Millionaire Coaches, Billion-Dollar TV Contracts and Zip for the Players

ByABC News
April 2, 2007, 7:59 AM

April 2, 2007 — -- The players of Ohio State or Florida will be named college basketball champions tonight.

Regardless of who wins the game, players from both teams will end up big losers in the financial bonanza that March Madness has become, critics say.

From coaches to colleges to TV networks, everybody makes millions off the games -- everybody that is, except those who actually touch the ball.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association has strict rules that prohibit student-athletes from receiving any compensation. As another basketball season wraps up, a group of critics is once again questioning why the students -- many who have grown up in poverty -- can't cash in.

Boyce D. Watkins, a finance professor at Syracuse University, equated the NCAA's leadership to "a bunch of pimps."

"Basically pimps are the types of people that control you and manipulate you and try to persuade you that they are trying to protect you," Watkins said. "There are many rules in place that are not protecting the athletes' interests. They are protecting the NCAA's interests."

Watkins said some players' mothers were being evicted from their homes while some coaches' wives were flying to games on private jets. "How in the world can you ever justify that with any degree of sanity in your head?" he said.

Watkins said there was nothing wrong with making money, except if you failed to share it with those doing most of the work.

"A coach can't win a basketball game if he does not have basketball players," he said. "The crime in all of this is that many of these players, they come from poverty and their families really need this money."

While NCAA's rules prohibit any financial gain by students, coaches can sign multimillion-dollar shoe contracts -- essentially forcing their players to wear a certain brand of sneakers. The players can't enter into similar deals.

Players are prohibited, in most cases, from signing autographs. They can't talk to professional teams until after the end of their college athletic career.