To What End?: College Sports Grasps for a Bigger Bag

Yesterday, news broke that the powers that be at the NCAA had approved the expansion of the March Madness tournament. Starting in the 2026-2027 season, the universally celebrated tournament will feature 76 teams, with 12 “opening round” games presumably in place of the currently constructed First Four setup. March Madness remains one of the few points in American life that could conceivably be considered a monoculture. Offices across the country compete in bracket pools. The TV ratings are higher than ever before. In an era in which the NFL monopolizes so much of the sports calendar, college basketball owns the entirety of March. And importantly, there are very few fans, media members, coaches, or athletes that are clamoring for diluting the tournament. No one wants it. It’s for the money. 

Two days ago, ESPN reported that the Big Ten, the most lucrative sports conference in the country, is looking into grabbing a bag of private equity cash worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 billion. The terms are still unclear, the potential PE firm is unknown, but for some reason, the Big Ten felt the need to build up even more in its war chest. In exchange for the multi-billion dollars, a private equity firm would get a share of future revenue, although without any change in the ownership stake of the conference. It’s more like a B1G Bond, not a B1G IPO. In the same article, there’s a quote from the Nebraska AD reacting positively to the potential of jersey sponsorship patches to scrounge a little more cash. So who’s the money paying? What’s the purpose? What’s this for? 

A few weeks back, my beloved University of Illinois made a stunning announcement. After an enormous and generous donation of $100 million to the Illinois athletic department from billionaire and Illinois grad Larry Gies, the century-old Memorial Stadium would now be known as Gies Memorial Stadium. It’s technically renamed after Gies’ father, a Vietnam War veteran. It’s a huge gift from a philanthropist that had already given millions to the Illinois business school. He’s a proud graduate giving back and honoring his father’s service as a veteran. It’s honorable and I support that piece of it.

But to rename Memorial Stadium? To rename it less than 365 days after the centennial rededication? It’s staggeringly inappropriate. During the 1920s college football boom, many of the university stadiums that still exist today were built and dedicated in honor of World War I veterans. Students in the Illini cohorts in the years following the conflict honored their fellow alumni that went to war, to fight and to suffer and to die in Ypres and Belleau Wood. Students raised vast sums of money to build the stadium in the memory of those lost. They watched it rise out of the swampy ground south of campus, eclipsing all other buildings in central Illinois. They were there 101 years ago when the names were read aloud.

The names of the Illini that gave their lives in France are etched on the columns surrounding the stadium. 189 names, 200 columns. In 2002, the dedication of Memorial Stadium was expanded to represent the Illini that served in all of the wars since WWI. There are another 759 names of the Illini dead from WWII, the Korean War, and from Vietnam. They’re inscribed on four limestone tablets surrounding the stadium. To put a single name ahead of those 948, to rename what was sanctified by 948 lives, to rehonor what they consecrated by deed? To do it for a cartoonishly large bag of cash?

Illinois, would you have done it for $50 million? What about a single dollar? We’re only quibbling over the price.

NCAA, was the additional TV revenue worth it? Big Ten, how’s the $2 billion to be used? For what purpose must you cheapen everything that the fans hold dear? To what end?