For many sports fans, March Madness is the premiere sporting event of the year. A six week slog of nonstop, wall to wall college basketball. Between that first Thursday and Sunday, itâs a whopping 36 basketball games in four days. There is a reason many men strategically schedule vasectomies for the Wednesday prior to the first round, so they can spend the next four days laid up on the couch watching hoops, not thinking about how much their balls hurt. Simply put for college hoops fans, gamblers, and advertisers alike its pure bliss.
It is such an institution that the cancelling of last years tournament signaled to many sport fans the severity of the pandemic. Much like the Super Bowl, most people felt there was simply no way that the NCAA would cancel the tournament short of alien invasion or nuclear apocalypse. And yet, there was no 2020 March Madness champion and the world didnât fall off itâs axis. Still, the spring felt undeniably different without the tournament. Much like how geese instinctively fly south at the beginning of spring, during the last weekend in March my ass and liver instinctively prepare themselves for 12 hours of sitting on the couch and drinking a bakers dozen light beers. And last year that natural rhythm was thrown off kilter.
I will admit that I am only a casual college hoops fan. I didnât go to a college with a Division 1 college hoops team, so I have no real dog in the fight. My only interest lies in the fact that college basketball is the most important talent pipeline to the NBA, so itâs a chance for me to get a first look at the top NBA draft prospects. Itâs the closest thing we have to an NBA minor league, so as an NBA fan I feel compelled to at least keep up.
That and I, like millions of others, religiously fill out a tournament bracket each year. Filling out the bracket is easily the most fun part about the tournament. Even the most casual fan fills out a bracket. The utter chaos and unpredictability of the tournament doesnât require any prior knowledge about basketball in order to fill it out correctly; it might as well be random. For a math class in college I used the digits of pi to create an algorithm that would fill out a bracket automatically, and it did surprisingly well. Also in college, a friend of mine filled out her bracket on the basis of who had cooler uniforms and whether or not she knew someone who went to that school, and managed to win the whole damn thing. Needless to say my buddies and I, who had been mainlining college hoops for months in preparation, felt pretty dumb.
Except this year. This year, I did not fill out a bracket. I did not spend hours pouring over statistics and watching film and listening to talking heads make their picks. Itâs not that I didnât have the time. These days all we have is free time. And itâs not that I felt guilty about flushing my $20 entrance fee down the drain. I just couldnât get excited about the tournament. This year, perhaps more than any other year, the tournament more than ever feels like exactly what it is: a cash grab by the NCAA. And I just couldnât bring myself to get behind such a proposition.
Itâs not a particularly hot take to suggest that the NCAA is a nakedly corrupt organization. It basically exists only to control the flow of money throughout college sports and to make sure it ends up in the pockets of itâs board members and the universities themselves. They enforce this through arbitrary and capricious punishments, rules designed to keep the money moving, all behind the façade of âthe interest of fair playâ.
The NCAA, particularly in basketball and football, has a stranglehold on amateur athletics in the United States. Athletes really have no viable alternative to college if they have professional aspirations. The NCAA recognizes this, and does everything in their power to extract as much labor and money as possible from these athletes while they have them under their jurisdiction. The NCAA insists that the scholarships schools provide are an adequate compensation for players at big time programs. But simple math does not support that assertion whatsoever. Letâs break it down.
The average Division 1 basketball player receives an average of about $14,000 in tuition per season. Each team has 13 scholarships to give out, so each season the basketball program gives out about $182,000 in scholarships. Yet among the Power 6 basketball conferences, teams are taking tens of millions of dollars in revenue per season. Just like professional teams, college teams earn money by inking sponsorship deals, selling tickets, and selling merchandise. Here is a breakdown of I did last year for my book, showing the average basketball revenue for each team in each conference:
Just some simple math begs the question: if teams spend about $200,000 on scholarships, where does that other ten million or so per season go? Much of it goes to the coaches. Most basketball and football coaches at these schools earn upwards of half a million dollars per season. Many of them make even more than that. At most state schools, where this data is all public, the football and basketball coaches are the highest paid employees in the entire state.
Some of it is going towards day-to-day stuff to keep the team running like buying basketballs and chartering busses and paying trainers and assistants. Thatâs all well and good, but it makes up a fraction of that revenue. A lot of that money is also put back into the program in the form of fancy athletic facilities and athlete-exclusive dorms. The University of Kentucky, a notorious one-and-done factory, has exclusive basketball dorms sequestered off from the general populations that look more like modern apartments than shitty dorm rooms. These amenities are designed to wow the top recruits during their visits, keeping the talent pipeline strong and the money flowing.
The reality is that most of it goes back to the administration and the university. Which in most cases, just means that itâs going into the pockets of chancellors, high-ranking administrators, and the endowment, which operates as a sort of investment fund for the university.
