The Madness Behind March Madness
The 2024 Division I men’s basketball tournament begins today.
Millions of Americans will take a three-week holiday from reality and immerse themselves in the mythology of a product that has been skillfully and aggressively marketed into a cultural jewel.
We will cheer, celebrate, commiserate, text, and, of course, bet.
Yet not many fans understand how and why the Division I men’s basketball tournament became one of the most popular and lucrative sports products in American history.
In our inaugural Deep Dive series, we explore the tournament’s history and its crucial role in the overall college sports business and regulatory models.
As with most things in college sports, mythology masks reality.
While Power 5 football is primarily responsible for the structure and allocation of power within the contemporary business model of big-time college sports, big-time men’s basketball pays for the entire NCAA bureaucratic state.
Big-time football doesn’t contribute a penny of revenue to the NCAA.
Why is that?
Here are some of the ways the NCAA spends the money generated by elite Division I men’s basketball players:
A. Lavish salaries to NCAA “key” executives and funds NCAA private jets, high-end “conferencing” hotel and meal expenses, and non-qualified deferred compensation benefits and “golden parachutes” for former employees.
B. Costs for every national championship event in every division and every sport (except big-time football’s College Football Playoff); a total of ninety championship events. Of these championships, ninety-five percent lose money.
C. Block grants to Division II and Division III totaling a combined seventy-five million dollars. Divisions II and III have no products that generate net revenue. They contribute nothing to the NCAA’s bottom line.
D. Legal costs (fees, expenses, and settlements) through two decades of litigation challenging NCAA amateurism-based compensation limits, notably White v NCAA, O’Bannon V. NCAA, and Alston v NCAA. So far, the tab for these costs exceeds half a billion dollars.
The NCAA and Power 5 football interests have masterfully manipulated public messaging to disguise these inconvenient facts and Power 5 footballs free ride.
History informs why these dysfunctional dynamics exist.
There are multiple, interconnected threads that explain how the Division I men’s basketball tournament became a pillar of college sports regulatory and business models.
The tournament’s journey from a niche college sports product in the 1930s to one of the most iconic sports products in history is a compelling story full of surprises, ironies, perceived betrayals, and, as always, commercial greed.
In the next Deep Dives, we will explain important milestone events—some seemingly unrelated to college basketball—that have shaped what we now know as “March Madness”:
1. The Board of Regents litigation in the 1980s.
2. How Board of Regents fundamentally altered college sports’ financial and regulatory models.
3. Fortuitous college basketball milestones that paved the way for the growth of the men’s basketball product and market.
4. The NCAA’s aggressive, purposeful marketing and branding of the men’s basketball tournament.
5. The NCAA’s ruthless acquisition of a monopoly over all college post-season basketball products and intellectual property.
6. The NCAA’s use of long-term tournament contracts with CBS and Turner to preserve the NCAA administrative state (and the consequences of those contracts for women’s basketball).
7. What might Division I basketball tournaments (men’s and women’s) look like outside NCAA control?
As we settle into our tournament rhythms and rituals tonight, we will be flooded with the lingo and feel-good themes that fuel our connection to the tournament(s)
“March Madness,” “The Big Dance,” “The Road To….,” “68 Teams, One Dream,” “the “First Four,” the “Final Four,” “Four it All,” “Final Four Friday,” “Sweet Sixteen,” “Elite Eight,” “And then There Were Eight,” “March Madness Experience,” “March is On.”
In addition to the tried-and-true “Cinderella” narratives, these phrases will inspire goosebumps, nostalgia, and hope.
Just remember, all are registered trademarks owned by the NCAA. The NCAA has made billions of dollars selling rights to the tournament and its ancillary intellectual property.
Pass the nachos!
