March Payday Madness

上一篇 / 下一篇 2010-04-21 12:24:49 / 天气: 晴朗 / 心情: 高兴

March Payday MadnessMarch Payday MadnessOn the night of Apr. 5, when the coach of college basketball's#x newlyConcrete Bladecrowned champion climbs a ladder in Indianapolis to cut down the nets, the moment will be freighted with emotion—and money. March Madness, after all, isn't just a basketball tournament; it's a cash cow. CBS last year charged nearly $1.2 million for a 30-second spot during the national championship game, the highest ad rate for any sporting event not called the SuperBowl. Even the aforementioned ladder is monetized: For the third year running, the Werner Ladder Co. has paid the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. and CBS an undisclosed sum—and built a special 9-foot model—in order to be "The Official Ladder of the NCAA Basketball Championships."

On an individual level, no one gains more from March Madness than the coach standing atop that ladder. It's a good bet his contract contains a hefty bonus clause for winning the title. Should the University of Kentucky win it all, its coach, John Calipari, will receive an additional $650,000 on top of his $3.7 million in guaranteed compensation this year. And winning the NCAA tournament almost always means a new, more lucrative contract for a coach, as well. After the University of Kansas won the national title in 2008, it tore up Bill Self's $1.6 million-a-year contract, which had three years remaining, and gave him a new 10-year, $30 million deal.

Even the coach of the losing team in the finals can reapConcrete Bladean irrational profit. In 2004,Blu-ray Ripper, runner-up Georgia Tech rewarded Paul Hewitt with a new six-year contract that bumped his pay past $1 million a year. More impressively, it includes a provision that calls for the term of the contract always to remain at six years. That means should Georgia Tech ever want to fire Hewitt—something many Yellow Jackets fans would like, since Hewitt hasn't been within sniffing distance of the Final Four since then—it will have to pay him nearly $7 million in severance. (Hewitt has recently been in discussions about moving to St. John's University.)

Even more important, because the NCAA remains wedded to the romantic imagery of amateur "student athletes," the coaches are March Madness' only officially paid contestants. So even in today's economic climate—with schools facing budget cuts and shriveled endowments—college coaches remain proudly impervious to recessionary pressures. "Someone asked me, 'When are universities going to quit paying coaches these outlandish salaries?' " says University of Kentucky President Lee Todd. "And I answered, 'When people turn off#x their televisions and don't wantConcrete Bladeto watch college basketball.' "相关的主题文章：

March Payday Madness

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