I am sure that they would keep a very similar format

Posted on: July 18, 2016 at 11:28:56 CT

to the current tourny where conf champions get an invite and then some at large bids that will almost be exclusively power 4 teams. Have an independent group pick everything so no collusion can be claimed. Since non power 4 teams "had a chance" to make it there wont be potential for a antitrust lawsuite by the non power 4 schools. The payouts might get changed to favor deeper runs (usually power 4 schools) but the main thing is that the conferences get to keep 100% of the money.


Lets assume they were to keep the same tourny structure:

Last year 31 of the 68 were from a power 5 so to make the math easy let's assume that half of the field comes from a power 4 conference in the future. Lets assume that they break the additional they break the additional 763 payout up based on teams that made it. So the power 4 would be getting an additional 381 million a year. Roughly 95 million per conference or 6 million per team. Now the payout wouldnt just be based if the team made it but also how far a team went. Since the power 4 would be fielding the teams that usually went the deepest lets say the payout would be 70% of the 763 instead of 50%. So now the power 4 would be getting 534 million that they didn't used to get. That money obviously wouldn't be split evenly among the power 4 because some power 4 would have more teams in the tourny and their teams might have gone further. So if an equal share would be 133.5 million then a good power four basketball conference might expect to get maybe 160 million a year that they never got before.
If they distribute that evenly among their teams that is an extra 10 million per school that could be made per year off of basketball if they do the exact same tourny structure as the NCAA but do it on their own.