March Madness Daily: Men's Final Proves “Administrations Win Championships”
Houston and Florida have more than great players and top coaches to thank for their tourney runs
Welcome back to Club Sportico, where we break down the intersection of sports and money—with an extra bit of humor and opinion. Today, we talk about the true keys to success:
Bracket Update🚨: Congrats to (Sportico Senior Editor) Bette Canter for winning our women’s tournament challenge, via tiebreaker over Kim Mulkey’s Feather Boa. On the men’s side, Golden Glovers will take the top prize with a Houston 😾victory tonight, while Dan Shanoff’s Iffy Picks won’t be so iffy if Florida 🐊 lifts the trophy.
Jacob: I’ll be thinking about a recent line from Houston coach Kelvin Sampson as the Cougars take on Florida for an NCAA title Monday night (8:50 pm, CBS).
"Coaches and players win games, but administrations win championships," Sampson said during a pre-Final Four press conference held in Houston’s recently built—and even more recently upgraded—practice facility.
Was he pandering to bosses and donors? Absolutely. But the quote also feels true, maybe now more than ever.
The University of Houston sunk $100s of millions into its athletics program over the last two decades, rising from mid-major status to the Big 12, as part of a larger effort to put the 98-year-old school in the same breath as Texas’ top universities. Houston Rockets owner and billionaire Cougars booster Tilman Fertitta has personally ensured some of the updates, as have other big-name backers.
Coaches and players win games, but administrations win championships
UH still has one of the smallest athletic budgets among Power Four schools—if not the smallest—but athletic director Eddie Nuñez has said the school will budget in $20.5 million for athlete revenue sharing going forward, the maximum allowable amount, in an attempt to keep up with other power players. The basketball program is also expected to distribute a larger percentage of that total than other hoops teams, in recognition of what Sampson has built (and maybe his ability to manage up).
Florida, perhaps surprisingly, comes in middle-of-the-pack in athletics spending within the SEC—and towards the bottom when it comes to basketball, according to Sportico’s college sports financial database. But coach Todd Golden has still clearly been given every resource he needs to compete for a title. Much has been made of the two private planes at the program’s disposal, a leg up as he recruits transfers around the country like leading scorer Walter Clayton Jr. and lures international prospects. Florida donor John Frost even reportedly put Clayton Jr. on Golden’s radar. And while the Gators were slow to get their NIL operations up and running, they’re big players in that space now.
Pro sports leagues’ tradition of first handing championship trophies to team owners instead of coaches or star players has long been derided. But maybe they’re onto something.
Recognizing the money behind the operations on the NCAA’s championship dais would be a fitting sendoff to this season—and tipoff to a new era in college sports.
Programming note: We’ll be back on Thursday with our first post-Madness edition of Club Sportico. Let us know in the comments what you thought of this series, and if you’d like to see us go daily again soon!
Club Sportico is a community organized by Sportico, a digital media company launched in 2020 to cover the business side of sports. You can read breaking news, smart analysis, and in-depth features from Eben, Jacob and their colleagues at Sportico.com, and listen to the Sporticast podcast wherever you get your audio. Contact us at club@sportico.com.