Would March Madness be terribly different if the players were paid?
Probably not. The college basketball tournament might become more professionalized, but it wouldn't look much different from what we're seeing right now.
"I don't see it changing one iota," says ESPN basketball analyst Jay Bilas.
Last week's National Labor Relations Board ruling that football players at Northwestern University should be able to form a union triggered dire warnings from the NCAA that the ideal of the student-athlete would be forever corrupted if players were treated as employees and paid as such.
But for fans, the reality is that the game wouldn't change. The real question is how the pie would be sliced, with players suddenly demanding a share of the take.
"It's another NCAA scare tactic," says Bilas, who played basketball at Duke University. "They're saying it's going to crumble when they talk about giving the athletes a penny over their expenses, and it's wrong."
The Game's Already For Sale
It's hard to imagine March Madness getting any more commercial.
The tournament is already a billion-dollar event, with as many Burger King and AXE body wash commercials as television can carry.
"Any time we cover an NCAA tournament event, the NCAA will not allow you to sit courtside with beverages that do not have the label from one of their sponsors," says Kevin Blackistone, a sportswriter who teaches journalism at the University of Maryland.
Fans would still be able to buy jerseys emblazoned with team names and the numbers of their favorite players — with those players maybe seeing a cut.
It's possible that ticket prices could go up, but that's been happening for years anyway, as coaching salaries have soared into the multi-million-dollar range.
And it's not like the pro version of the sport will suddenly be dominated by big-money programs — the Stanford Facebookers or the Kansas Koch Brothers — or at least no more than it's dominated by big money programs already.
The Two-Way
Labor Board Rules Northwestern University Players Are Employees