In her article, NCAA Tournament Hoop Dreams Impact Society, Professor Alison M. Wrynn analyzes how March Madness highlights many different aspects of American culture. She writes, “[T]he jump shots, layups, dunks and free throws that reflect the score also tally points about race, gender, politics, economics, media and other key components of U.S. sensibilities to a vast audience.”
Media includes copyright and licensing. “In 1994 CBS purchased the rights to broadcast the NCAA Tournament for seven years at a cost of $1.725 billion. Today, CBS covers the entire tournament, having paid the NCAA $6 billion for the rights for an 11-year pact through 2013.” These numbers begin to explain why our humble LSN network could not broadcast the championship game at Bucknell. CBS literally invested billions of dollars to broadcast games related to the tournament.
At the arena and game itself, trademark stood out to me more than copyright. The court was surrounded by sponsors’ logos: Coca-Cola, Dasani, etc. The popularity of basketball, especially during the playoffs, creates lucrative marketing opportunities. I assume these opportunities are what make the rights to broadcast the tournament so expensive, yet so profitable.
The great potentials for revenue explain the reason why a company would want to have a monopoly on this tournament. Owning the rights to show all the games allows for potentially billions of dollars to be made. With this, one can see the evolution that college sports have undergone. What was once purely a major enriching part of higher education has now evolved into its own market. As anyone who follows such events realizes, this focus on money has created some controversies as to the role that greed plays in the big picture.
March Madness is just one example of athletic events and entertainment that require many fields. Other events like the Super Bowl and Oscars also require attention to many different aspects. Companies make money off them since it gets the attention of such a large portion of the population. Copyright laws follow anything that is high profile involving money.