Fast forward two weeks to this year's NCAA basketball tournament, and many fans are still reminiscing about the excitement of Crazy March.
North Carolina's legendary battle with Duke, Kansas' 16-point comeback in the halftime, St. Peter's all-time best in the history of the 15th seed, Rutgers and Our Lady's double overtime battle... It's another crazy three full of stories, dark horses, and classic famous scenes. A perfect fit for the theme song of the tournament, the meaning expressed in 1986 composer David Barrett's "One Shining Moment". On this stage, it is gold that always shines and leaves its own mark on the history of college basketball.
As a result, "Anyone Can Win" is often hailed as the spirit embodied in the NCAA basketball tournament.
However, when we calm down and take a closer look at the crown of college sports, we will find that outside of those highlight moments, the imbalance in NCAA basketball is still deeply rooted.
Wen / Fu Haonan, Li Jiajun
Editor / Fu Haonan
01
Cinderella is crazy three sweethearts, but the last laugh is still blue blood
"Lower GramShang" is the most magical keyword of Crazy Three.
Low-seeded teams have defeated traditional strong schools with high seeds, and such shocking plays have been staged frequently on the crazy three stages, and this year is no exception.
Iowa State University Cyclone, University of Miami Hurricane, University of Richmond Spider, University of Michigan Wolverine... One undesirable team after another defeated opponents with stronger records and stronger than themselves on paper, and was affectionately known as "Cinderella" by fans.
This year's St. Peter's Peacock became the first team in NCAA history to enter the Elite Eight with a No. 15 seed, and St. Peter from the MAAC League is a standard small and medium-sized league team with a student population of less than 3,000 people, but it beat Kentucky and Purdue , two institutions with tens of thousands of students and far more resources than their traditional strong schools.
The Peacocks of St. Peter's University, which made history Image credit: The Spun
But Cinderella's wearing of crystal shoes does not mean that she has obtained the status of a blue-blooded nobleman. The so-called blue blood refers to traditional basketball schools such as Kentucky, Duke, Kansas, Arizona, etc., and St. Peter's non-blue blood team may soon take off its dancing shoes after playing its own shining moment, and it will be difficult to return to the championship in the next few years.
According to Sports Illustrated, St. Peter's meritorious coach Shaheen Holloway has accepted an offer from Seton Hall University to switch to the old Eastern League team. Star guard Doug Edert, who made a great contribution against Kentucky, also transferred to Bryant University, with four other players in the process of transferring.
The future of this dark horse team is uncertain, and the opponents they have won in one game will still be one of the hot teams next year.
As long as John Calipari is still around, Kentucky has a steady stream of talented players Image credit: Getty Images
Kentucky has confirmed that two five-star high school players will wear the Wildcat jersey next season, and they are also in close contact with DJ Wagner, the no. 1 high school student in the nation in the class of 2023, as well as several other five-star high school students.
At the same time, the retirement of legendary coach K Sr. has not affected the enrollment of another major blue-blooded Duke University, which currently has seven five-star high school students in their enrollment lineup for the next two years, of which four players led by Dereck Lively are in the top five in the United States.
Duke's 2022 and 2023 enrollment strength ranks first in the United States Image source: Duke Recruiting
The talent of the lineup is the guarantee of the strength of the college basketball team, and the head coach is the signature of the school's enrollment and solid lineup. Many dark horse teams like St. Peter in the history of Mad Three have a hard time avoiding the loss of coaches and lineups after a blip, resulting in the inability to continue excellent results and truly stand out in the brutal competition of college basketball.
Previously, Middle Tennessee State University and Orol Roberts University had also made a splash as the 15th seed, beating famous schools like Michigan State and Ohio State. However, the former has not been able to reach the championship again since 2017, and coach Kermit Davis, who has been in charge for 16 seasons, has also jumped ship to the University of Mississippi. The latter lost main striker Kevin Obanor (transferred to Texas Tech) and failed to make it to the Crazy Third this year.
Butler University, which reached the National Finals for two consecutive years and was once expected to be the upstart of college basketball in the 2010s, has now missed the crazy three for four consecutive years. With the departure of core players such as Gordon Hayward and Sherving Mike, brad Stevens, the meritorious coach who led Butler's rise, jumped to the NBA, the team gradually went downhill.
