(03-23-2021 09:48 AM)Marc Mensa Wrote: (03-23-2021 07:56 AM)micman Wrote: The tournament is proving that there is very good parity in college basketball. Unfortunately, the NCAA has attached itself to the power conferences.
The NCAA has attached itself to money & is trying to keep itself relevant within the P5 club. The gumshoes are scared to death these leagues will reorganize without them, so they put forth this facade of fairness while continually doling out fewer & fewer scraps to the peasants.
16 or 1/4 of the 64 teams in this tournament came from just 2 conferences (ACC & Big 10) with 6 of those teams being handed a top 16 seed... only 3 remain. 
The ncaa budgeted $28 million for the 2019 tournament and it earned $865 million. That’s tournament only - the TV rights deal the ncaa inked with CBS average $1.1 billion per season through 2032.
However that pales in comparison to college FB and what the CFB playoffs earn and the ncaa knows that. If they can’t get a piece of the CFB playoff action they will try to do what the CFB playoffs do and cater to the schools with the bigger fan bases over time. Fewer Abilene Christians means schools with bigger fan bases play longer - which means more tickets and even bigger tv contracts (more eyeballs year over year). People wonder why duke and North Carolina play so close to home - it’s about money more than anything and keeping schools with large fan bases around for the $ they drive in ticket sales and viewership.
The difference between the ncaa and CFB is that the ncaa funds 89 other tournaments every year, 84 of which lose money. The ncaa is also worried about the big boys taking their ball and creating another organization - if that happens there won’t be an NCAA.
When I think about this in context, the ncaa’s actions make more sense - like why Will Wade is still coaching and why North Carolina got away with systemic institutional academic fraud - they only throw the book at the biggest schools when their hand is absolutely forced. And there’s an “ncaa inner circle” even amongst the biggest schools (NC, duke, etc) due to how much those teams’ fan bases have historically added to the NCAA’s coffers.
Due to the net loss of most college athletics and the fact that they get nothing from CFB, the NCAAs very existence is constantly threatened. And many people, especially their very well paid leadership, know this open secret.
The NCAA may have “student amateur athlete” all over its charter and press releases but its primary directive is to justify and fund itself.
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Big Ten
