A business case for 96-team March Madness, plus Inside the NBA's strength
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Welcome back to MoneyCall, The Athletic's weekly sports business cheat sheet. Name-dropped today: Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, JuJu Watkins and Paige Bueckers, Sixth Street, Bill Simmons, Savannah Bananas, Charlie Baker, Lindsay Schnell and more. Let's go:
Priorities! If you've got a bracket or want yet another group to join, MoneyCall readers are welcome to join my ESPN group, 'MoneyCall March.' Links here: men's and women's.
Meanwhile … in the wake of UNC's blowout win last night in the First Four, is it fair that the five major conferences got 38 of the 68 bids to the men's NCAA Tournament? College sports has never cared much about 'fair,' but we can argue for more inclusion by citing something it does care about: 💰.
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Limiting opportunities for success isn't in the best interest of college basketball, which is part of why the Tournament has aggressively expanded over the years from 16 to 32 (1975) to 40 (1979) to 48 (1980) to 64 (1985) to 68 (2011). Expansion is in the DNA of March Madness.
This week saw the release of the mega-trendy new book 'Abundance' by The New York Times' Ezra Klein and The Atlantic's Derek Thompson, whose thesis is that we're better off as a society if (to oversimplify) we create more stuff. It's time for college basketball to embrace an 'abundance' agenda and expand the NCAA Tournaments to 96 teams each, especially now that the number of Division I teams is over 350 and counting. (To compare, think about the percentage of NFL and NBA teams that make the playoffs.)
In the same way the radical expansion of the College Football Playoff from four to 12 teams made college football's season that much more exciting (and opened the door for inclusion of lower-conference teams to go from zero to one), an expansion of the men's and women's NCAA Tournaments from 64 to 96 would have a similar effect.
The Big (Abun-)Dance math is sound: more teams = more variance = more madness.
Big talkers from the sports business industry:
MLB teams have been very aggressive in partnering with private equity firms, which have been equally aggressive in getting into team ownership across the sports landscape. College conferences are the next big category in which you'll see eyebrow-raising spending from private equity.
Sixth Street also owns stakes in the San Antonio Spurs, FC Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bay FC.
Meanwhile: Each player on the champion Rose got a $50K bonus (which is one-third the average WNBA salary, meaning it's no wonder Unrivaled is upending WNBA labor talks). Don't miss Ben Pickman's takeaways from the inaugural season.
Related-ish: Don't miss Chantel Jennings' interview with NCAA president Charlie Baker about many of the biggest business issues impacting women's college basketball.
And even if the Olympics could have negotiated a higher deal with, say, a streaming platform, NBC has proven itself to be a gold standard of reliability as a network partner.
Other current obsessions: Man U's financial books … Artie Kempner to 'MNF' … NHL owner rankings … Detroit Tigers prospect Max Clark … Baseball x manga … Pro-Rel system in domestic U.S. soccer … Travis Hunter's fishing obsession …
To borrow from Bloomberg's Matt Levine: NOT investment advice.
Men's
Women's
Mmm, chalky!
Need advice? I enjoyed these predictions from my colleagues Chantel Jennings and Sabreena Merchant on the women's side, and Lindsay Schnell, C.J. Moore and Brendan Marks on the men's.
Time for a lightning round.
Elevator Pitch: 'Inside the NCAA' > 'Inside the NBA'
One leitmotif of the NBA season is that TNT's 'Inside the NBA' crew seems to mostly dislike the current NBA, bashing the league and its players on a weekly basis.
You notice a 'Severance'-style switch when the group moves over to college basketball for their three weeks of NCAA Tournament coverage. Their tone is demonstrably more positive when they cover college hoops, almost like, 'They're kids! It's college! Let's give them a break and just enjoy this!'
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That's probably a function of that crew dropping in on the sport three weeks a year, along with their lack of familiarity with almost any of the players or teams. Instead, it's all about the vibes! The upsets! And buzzer-beaters! And unlikely heroes! And brackets! And alma maters!
And it's a refreshing break from their cynicism about the pro game.
Number to Know: 14,288
The new record for people to pack an arena to watch a women's hockey game in the U.S. There's a lot of attention on WNBA and NWSL, but the PWHL has a ton of momentum, too.
Speaking of NWSL …
New renderings of Denver's stadium, scheduled to open in 2028:
Remembering John Feinstein
'A Season on the Brink' was THE formative book of my youth. Feinstein was a legend among college basketball writers and a prolific book author. My colleague Brendan Quinn filed an exceptional appreciation of Feinstein that is worth your time.
New pod alert!
Just in time for March Madness and the start of the WNBA season, if you're a fan of women's basketball analysis, check out 'No Offseason' from The Athletic.
Beat Dan in Connections: Sports Edition
Puzzle #177
🔵🔵🔵🔵
🟡🟡🟡🟡
🟢🟢🟢🟢
🟣🟣🟣🟣
⏱️ 00:57
Friends, today's puzzle was SO good. Try the game here!
Great business-adjacent reads for your downtime or commute:
Selection Sunday didn't feel the same without Greg Gumbel, and fans will feel his absence in the studio tomorrow, Friday and throughout the next few weeks. Before the games tip off, read this great piece by Lindsay Schnell about Gumbel's legacy.
Two more:
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