Although Chris Holtmann was able to lead the team to the Top 16 of the Crazy Three after succeeding Butler as coach, he jumped ship to the better-off Ohio State after three seasons in charge.
Butler's Stevens and Hayward Image credit: Butler Collegian
Flowing Cinderella, iron blue blood – this is the harsh reality of the NCAA's crazy March. A winning-and-losing format allows elementary school teams to enjoy a shining moment, but the real winners of the Crazy Three are the tournament regulars with deep strengths, which is a deep-rooted competitive imbalance.
At the same time, on an economic level, St. Peters and Kentuckies also have an irreparable gap.
02
Cinderella gets a diamond, but Blue Blood still owns the diamond mine
The NBA has a big ball market and a small ball market, and the same is true of the NCAA.
The legacy of the Blues has not been interrupted by the crazy three losses of a certain year, they have the best resources and huge project funds, and the occasional personnel changes and defeats will basically not have a big impact on them. At the same time, the teams of the primary and secondary league schools can only look back on them because of their limited economic conditions.
According to Sportico, St. Peter's University spent $37 million on school sports last year, compared to a staggering $167 million in Kentucky. The two spend a lot more on basketball: St. Peter's budget for basketball last year was $1.6 million (according to his athletic director, the actual figure is hundreds of thousands), while Kentucky's $18.3 million is more than eleven times the former.
The biggest gap in economic strength since 2007 Image: Lev Akabas (Sportico remembers)
According to Front Office Sports, Seton Hall offered Holloway a six-year contract with an annual salary of $2.4 million, while his previous single-season salary under St. Peter was less than $300,000. The bottomless economic divide cannot be filled with a good competition result. In a small school like St. Peter's, it is difficult to offer a price tag that can leave a meritorious manager, and it is difficult to avoid the loss of personnel in the squad.
Of course, this does not mean that St. Peter's crazy trip did not bring any substantial financial benefits to the team. In fact, their three victories over Kentucky, Murray State and Purdue were priceless.
St. Peter brought at least $8 million in grants to the MAAC league they were in, ESPN reported. According to the NCAA, the 68 teams that qualify for the Crazy Three will receive a share of the tournament's revenue and receive a league level playing fund (about $338,000, which will increase with the broadcast costs). And for every extra game played, an equal amount of bonus grants can be awarded to the team's league in installments over the next six years. However, the money is not exclusive to St. Peter, but is decided by the MAAC League Committee on how to deal with it.
Another big takeaway from St. Peter is the traffic brought by the exposure of the United States. According to Apex Marketing Group, the Peacocks received an exposure bonus worth nearly $71 million in the first phase of crazy three (19:00 on March 17 to 8:00 on March 21). Commercial sponsorships, endorsement advertising, school sales, etc. have all soared because of the wonderful performance of the biggest dark horse of this year's Crazy Three.
More importantly, the "Cinderella effect" of Crazy Three will increase the school's new student enrollment data and bring more tuition income to the school.
Historical data shows that the success of Crazy Three will make more people apply to a school Image source: Bloomberg
A 2020 collaborative study by Seton Hall University and Several Scholars from Dayton University showed that private colleges and universities will significantly increase the proportion of new students enrolled in the two academic years after their basketball teams become crazy three dark horses.
Professor Kurt Rotthoff, one of the authors of the report, calculated in an interview with Forbes: "We estimate that St. Peter's 'Cinderella effect' will bring them a 4.4% increase in new student enrollment, which translates into $800,000 in tuition income, which is already a big dividend for small schools."
But St. Peter doesn't invest heavily in basketball because of this: According to Forbes, St. Peter's president, Eugene J. Cornacchia, said that even if he had $10 million at his disposal to fund the sports department, he would unthinkingly turn most of the money into academic programs.
The Peacocks' miraculous trip to Madness is memorable, but Cornaccia's attitude is very realistic, and he knows that academic income is the foundation of St. Peter's University, which has less than 2,500 students. According to the Wall Street Journal, of the 351 D1-level men's basketball teams in the NCAA in the 2019 season, only 68 teams brought in more revenue than expenses.
