MADNESS, PART II: FOLLOWING THE TRAIL OF RIGHTS FEES?

     The NCAA tournament, which begins today, has become the
NCAA's "cash cow," according to Paul Kenyon of the PROVIDENCE
JOURNAL-BULLETIN.  The NCAA's $1.725B rights deal with CBS is one
of the reasons NCAA revenue has "skyrocketed" from $99M in '89-90
to a budgeted $222.2M for this year.  That is mostly TV revenue,
but '95 ticket sales hit $14.1M with radio rights at $2.87M and
merchandising bringing i,n another $500,000.  More than 80% of
the NCAA budget is derived from basketball revenue.  Distribution
includes a Broad Based Distributing Plan where all member schools
share in the plan, with money "awarded based on the number of
varsity sports a college offers and the number of scholarships it
provides."  The Basketball Fund distributed almost $40M to
schools last year by conference.  Last year, the ACC received
$5.3M, the Big East $4M, and the A-10 $1.7M (PROVIDENCE JOURNAL-
BULLETIN, 3/14).