Television and marketing money from these events make up about eighty-five percent of the NCAA’s income. Much of that, however, is returned to the colleges and universities. Sixty percent of the NCAA’s expenses are payments to its division one schools.

STEVE EMBER:

People have criticized the NCAA for placing too much importance on the business side of college sports. Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently urged banning teams with low graduation rates from play in the NCAA basketball tournament.Some men’s basketball teams have graduation rates well below forty percent. But the NCAA says that graduation rates among all student athletes are higher than the general student population.

Joni Comstock says the NCAA does a lot of research on the effect of sports on student-athletes. She says ninety percent of student-athletes say they believe they have developed strong skills of leadership and teamwork. And over ninety percent of college athletes say their experience has helped them in their current jobs.

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FAITH LAPIDUS:

The roots of the NCAA date back to the need to control one sport—American football. In fact, a former NCAA worker Kay Hawes wrote that the NCAA’s “father was football and its mother was higher education.” In the early nineteen hundreds, football was wildly popular. The sport had fewer rules, was extremely violent and provided little protection for players. Serious injuries and deaths were common.