Broken Secrets

March Madness Teams are Paid for Performance

March 25, 2011 at 2:00 am Broken Secrets 2 comments

By Kaye Nemec

For the most part NCAA tournaments are money making events – for the NCAA. But the Division 1 Men’s Basketball Tournament is actually the only NCAA tournament that gives all of its revenue back to the schools that participate. Although millions of dollars in revenue from the BCS Football Championship are given back to the schools and conferences involved, it is important to note that the BCS Football championship is not an NCAA event. In fact, it is the only NCAA sport that does not have an annual NCAA sanctioned championship event.

Back to basketball. The T.V. contract for March Madness brings in billions of dollars and that money is divided up among the participating schools as follows:

1/6 of the money is given to the schools based on how many different sports they play.

• A division 1 school must play 14 sports in order to qualify for Div.1 status.
• They are given one share of money for each sport starting with 14.

1/3 of the money is given based on how many scholarships each school awards.

• 1 share for each of the first 50 scholarships.
• 2 shares for each of the next 50.
• 10 for each of the next 50.
• 20 for all scholarships after the first 150.

½ of the total money is divided among each of the participating conferences based on how well they each did in the previous six tournaments.

• 1 share for each team getting into the tournament.
• 1 share for each win outside of the Final Four.

In the past five tournaments, $409 million dollars were awarded to participating teams and conferences. The U.S. Secretary of Education and the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics is proposing a change in profit division to better reward academic accomplishment. Of the $409 million, 44 percent of that money was awarded to schools that are on track to graduate less than 50 percent of their players.

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Sources: Wikipedia, Knight Commission of Intercollegiate Athletics

Photo: Kevin H.

Entry filed under: Demystified. Tags: basketball, march madness, ncaa, profit, sports.