LA Times
At the bottom of every official NCAA Tournament bracket, in disclaimer
type almost too small to see without reading glasses, a tiny line of
type exists.
For those of you who have cut out your brackets from this newspaper,
made your own or printed them from one of the myriad online sources
where they`re available, it reads: "The NCAA opposes all sports
wagering. This bracket should not be used for sweepstakes, contests,
office pools or other gambling activities."
In layman`s terms, it says: "Don`t even think about making money off this bracket. Don`t you dare."
Is the NCAA men`s basketball tournament fun, perhaps the best three weeks of sports all year? Yes.
Is it all about making money, hand over fist, enough for Myles Brand to
swim around in a giant bank vault like Scrooge McDuck?
You better believe it.
The NCAA`s no-bracket pool policy is so hypocritical it borders on
insanity. No matter what the NCAA would have you believe, the most
important part of March Madness - for it and its participants - is
making money.
One look on NCAAsports.com, the organization`s official Web site,
proves it. In the NCAA`s online shop, you can buy an official "bracket
T-shirt."
You can actually play an interactive game - "Coca-Cola Championship Run
2005" that, if it offered prizes, would be almost as bad as gambling.
Virtual-reality teams based on every program in the tournament - from
Alabama A&M to Illinois - are pitted against each other in what
amounts to a video game sponsored by Coca-Cola.
You win the game by winning as many games as possible with the lowest seeds you can find, the very ideal of the tournament.
Well, the ideal of the tournament on the court. We know the NCAA`s main
ideal already - using college basketball`s best players to generate
cash flow and keep it as far away from their pockets as possible.
Cover an NCAA Tournament, and you find out two things: everything
inside the arena is covered in blue carpet and blue curtains, and you
get almost no sense anyone cares that you are there.
You participate in press conferences run by their rules - 15 minutes
long for each team, "student-athletes" addressed questions before
coaches.
The only fun associated with an NCAA Tournament is on the court. Those
of us who traveled to Cleveland last week for Alabama`s short-lived
NCAA trip didn`t notice any bracket pools running inside Wolstein
Center. Maybe they should have run one, with profits benefiting the
NCAA`s legal fund.
It`s $2.5 million lighter, thanks to a recent settlement former
Washington football coach Rick Neuheisel won against the NCAA and the
University of Washington. He won $2.5 million from the NCAA and $2.2
million from UW. Neuheisel was fired from UW in June 2003, in part
because of his participation in high-stakes NCAA basketball pools in
2002 and 2003. He won $12,123 on a total investment of $6,400 in the
two years.
Now, Neuheisel wasn`t the most honest man, lying to UW officials about
his interest in a job with the San Francisco 49ers, among other things.
But if the pools were the only reason he got canned, that`s hypocrisy
at its best.
Is $6,400 a lot of money to the average fan? Yes. Is it anything but
pocket change to someone making over $1.2 million per season, as
Neuheisel was at UW? No.
To Neuheisel, plunking down $6,400 is just like you or I slapping down
$10 in your office pool, as so many of us across the country have done
this month.
Considering how much money the NCAA makes - $6 billion alone from its
current 11-year CBS television contract - telling someone else not to
profit from it smacks of an inflated ego that is just begging to be
popped.
They`re getting plenty of money already. Brand and Co. should stop
intimidating anyone who dares throw down five bucks by filling out a
bracket.
