Points for Product Placement: NCAA Cashes In, but Not the Players

ARLINGTON, Tex. - The new champions of men's college basketball, whoever they may be, will cut down a net here Monday night. And when they do, they will climb to the basket on a blue-and-yellow Werner ladder, and they will clip the cords with a pair of orange Fiskars scissors.

They will also probably wear Nike hats and T-shirts, and they might sip from Powerade cups as they cheer on their teammates.

In a tournament that has been packed with upsets and surprises, one of the few mainstays has been the prominence of the logos of corporate sponsors alongside the N.C.A.A. 's. In total, some 19 major partners and corporate supporters are listed in the official fan guide of the Final Four.

The rabid commercialization is hardly new to March Madness and the Final Four - and it is not uncommon in professional sports and at the Olympics. But the N.C.A.A.'s opponents are using it as fresh ammunition with the model for college athletics increasingly under siege.

The N.C.A.A. is facing lawsuits that seek to give players a bigger slice of the billions of dollars in revenue generated by men's basketball and football. The athletic association is also facing a unionization movement, emboldened by a recent ruling that the Northwestern football team could organize and collectively bargain with the university.

Among the biggest complaints about the N.C.A.A. is that it has aggressively monetized nearly every aspect of its championships while it forbids players to negotiate paid endorsement deals.

Critics like Wisconsin forward Zach Bohannon say the double standard is on full display at the Final Four.

'With all of the corporate sponsors, it's like a professional league, only the student-athletes are amateurs, and we don't have any say in the process,' said Bohannon, who is involved with the College Athletes Players Association, which has been behind the organizing effort at Northwestern.

The N.C.A.A., for its part, says the branding in the tournament is not much different from that seen at universities around the country in the football and basketball seasons. The association also disputes the notion that the athletes are forced to pitch products.

'We don't force anybody to do anything,' said Mark Lewis, the N.C.A.A.'s executive vice president for championships and alliances. 'There is no requirement that anybody drink anything or hold anything of any kind.'

On Friday, as players from the Final Four teams - Florida, Wisconsin, Connecticut and Kentucky - worked out and held news conferences, the tournament branding was omnipresent. The day's events were sponsored by Reese's, the official candy partner of the N.C.A.A. The company's mascot, an oversize Reese's peanut butter cup, took the court at AT&T Stadium to rev up the fans between practices.

Off-court activities presented another branding opportunity. When five Wisconsin players met journalists in separate rooms, each had at least one Powerade sports-drink cup on the table in front of him, regardless of whether he actually drank from it.

One of the N.C.A.A.'s chief critics, Michael D. Hausfeld, a lawyer representing players in a lawsuit against the organization, said he had been monitoring the sponsorships during the N.C.A.A. tournament. He took note of the proximity of the Powerade cups to the players during news conferences, saying the N.C.A.A. would violate its own rules 'all the time, as long as they make money, not the athlete.'

'They are out there to sell every piece of merchandise in any way they can, and to maximize their revenue,' Hausfeld said.

Lewis of the N.C.A.A. countered, 'There's not a requirement that anyone advertise or promote a product in any way, shape or form.'

In a crowded field of sponsors during the tournament, Powerade has been among the most visible.

Through its parent, Coca-Cola, Powerade is the official drink of the N.C.A.A., a status that puts its logo on any beverages that can come in range of the television cameras. It means that no matter what players, coaches and even journalists on press row are drinking, they should use a Powerade-branded cup.

Some athletes, like Bohannon, have taken offense.

Baca Juga

On March 27, before Wisconsin's game against Baylor, Bohannon said he was walking onto the court of the Badgers' closed shootaround with a bottle of Nestlé Pure Life water. He was stopped by a security guard, he said, and told that he could not take that bottle onto the court because it was against N.C.A.A. rules. The issue was resolved by tearing the label off the bottle.

'It's just one of those things that's mind-boggling,' said Bohannon, who mentioned the incident on Twitter.

Coca-Cola issued a statement about its long connection to universities 'from scholarships to support for sports teams.'

'For decades, our partnership with the N.C.A.A. has been about fusing education opportunities with the excitement of collegiate sports,' the statement said.

It is difficult to determine exactly how much revenue the N.C.A.A. derives from specific tournament sponsorships because the marketing arrangements are tied to the N.C.A.A.'s broadcast agreements. In 2010, the N.C.A.A. announced a 14-year, $10.8 billion agreement with CBS Sports and Turner Broadcasting for the rights to the men's basketball tournament. As a result, sponsors typically have financial arrangements with the broadcasters, although the N.C.A.A. signs off on any deal.

Each year, the N.C.A.A. distributes hundreds of millions of dollars to universities, which use the money for scholarships and other expenses related to sports, Lewis said. The tournament is an expensive undertaking when team travel, hotels and meals are accounted for, he said.

'Where the money goes is certainly the topic that is being discussed a lot right now,' Lewis said. 'We have to generate money to operate this tournament.'

During the past year, the N.C.A.A. has backed away from some moneymaking opportunities amid public scrutiny and litigation. The N.C.A.A. has vigorously defended itself, but at the same time it decided to stop participating in a football video game series and announced that it would stop selling player jerseys through its website. In announcing the jersey move in August, Mark Emmert, the N.C.A.A.'s president, said that the organization 'probably never should have been in that business.'

A high-profile lawsuit filed against the N.C.A.A. by the former U.C.L.A. basketball player Ed O'Bannon, in which college athletes are seeking to be paid for the use of their likenesses in video games and broadcasts, is scheduled to go to trial in June.

For many years, the N.C.A.A.'s membership has been debating the boundaries of corporate sponsorship and rules on amateurism.

Elizabeth M. Altmaier, a professor at Iowa who served on a number of N.C.A.A. panels on commercialism as a faculty athletics representative, said the corporate branding had gone too far, particularly when college sports face legal threats.

'It simply underlines students' claims and others' concerns that the increased amount of commercialism is generating more money - none of which is going to meet students' needs,' she said.

Even two coaches who are leading Final Four teams, Florida's Billy Donovan and Connecticut's Kevin Ollie, said at a news conference Thursday that college athletics needed to find a way to share more with the players, although they did not suggest specific ways to do so.

Donovan said: 'The idea that a kid can't get a free hamburger somewhere, it doesn't make sense to me. What's the big deal? How is that hurting anybody?'

Other coaches, like Mercer's Bob Hoffman, were measuring their words as they spoke with reporters.

After Mercer upset Duke in the tournament's first round, Hoffman spoke about scouting the next opponent, Tennessee, from the stands while eating a hot dog and drinking a Coke.

'I guess I can say that,' he said, 'since they're a sponsor.'