Over the next three weeks sports fans, basketball enthusiasts, and causal spectators across the nation will catch a case of March Madness. There will be a lot of numbers and statistics thrown around about the 68 teams, 67 games, and 75+ years of history related to the tournament. Over 70 million brackets will to be filled in and over $9 billion will be bet on the games. This kind of attention draws huge viewership. In 2010, the NCAA signed a deal with CBS to air the games for the next 14 years- for $10.8 Billion. Year by year data dating back to 1993 shows a substantial increase in revenues from television deals. We compared these numbers with historical tuition data from public four year institutions after noticing a similar slope. Curiously, over the 20 year period there is a 99.4% correlation.
March 17, 2015