For example, the highest paid college administrator in the country is James Ramsey, the chancellor at Louisville University, earning $4.3 million dollars per year for his services. Louisville University is also the richest basketball program in the country, earning an incredible $43 million in revenue in 2018 (the latest year of data). This is sort of indicative of the bloat and bureaucracy that has caused college tuition prices to skyrocket, however that discussion is for another day. Still pretty fucked up though!
The players are doing all the hard work of bringing in this revenue, yet itâs explicitly against NCAA rules for players to be compensated for their services or profit from their own likeness. Itâs why there is no longer and NCAA Football video game anymore, which was perhaps the greatest sports game ever made. Itâs why you canât buy a jersey with your favorite college players name on it. Although the recent OâBannon vs. NCAA ruling and some favorable legislation passed in California will begin to roll back some of these restrictions, it will still be years before the NCAA will be compelled to comply.
In theory the rule is in place in order to prevent illicit payments and bribery to players, which serves to prevent the richest and most prestigious universities from gaining a financial stranglehold on talent. For example, a player who goes to Duke knows that his jersey will sell like hotcakes and heâll make a fortune, but if he goes to Wichita State it probably wonât. Which in theory is probably a good thing. In functions much like how the salary cap works in professional sports. Otherwise Harvard University might have the best basketball team in the country, leveraging their $60 billion endowment to effectively bribe players to come play in Cambridge.
However in practice the rule only serves to keep money from trickling down to the players themselves. Itâs the worst kept secret in the sports world that most big time basketball and football programs find a way to pay their players under the table. A few years ago a huge FBI sting uncovered a vast conspiracy to pay basketball recruits that involved shoe companies, college coaches, and various sketchy intermediaries. A hidden mic recording that leaked last year revealed that many top SEC football recruits receive anywhere from $75,000 to $150,000 for their services. It all begs the question: if the players are being paid anyways, whatâs the point of the rule?
The short of it is that college basketball players are putting in an amount of work thatâs basically on par with that of a professional athlete, yet are not compensated as such. They practice every day, play 20ish games on the road per season, and are expected to perform at the highest level all year round. Yet the compensation they receive for that labor is miniscule, and the bulk of that surplus labor is captured by administrations and the NCAA themselves. Sure, they might get $75k in a Nike shoebox for committing to Arizona, or Nick Saban might buy them a Dodge Charger. But to the administration and to the team, thatâs small potatoes compared to the millions of dollars they are actually worth in revenue.
Simply put, the players are getting ripped off. They have no viable alternative to college sports if their intention is to become a professional athlete. They are forced to go to college, where they are forbidden to earn money off their own skills and labor. They generate millions upon millions of dollars for their schools, and are entitled to none of it just because the NCAA says so.
I would venture to say that most high level Division I basketball players intend to go pro, whether itâs in the US or abroad. They are just in college to play ball and get their degree as a sort of fallback option. But that fact runs contrary to the NCAAâs stated mission of serving âstudent-athletesâ. Itâs in their best interest to perpetuate the fiction that most basketball players go on to do something other than basketball after college, because they can then point to the scholarship they provided those players as fair compensation.
The NCAA loves to point to a flawed study that they themselves conduct, in which they use as justification for the âstudent-athleteâ moniker that is so critical to keeping their grift alive. They study suggests that a mere 1.2% of all of the 4,181 menâs basketball participants eligible for the draft end up being drafted to the NBA, and 21% end up going to play professionally elsewhere.
But this analysis has two glaring holes. First, they are looking at the entire population of menâs basketball players, from Division I through Division III. Yet 80% of all NBA players come from a Power 6 conference. Only a handful of players outside Division I have ever played in the NBA, so it makes little sense to include those players in Division II or III in the analysis. The real population is probably much, much lower.
The second major flaw in their analysis is that in discussing their findings, they only report players drafted to the NBA. The NBA is certainly the best professional league in the world, and only the best NCAA players can hope to join its ranks. But there are pro leagues all over the world where players can earn a solid living and provide for themselves and their families. Even in lower tier leagues in places like Australia or Israel or Spain, professionals can expect to earn upwards of $100,000 per year. Being 23 years old, making $100k and traveling abroad playing basketball seems like a pretty good bargain if you ask me.
Buried in the methodology notes of the study are where the real number lie, which paints a much different story. They suggest that 53% of all draft-eligible basketball players end up playing professionally somewhere in the world. And a whopping 80% of Power 6 players end up playing professionally somewhere. If an institution wanted to bury some inconvenient truth uncovered in their own study, the methodology notes are probably where youâd hide them. Most people skip right to the end of these statistical studies, or just read the abstract. Fortunately I am a fucking nerd and read the whole damn thing.
