This year’s March Madness will test the health of Cinderella
Key Points
- This year’s men’s basketball tournament will provide another data point for how much NIL and the transfer portal have tilted the balance of power to the biggest schools.
- CNBC spoke with Virginia Commonwealth University’s athletic director about how its success in the NCAA Tournament has transformed the school.
- Former Syracuse men’s basketball coach Jim Boeheim said it will be ‘way more difficult’ for smaller schools to make deeper tournament runs in the current atmosphere.
March Madness begins Thursday, and quite a bit of focus this week and next will be on the performance of the mid-major and non-Power Four (ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12) schools. The dominant theme of last year’s men’s tournament was near-historic levels of dominance for teams favored to win. The NCAA Tournament last year produced a measly 13 underdog victories — the fewest since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985. A sample size of one does not a trend make. Neither does a sample size of two, so it’s not like this year will yield any definitive conclusions. Still, the logical explanation for last year’s turn toward the favorites is NIL — name, image and likeness — compensation and the associated transfer portal that has allowed college basketball players to cash in from schools. Former Syracuse men’s basketball coach Jim Boeheim told CNBC this week he believes $10 million to pay players is the threshold to compete for a national championship. Schools are capped at $20.5 million for total spend among all athletic programs, meaning men’s basketball would have to take half the budget. But NIL collectives are still legal, allowing big-time donors to make up the difference — which is now essential to fielding a team that can compete for an NCAA title, Boeheim said. That’s why the Sweet 16 will likely be heavily skewed toward Top 25 teams, he predicted. “It’s going to be way more difficult for one of these mid-majors to make a run. Way more difficult,” Boeheim said. Cinderella’s long-lasting benefits Virginia Commonwealth University has become a March Madness darling, with at least one tournament victory every year but two from 2011 to 2016 including a Final Four bid as a No. 11 seed in 2011. The Rams are back in the tournament again this year — again as an 11-seed — and will play perennial juggernaut North Carolina in the first round. “What’s talked about years after the tournament? It’s Bryce Drew hitting the winning shot for Valpo. It’s George Mason making the Final Four,” VCU Athletic Director Ed McLaughlin said in an interview. “Without that possibility, you’re watching a glorified Power Four conference tournament.” A Cinderella run isn’t just fun for the common fan. It can be transformative for the school. VCU’s March Madness success was the “greatest marketing tool possible,” McLaughlin said. He noted significant increases in donations, merchandise sales, enrollment and, while intangible, school pride. “It galvanizes an institution when you’re able to make a run,” McLaughlin said. “It has long-term effects. We used to be a commuter school. That changed when VCU beat Duke in 2007 [again as an 11 seed] and certainly when we made the Final Four. We were sold out every single night from 2011 until Covid because of what the Final Four did.” That strikes me as a very real and potentially damaging loss if NIL effectively eradicates Cinderella. There are all sorts of potential remedies for NIL that could help the little guy compete. Boeheim recommended players signing contracts as independent contractors and limiting the number of transfers any individual player can make. McLaughlin advocated a harder cap or luxury tax around spending outside of the $20.5 million allocated for schools. VCU spent about $5 million on men’s basketball this season, McLaughlin said. McLaughlin also recommended regulations around tampering to try to win over players, which he said is currently “rampant” — even happening before and after games. The head coach of No. 15 seed Queens (which plays Purdue on Friday) said last week he was “extremely frustrated” an assistant coach from an SEC school was actively recruiting a player on his team who isn’t even in the portal yet. “Keeping talent now is damn near impossible,” McLaughlin said. “Those Cinderella teams are usually led by a group of seniors that have something to prove. Now, under the current rules, anyone who has a good freshman and/or sophomore in America East, the MAC — the money is going to be too big, and players are going to play somewhere else.” Still, there’s another camp of people who may not think there’s a big problem here. The first two rounds of last year’s men’s tournament — the one with almost no upsets — had the highest TV ratings since 1993 . “If more fans want to watch because you get Duke and Kentucky and Michigan and Kansas and so on, then those fans are speaking by watching more,” CBS Sports President David Berson told Front Office Sports this month. It’s possible this year’s tourney breaks new ratings records and also has few upsets. If so, that may be the worst outcome of all for Cinderella’s future. Correction: This story has been revised to reflect that Virginia Commonwealth University had at least one tournament victory every year but two from 2011 to 2016. A previous version misstated the number of years in which the school won at least one game in the tournament.
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