As another March Madness comes to an end a question that has been asked is, will NIL kill the Cinderella stories of college basketball? This year the Final Four was all no. 1 seeds, and that hasn’t happened since 2008. So for this year, yeah Cinderella was pretty dead. This won’t become a pattern though. It’s important to understand that the makeup of March Madness is in favor of the Cinderella story. It only takes a team to have an off night, or a team like Loyola University to go crazy out of nowhere, and just like that, a season is over. We can’t forget to mention the intangibles of March Madness.
In any sport, there are two sides, physical and mental. The reason people love the tournament is because a team with less talent can beat a more talented team if they’re not mentally locked in. Also, assuming that NIL money would kill the Cinderella aspect of March would be ignoring the power of the transfer portal. I’d say that NIL and the transfer portal play a balancing act between bigger and smaller schools. For example, players coming out of high school may go to the program with the biggest budget, when they don’t get the playing time or success they were looking for, they leave and go to a smaller school. Spending the most money doesn’t necessarily guarantee success. Texas spent $16 million and was bounced in the first round. Meanwhile, the national champion Florida spent $8 million. In fact, I’d argue that trying to buy a championship is more costly than it’s worth. Depending on the type of person the player is you may be paying someone who is going to your program strictly for a check, and nothing else. If a team had players like these then it would be impossible to build a championship culture. It’s hard to build continuity as well. This is because when you pay players top dollar, if they’re good they’ll go into the NBA draft the next year, and if they don’t live up to expectations then there’s a good chance they’ll leave. When you go to a Cinderella-type school, you may not get the same exposure, but you’ll have more opportunities to play your game your way, with less pressure. As another season closes, and another champion is crowned, one thing is for sure, Cinderella is alive and well.
Often when you pay teenagers potentially millions of dollars it can become hard to build a culture.
