 2. We make loads of money…
The players may be amateurs, but the NCAA men's basketball tournament is big business – second only to the Super Bowl in terms of ad sales for a postseason sporting event. A thirty-second commercial during one of the last two rounds of the tournament costs around $1.2 million, far more than a $440,0000 spot during the World Series, and more than three times the cost of an ad during the NBA championship, according to Kantar Media, a research firm....
All that ad revenue also translates to big bucks for the NCAA, which last year reached a new 14-year deal for the TV rights to the tournament with CBS and Turner Broadcasting System for $10.8 billion, or about $771 million a year....
3. …but not for your alma mater.
March Madness may make billions, but for most colleges it doesn't provide nearly enough cash to cover the rapidly escalating costs of running a first-class athletics program. In the 2008-2009 school year, only 13 Division I-A sports programs were in the black, according to research by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP). The few financial winners include a handful of this year's tournament participants, including the University of Georgia ($1.8 million in earnings), Purdue ($2.3 million), University of Michigan ($10.6 million) and Texas A&M ($15.8 million). But most schools' athletics programs are actually a major drain on the school's finances. For example, the athletics program at the University of Houston lost $19.8 million in the 2008-2009 fiscal year, SUNY Buffalo (-$20.2 million)...
So who pays for big-time money losers? Student fees, says Richard Vedder, a professor of economics at Ohio University and the director of CCAP. The average Division I-A program needed $3.4 million in student fees in fiscal year 2009; in the Big 10 Conference, the average student fee subsidy was $383,000, and in the Mid-American Conference the average subsidy was $6.7 million. And because the NCAA's spoils go largely to the winners, students at schools with losing programs end up paying more in fees...
4. We're why college is getting so expensive.
At many schools, spending on sports is growing twice or three times as fast as spending on academics, according to the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. Much of the growth is due to coaching staff salaries, which account for a third of overall sports program budgets at the average university or college, says Amy Perko, the Knight Commission's executive director. Division IA football coaches' salaries rose an astounding 46% from 2006 to 2009, to $1.4 million, according to the Knight Commission. And men's basketball coaches aren't too far behind...
Not only are coaches' salaries rising, the number of people on the payroll is growing, despite official NCAA rules that allow only three assistant coaches, Perko says....
...10. You're right – the ref is biased.
In college basketball, home teams win 69% of games – and the home-team advantage is nearly as strong in the NBA, where home teams win 63% of the time and nearly 99% of teams perform better at home than they do on the road, according to research by Moskowitz and Wertheim. The reason? Something many fans suspect, but Moskowitz and Wertheim say they have managed to statistically prove: referee bias....
Read more: 10 Things NCAA Basketball Won't Tell You - SmartMoney.com
https://www.smartmoney.com/personal...ll-wont-tell-you-1300486798956/#ixzz1HFQKo2df