Cinderella's transformation into a blue-blooded aristocrat is not without precedent, and today's famous college basketball school, Gonzaga University, was in a very similar situation to St. Peter's University more than 20 years ago: less than 600 new students enrolled, the school's financial deficit. Mark Few, the NCAA's all-time winning coach, earned just $5,000 when he was hired as a team assistant coach in 1989 and had to live in the head coach's apartment with two other assistant coaches for a decade.
In 1999, Gonzaga had the opportunity to turn sparrows into phoenixes, beating strong opponents such as Minnesota and Stanford to reach the elite quarterfinals, becoming one of the biggest dark horses in NCAA history.
Gonzaga was completely reborn under Coach Figur Image credit: The Ringer
After the most successful season in school history, coach Dan Manson took over to Minnesota, and Mark Figue immediately carried the coach's banner. Through continued support from the school and the favor of sponsors, as well as fully realizing the potential of future NBA players such as Adam Morrison and Dan Dickau, Gonzaga has built its own winning culture. From 1999 to 2022, "Zags" reached the NCAA Tournament for twenty-three consecutive years, reached the Elite Quarterfinals four times, and reached the finals in 2017 and 2021.
More and more gifted high school students have also noticed Gonzaga and chosen to join the Bulldogs. In recent years, players such as Sabonis Jr., Yamura Lei, Zach Collins, and Jaylen Saggers have successively entered the professional arena, making Gonzaga a real NBA factory. At the same time, their men's basketball program has an annual revenue of more than $15 million, and can also generate more than $600 million in annual revenue for the city of Spokane, which is one of the most gold-sucking college basketball brands in the United States.
Gonzaga's success is a miracle in NCAA history, but it was not easy for a dark horse team like St. Peter to rein in the instability and maintain a strong coaching staff and a strong squad based on a successful season.
03
Nil's open interests do not necessarily benefit elementary school teams
Beginning in July 2021, the NCAA lifted restrictions on players' name, image and likeness rights (NIL). After the opening of this policy, university athletes began to contact a series of activities such as commercial endorsements and make profits from them, which is naturally expected.
But from another perspective, the NCAA's move has the potential to lead to many potential problems.
The gap between blue-blooded teams and small and mid-league teams is growing, and the release of the NCAA's policy has exacerbated this phenomenon. The brand effect of basketball schools will naturally be favored by more sponsors such as Duke and Kentucky, including well-known brands such as Nike and Cash App, which will also provide more opportunities for the star players of the school to get quality endorsements or cooperation. Those small and medium-sized alliance schools, on the other hand, get more cooperation with small and medium-sized enterprises such as local pizzerias and local moving companies.
2022 Crazy Three Men's and Women's Basketball Final Four, THE TOP FIVE PLAYERS WITH THE HIGHEST NIL Value Credit: Opendorse
Over-commercialization can also have an impact on existing squads, with schools allowed to offer commercial cooperation to players from other schools in order to attract them to transfer schools. The data shows that only 2% of NCAA college players can enter the professional league, and the vast majority of athletes will not receive millions of salaries in the future. So in the future, there may be more elite players from primary schools who will transfer schools for more generous endorsement contracts.
Not only the Blue Blood, but also the big school teams from ACC, Big Ten, SEC, Big 12, PAC-12, Big East and other leagues have long-term dominance in the sport like the giants in the professional league, and constantly poach coaches and players from teams in small and medium league schools.
This will make the school lineup continue to be in an unstable state, which has a negative impact on the sustainability of the traditional competition model of school basketball and even the entire college basketball tradition.
In the final analysis, everyone loves the crazy Cinderella team, they can also get a good profit through the wonderful performance of the tournament, but from a macro point of view, whether in the competitive or economic level, the primary and secondary league schools to catch up with the blue-blooded aristocrats of NCAA basketball, in the league all year round have their own competitiveness, it is still difficult to ascend to the sky.
Therefore, we must recognize the reality: the NCAA once packaged March Madness with labels such as campus sports and amateur leagues, highlighting its unpredictable and fair competition charm. But college basketball is essentially the same as commercial professional leagues.
And we haven't even mentioned the problems faced by the crazy three women's basketball team, but that's another story.