Coming down with March Madness before the Big Dance may sound like an excuse to skip prom, but it actually describes our nationwide obsession with the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. This 68-team basketball bonanza has been known to crown a Cinderella or two, produce at least one shining moment a year, and turn millions of Americans into illegal gamblers. It’s that good.
It’s also a big business both on and off the court, making millionaires out of coaches, conference commissioners and NCAA executives but very few players. Tournament time takes a toll on fans’ wallets, too, and not just in terms of the millions we lose in bracket pools each year. The starting retail price for a ticket to one of the 2024 Final Four games costs around $195, for one thing. Around 19 percent more beer is sold to keep up with cheering fans, too. Plus, there’s the potential for some workplace conflict, since distracted employees cost businesses about $17.3 billion per year.
In other words, there’s a lot more to this tournament than basketball. And since money plays at least as much of a role as love of the game, WalletHub analyzed March Madness from tip to title with a special emphasis on finance. You can check out all the interesting NCAA tournament stats and facts that we found in the infographic below. Enjoy the show!
Top 10 March Madness Stats & Facts:
- $1.3 Billion: Annual revenue for the NCAA in 2023, a 14% increase from 2022.
- $9.6 Million: Salary for college basketball’s highest paid coach, Kansas’s Bill Self (vs. $1.1M combined for University of Kansas’s chancellor and the state’s governor).
- 52X: Difference between the average NBA rookie’s salary ($3.7M) and a D1 men’s athlete basketball scholarship for a year ($71.4K).
- $17.3 Billion: Corporate losses due to unproductive workers during March Madness.
- $413 Million+: Projected economic impact on Phoenix from March Madness 2024.
- $334.2 Million: Estimated value of the University of Kentucky basketball program — highest among all schools (generating a revenue of $22M).
- $171.2 Million: NCAA’s basketball fund’s 2024 distribution to D1 schools.
- $0: Amount of money the NCAA pays the players participating in the tournament.
- 63,400: State Farm Stadium’s capacity for Final Four 2024 (expendable to 72,200).
- 12+: College basketball programs have been involved in a corruption case involving payments to players since 2017.
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