by Evan GeorgesMarch Madness Means Money Madness
March is well known as the prime season of college basketball. As 64 teams play for one elite spot and the title of the next national champion, fans compete with each other through betting pools and online brackets. On ESPN.com, over 17 million brackets were made for the 2018 playoff season. Through these betting programs, participants all over the nation have a vested interest in college teams and games that went unnoticed and unwatched during the regular season.
Men’s basketball programs like the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and Loyola University Chicago are granted the opportunity to play games in the national spotlight. As reported by the NCAA, coverage from television stations like TBS, CBS, TNT, and truTV averaged 9.8 million viewers throughout the tournament. Each of these channels makes millions of dollars through ad venue and corporate sponsors but the media companies are not the only players cashing in on the action. One of the biggest winners of March Madness is the small colleges themselves.
As reported by the Atlantic in March 2017, cinderella story teams that make big runs in the NCAA tournament find enormous spikes in college applications the following year. The Atlantic article cites a study done by the Department of Education data by Bloomberg. The study focuses on the unprecedented run to the Sweet Sixteen by Florida Gulf Coast University in the 2013 tournament. Located in Fort Myers, Florida, the student body nearly reaches a meager 15,000 students. As a 15-seed in the 2013 tournament, FGCU shocked the country by defeated No. 2 Georgetown and No. 7 San Diego State. After their shocking athletic success, the admissions office recorded an increase of applications by 27.5 percent. For Florida Gulf Coast, this meant an increase in their student body and more students willing to pay the in-state ($20,443) and out-of-state ($39,486) tuition. As reported in FGCU’s 2009 annual report, “student population will grow from its current level of just over 11,000 students to about 20,000 in the next ten years. ” The year after their memorable tournament run, the student population grew by nearly 1,000.
This year, the University of Maryland-Baltimore County made history by becoming the first-ever 16-seed to defeat a 1-seed in the first round of the March Madness tournament. As of 2018, their student population is 11,142 but their admissions office might want to get a bigger mailbox for the next college application season.