Coming down with March Madness before the Big Dance may sound like an excuse to skip prom, but it actually describes our nationwide obsession with the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. This 68-team basketball bonanza has been known to crown a Cinderella or two, produce at least one shining moment a year, and turn millions of Americans into illegal gamblers. It’s that good.
It’s also a big business both on and off the court, making millionaires out of coaches, conference commissioners and NCAA executives but very few players. Tournament time takes a toll on fans’ wallets, too, and not just in terms of the millions we lose in bracket pools each year. The starting retail price for a ticket to one of the 2025 Final Four games costs around $137, for one thing. Around 19 percent more beer is sold to keep up with cheering fans, too. Plus, there’s the potential for some workplace conflict, since distracted employees cost businesses more than $17 billion per year.
In other words, there’s a lot more to this tournament than basketball. And since money plays at least as much of a role as love of the game, WalletHub analyzed March Madness from tip to title with a special emphasis on finance. You can check out all the interesting NCAA tournament stats and facts that we found in the infographic below. We also hosted a Q&A with a panel of sports business experts on topics ranging from college basketball’s economics to which team will cut down the nets in San Antonio, Texas. Enjoy the show!
Top 10 March Madness Stats & Facts:
- $1.3 Billion+: Annual estimated revenue for the NCAA in 2024.
- $9.6 Million: Salary for college basketball’s highest paid coach, Kansas’s Bill Self (vs. $891K combined for University of Kansas’s chancellor and the state’s governor).
- 52X: Difference between the average NBA rookie’s salary ($4.1M) and a D1 men’s athlete basketball scholarship for a year ($71.4K).
- $17 Billion+: Corporate losses due to unproductive workers during March Madness.
- $400 Million+: Projected economic impact on San Antonio from March Madness 2025.
- $251.6 Million: Estimated value of the University of Ohio basketball program— highest among all schools (generating a revenue of $24M).
- $15 Million: NCAA’s women’s basketball fund’s 2025 distribution to D1 schools (first in NCAA’s history).
- $0: Amount of money the NCAA pays the players participating in the tournament.
- 64,000: Alamodome Stadium’s capacity for Final Four 2025 (expendable to 72,000).
- 12+: College basketball programs are involved in a corruption case involving payments to players.
Ask the Experts: March Madness Musings
March Madness is one of the most entertaining guessing games on the calendar, but we wanted to add some more-educated insights to the prognostication mix. We posed the following questions to a panel of sports business experts. You can check out their bios and responses below.
- Who are your Final Four picks?
- In your opinion, is hosting March Madness 2025 an opportunity or a challenge?
- How do you characterize the NCAA tournament’s economic impact on its host cities?
- Where do you stand on the issue of paying college athletes?
- What are the biggest issues facing the NCAA today?
Ask the Experts
Distinguished Service Professor, Sport Management; Coordinator, Sport Management Program; Coordinator, Sport Management Study Abroad Experiences – State University of New York at Brockport
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Head Coach, Women’s Basketball Program – Thomas Jefferson University
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Ph.D. – Assistant Professor in the Department of Exercise Science and Sport Management – Kennesaw State University
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Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Recreation and Sport Management, College of Health Sciences - Utah Tech University
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Emeritus Professor of MIS, Fowler College of Business - San Diego State University
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Tim Chartier - Joseph R. Morton Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science and Jack Bray - Mathematics and Computer Science double major - Davidson College
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WalletHub experts are widely quoted. Contact our media team to schedule an interview.