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Message: [QUOTE="Dave85, post: 1752321, member: 3946"] Nice article on this subject: "The payout rules are complicated but enticing. Even if your college basketball team doesn’t win a game, you win $1.67 million. A round-of-16 appearance rakes in almost $5 million. A Final Four run? $8.3 million. What sounds like the country’s most lucrative office pool is actually how the NCAA splits up much of the $700-plus million dollars its men’s basketball tournament makes each year. The competitors in this pool are collegiate sports conferences, and this month a large chunk of money — nearly $220 million, according to NCAA projections — is up for grabs. The “basketball fund,” as it’s simply labeled, is the largest pool of money the NCAA doles out to schools and the only one allocated according to competitive sports success. A closer look at where the money goes illuminates the stratified economic landscape of college sports, where the rich schools get richer and the players remain amateurs. The NCAA “urges” — but does not require — conferences to share this money equally among their member schools. Of the 32 conferences that participate in the tournament, 15 agreed to answer basic questions about how they use the basketball fund. Those conference officials said that, while specifics vary from conference to conference, they expect their peers use the money similarly. In general, officials said, larger conferences split the money evenly among their schools, who use it to help cover athletic department budgets. Smaller conferences, meanwhile, depend on the basketball fund to cover their expenses, and some award any extra money to schools based on their own complicated formulas. For a smaller conference, one surprisingly successful tournament can produce budget-inflating windfalls for years. Conference officials defend the system as a fair way to share money that supports college athletics. [B][SIZE=6]To critics of the NCAA and amateurism in college sports, however, the only number that matters about the basketball fund is the amount paid to the players: $0."[/SIZE][/B] [SIZE=6][/SIZE] [SIZE=4][URL]https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/sports/ncaa-money/[/URL][/SIZE] [SIZE=4] Now if the colleges can figure out how to share, and there is 64 of them, they why can't they figure out a way to share it with the players? My original thought was pay percentage by the minute because I like math and percentages are so cool. But then with larger team sports like football maybe the better way to have it is if you are just member of the team on the roster but limited to scholarship players. I understand people have strong feelings about players should not be paid. I understand there could be unintended consequences and the mechanism needs to be well thought out. However, it seems to me people are making this issue more complicated than it really is. The 64 colleges in the tournament get their money so it is possible to share.[/SIZE] [SIZE=3] [/SIZE] [/QUOTE]

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