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Last week, I promised you a sports story – no Covid-19 stuff. I have kept my promise.
This past Monday, April 6, many sports and non-sports fans would have been glued to their TVs watching the 2020 NCAA Collegiate Basketball Championship. This, of course, would have been the culmination of 12 days and nights watching the entire tournament unfold.
Everyone would have been caught up in their various “pools” with even those with little interest in athletics, at all, keeping track of their sheets and throwing all the barbs that go with being wrong or right. Trust me; I speak from experience, having been the recipient of many of those jabs over the years, particularly from fellow office workers (mostly female). Obviously, that did not happen.
But after completing John Feinstein’s The Back Roads to March, I discovered some interesting March Madness facts that I thought, in the absence of real games, you might find interesting:
The first Final Four and Championship games were on NBC and began in 1968. The championship game was moved to Monday night in 1973.
Dick Enberg, Al McGuire, and Billy Packer made up the first announcing team.
“March Madness” and “Selection Sunday” are all trademarked by the NCAA. I could not legally title this blog “March Madness” because that would be a trademark infringement. I would need permission or have to pay.
CBS outbid NBC for the contract in 1982. They paid $16 million per year. NBC had been paying $6.3 million per year. In 1999, CBS paid $546 million a year for the next eleven years.
The field was expanded from 64 teams to 65 teams in 2000, with one play-in game played in Dayton. Three more teams were added in 2011 for a total of 68. Each team (or conference) received $280,367 per win in the tournament in 2018. If you lost in the play-in round in Dayton, you received nothing. This round became known as the “First Four” (also trademarked by the NCAA).
CBS got a new contract that year (along with TNT) for another fourteen years for $10.8 billion. Their current contract was extended and gives CBS the rights until 2032. It cost a mere $8.8 billion more. So, if you do the math, the NCAA is making over $1 billion a year on March Madness. The NCAA claims it keeps “only” $100 million for itself. The rest goes to the member institutions.
So all we can do is look forward to November when the college basketball season begins again. All we want is for today’s “madness” to be replaced by a more acceptable and enjoyable “Madness”. I hope I can legally say that.
Stay safe.
ABOVE THE EARS (SOME MUSINGS)
1. A recent poll came out claiming that 72% of Americans said they would not attend sporting events in person unless a vaccine was discovered for the coronavirus. 12% would go if social distancing would be maintained somehow. 76% said they would watch games without fans.
2. The NFL draft will take place this month – April 23-25. The Bengals have the first pick. The Giants have the 255th and last pick. The Eagles, by the way, will have their first pick at #21. You can watch on ABC, ESPN, NFL Network and on the ESPN app.
3. Did having all major league teams begin the season by playing all the games in Arizona ever seem feasible to you? It does not to me. Players would need to be kept in the Arizona area throughout the schedule, staying in hotels and away from their families. And projections say it could last up to four months. Unless something drastically happens on the medical front, it won’t happen.
4. Now if you want me to move to Arizona so that I can safely play golf… “Hmm”, let me give that some thought.
5. There will be no high school or college sports for the rest of this academic year. Yes, I know, I am depressed, too.
