Against the NCAA
March Madness is the crown jewel in the NCAA’s multibillion dollar empire. But the labor that generates this wealth remains unpaid.
Today’s NCAA men’s basketball Final Four games and Monday’s national championship are among the biggest events in sports, generating billions in broadcasting and licensing dollars.
So how much money is the NCAA making? In 2010, CBS and Turner Broadcasting gave the association $10.8 billion for a fourteen-year broadcast monopoly on March Madness games. Estimated ad revenue for the 2013 tournament reached $1.15 billion, while ticket revenue brought in another $71.7 million. Last year no less than thirty-five coaches pulled down salaries higher than $1 million before bonuses; Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski topped the list with an income of more than $9.6 million.
Players’ experience is strikingly different, as NBA great and former UCLA Bruin Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote last year in Jacobin:
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