The bottom line here is that the sports that bring in the vast majority of revenue for schools, menâs basketball and football, have the most players who ultimately become professional athletes. Those also the sports where making a living after as a pro after college is realistic, unlike swimming or track or water polo where the chances of going pro are slim to none. Itâs clear that basketball and football are different breeds.
But the NCAA insists on lumping all these student athletes together. In their eyes there in no distinction between Cade Cunningham, a guy who went to college for six months and will drop out in June to get ready for the NBA draft this fall, and a Division III soccer player studying accounting who just loves the game and has no illusions about what heâs doing after graduation. No rational person would suggest that these two student-athletes are having a similar college experience.
The NCAA insists on treating everyone the same in the stated interest of fair play and equality and some vague scholastic mission. But thatâs all bullshit, because in effect that equality only serves to disenfranchise basketball players and football players who are in essence already functioning as professional players, minus the part about getting paid. Letâs be brutally honest here; theyâre not there to get a real education. Theyâre there to play basketball and play football in order to make money for the university. Their education comes second. As the great Ohio State quarterback Cardale Jones so elegantly put it:
I guess what I am trying to say here is that you shouldnât buy into the NCAA propaganda about âstudent-athletesâ and all that. We like to believe that these young people are playing to make their school proud and for the thrill of victory and a way to get their education. And a certain part of that is probably true for many players. But the reality is that these players are a much more mercenary breed than we might think. They are playing as a means to and end, that end being going pro. And being on a tournament-bound team is their best opportunity they have at showcasing their skills. The whole âstudent-athleteâ paradigm is perpetuated by the NCAA in order obfuscate the fact that these players are essentially unpaid interns being paid in experience.
Just look at the differences in how the menâs and womenâs tournaments are covered, they way they are advertised, and the way the players are treated, and you will see the rotten core of the whole enterprise. Last week a picture went viral comparing the exercise facilities available to players at the menâs and womenâs bubble. The menâs bubble has a huge weight room the size of an airplane hangar, stocked to the brim with weights and machines and all manner of training aids. The women, on the other hand, had one measly set of dumbbells and a handful of yoga mats in some dingy, windowless back room in their hotel.
The driving force behind this inequity is money. The menâs tournament brings in nearly a billion dollars of ad revenue for the NCAA, and the womenâs tournament does not. Since money is the only language the NCAA understands, the accommodations reflect that accordingly. Of course, real hoopers know that menâs and womenâs basketball is basketball all the same and appreciate them both. But you average dingus in middle America only cares about the menâs tournament, because thatâs the bracket he and all his friends and colleagues are filing out. The menâs tournament is the one heâs being bombarded with in advertisements and in the media. The menâs tournament is the one he sits on the couch and watches 12 hours at a time. Therefore the NCAA responds in kind. They invest millions in the menâs tournament, because thatâs the one that on TV and brings in the most money. And they give the women the bare minimum, because their tournament yields less of a financial return.
These disturbing realities of high-level college sports have always lurked in the back of my mind. You have to squint pretty hard not to see it as a wholly fucked up proposition. Honestly, its the reason I donât enjoy college football. I canât bring myself to watch unpaid 18-22 year olds give each other brain damage on Saturday afternoons, but I have no problem with millionaire NFL players doing the very same thing on Sundays. I am a product of my environment, so I suppose that the capitalism-shaped worldview allows me to put aside any moral qualms I might have as long as they are being fairly compensated.
But it wasnât until the NCAA decided to create a bubble for the menâs tournament that I finally had to confront a similar uncomfortable truth for basketball. Basketball is something entirely different than football. Football is a brutal game, everywhere you turn there is violence and bodily harm. Basketball a finesse game, itâs like jazz or poetry. There is no inherent danger in basketball, save the occasional sprained ankle or compound fracture (DO NOT CLICK THIS). I could always put aside the problematic financial landscape of the sport because as long as there was no threat to life or limb I could justify that they players would be out there regardless.
But I now realize that there is a harm being inflicted on these players that is beyond physical injury. NBA players across the board talked about the mental and emotional strain that the isolation and boredom the NBA bubble wrought on them. Itâs virtually solitary confinement. And to subject these college kids to the same fate, without proper compensation, just seems a little fucked up. Not to mention the constant specter of the virus constantly lurking. One game was outright cancelled because of positive tests on both teams.
I love the NCAA tournament because you see these players pour their hearts out on the court in the most desperate of circumstances. You can actually see the anguish and strain and joy on players faces, unobstructed by bulky pads and helmets. Players bring nothing onto the court except their bodies and their preparation and their belief in their teammates. There is something quite beautiful and visceral about that vulnerability. One bad game and your season, your career is over. In real time you witness the culmination of months and years and lifetimes of hard work come to fruition or crash and burn. But there is just something that rings hollow seeing the agony of defeat and the ecstasy of victory play out in a stadium full of advertisements and billboards instead of screaming fans.
It all begs the question: Who is this all for?