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Out in Kansas somewhere remote and clandestine, behind closed doors in a room filled with cigar smoke and the scent of older men, commissioners of the 10 major college athletics conferences gather to barter and arms deals and influence peddle and leverage when possible name image and likeness money and players. They’re gathered to make the most important decision Americans make each year, and the only one all 330 million in its population care about selecting the 68 teams for the NCAA March Madness Tournament.
Teams selected haul in hundreds of millions of dollars apiece to pay players going forward and those who don’t are left scrapping for pennies careening towards institutional bankruptcy.
The 11th person in the room is an imposter, impersonating a security guard, who snuck in a side door and no one noticed. Sitting in a corner is Sammy Sportface, who covers college basketball, artificial intelligence, and the Joker.
The ground rules for the meeting are simple and crass. No one in the room is allowed to ever tell anyone what actually gets discussed or what under-the-table financial deals are made to buy teams’ bids and snub others.
The Commissioner of the Big 12, a conference expected to get nine teams in the tournament this year, slams the gavel on the table to bring the meeting to order.
“What about this Wake Forest team which has been on the bubble the entire season? Should we let them in? How much money do they have to pay each of us to get a bid?”
The Commissioner of the ACC, a league with only four bids with Wake one of the last four teams out, speaks up:
“I’d like you all to know a guy named Sammy Sportface posted a blog last week saying Wake Forest will go on a run like NC State in 1983. They’ll need to win the ACC tournament to get an automatic bid. They will then go on and win the national title. America will get inspired by this Wake Forest run to national glory and the Sammy Sportface angle to it all. This tournament needs a great touching story and Wake will deliver that. Small school, never won, Cinderella wins again, sports blogger, alumnus. Quaint, touching, and good for TV ratings.”
“Who’s Sammy Sportface?” asks the Big 12 Commissioner.
“He leads the Baby Boomer Brotherhood.”
“What’s he know about hoops?”
“He scored 24 on Adrian Branch in high school.”
“Sounds credible and compelling. All right, let’s let Wake in and we’ll jilt some other team.”
Next team on the agenda: St. John’s, also on the bubble.
The Big East Commissioner says St. John’s needs to get in to spike up T ratings and make everyone in the room more money plus all CBS and TNT.
“Billions of Americans don’t like Rick Pitino,” he said. “This tournament needs a villain and he’s that guy. People will tune in to root for Pitino to lose in a pitiful way. It’ll draw eyeballs.”
“Great point,” says the Big 12 Commissioner. “The priority here is to get more people watching the tournament and emotionally charged up, no matter how many indiscretions a coach has not admitted to in his past, and Pitino will deliver that, for sure.”
Next team up: Princeton.
The Ivy League Commission speaks up:
“These guys may follow the Dartmouth team and announce they want to unionize, be university employees, and pilfer more money from Princeton’s billion-dollar endowment. If there’s any way to keep them out of the tournament, I’m all for it.”
The Big 12 Commissioner agreed.
“We don’t need any more college players unionizing because that threatens our power, control, and money-making opportunities. Princeton is out.”
Next up: Colgate, Quinnipiac, and Little Rock. All three teams are in the tournament but the Big 12 Commissioner floats the idea of striking them based on their lack of brand recognition and minimal revenue-generating opportunities.
“What is Colgate some kind of toothpaste? And Quinnipiac sounds like a river or rock quarry. And Little Rock sounds like a place I took my high school girlfriend one night but oafishly fell in the water before anything happened. We were drinking Rolling Rocks that night in Little Rock but other than that it was one night I’d like to forget.”
In a unanimous strawman vote, the commissioners decide that Colgate, Quinnipiac, and Little Rock will not be in the field of 68.
The meeting adjourns. To recap, Wake and St. Johns get in. Princeton, Colgate, Quinnipiac, and Little Rock are out.
The Commissioners then go to a local five-star hotel, rent out a plush ballroom, and order steak and lobster dinners while smoking cigars and drinking adult beverages – all paid for by advertisers forking over hundreds of millions to pump their products and services on CBS throughout the month-long phantasmagoria.
Author Profile
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Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
Sammy Sportface Has a Vision -- Check It Out
Sammy Sportface -- The Baby Boomer Brotherhood Blog -- Facebook Page
