Basketball Gets More Beer Money, While Tennis and Other Small College Sports Worry over Their Future
The NCAA’s expanded tournament will add about $300 million over six seasons as schools cut tennis, golf and other Olympic sports.
- The NCAA expanded its March Madness tournament to 76 teams, projecting $300 million in new revenue over six seasons from beer, wine, and liquor sponsorships. About $131 million will be distributed to conferences whose schools qualify.
- Schools aggressively pursue new revenue streams as traditional funding tightens. Last week, Duke signed a landmark Amazon deal to stream three basketball games; Georgia and Florida State canceled their series to seek similar lucrative broadcasting partnerships.
- Athletic departments eliminated about 20 programs this year across all college sports, including tennis at Arkansas and golf at Wichita State. This trend threatens the U.S. Olympic pipeline, with Paia LaPalombara noting those sports "are going to be the ones generally on the chopping block."
- Regulating NIL payments has proven difficult for the College Sports Commission, which faces "growing pains" in its oversight role. Arbitration cases, including one involving 18 Nebraska football players, challenge the commission's authority over third-party deals.
- North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham suggests the ultimate solution involves athletes paying to participate in some sports, as the divide between Power Four and Group of Six programs widens. This two-way revenue model reflects deepening stratification in college athletics.
17 Articles
17 Articles
Basketball gets more beer money, while tennis and other small college
Basketball got the beer money. Many smaller sports around the NCAA are still looking for a lifeline. The expansion of March Madness and the $300 million in extra revenue that comes with it through opening sponsorships to beer, wine and liquor companies offered a brief reprieve from the steady drip of headlines that underscore big-picture problems confronting college sports in an era of tightening budgets and revenue sharing with athletes. Among …
Associated Press News
Basketball gets more beer money, while tennis and other small college sports worry over their future
The expansion of March Madness and the $300 million in extra revenue that comes with it through opening sponsorships to beer, wine and liquor companies offered a brief reprieve from the steady drip of headlines this spring that underscore the problems confronting college sports.
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