NCAA on TV and Stream

Historical Background

The NCAA has a history that spans well over 100 years. In its original format, it was created in 1906 under the name, IAAUS but changed to its current name 4 years later in 1910. Originally, it was merely a group in the background who would make rules and discussed sporting activities. That was until the 20s when they began launching their own competitions.

The first was a track and field championship, but this was quickly followed by several others. In 1939, the famous NCAA Basketball Championship was born. As the popularity of these leagues grew, more structure was needed and it eventually evolved into a function organisational body with a full-time leader. The 80s were a big decade for the organisation as they began incorporating more female sports into their organisation and they began to garner more funding through NCAA tv events. In more recent years, they carried on growing and expanding and have accumulated somewhere in the range of $1 billion in net revenue.

Headquarters

For much of its history, the NCAA was based in various places around Kansas. That was until 1997, when it was decided that they would move to Indianapolis due to it being a more central location. They officially moved there in 1999. The building is currently a 140,000-square-foot structure, which is where the 300-member staff work. The NCAA Hall of Champions is situated directly next to it.  

Governing Body/ Administration

The NCAA is run by its own board of governors, who are the main body of the NCAA and elect the president of the organisation. However, the internal body is broken down into a series of cabinets and committees. These cabinets and committees may include a third-party representative from schools, such as athletic directors. Schools are also involved in the legislation by the Management Council, as the board of directors are made up of school presidents.  Ultimately, it is very much self-governed organisation, but with contributions from the schools who are involved in many of the decisions made by the NCAA.  

Players' Eligibility

Those who wish to participate in the NCAAs programs must meet the required criteria. Naturally, they must have graduated from high school, as well as achieved the required grade-point average of at least 1.70 and scores on the SATs and ACTs of 1400. They can get lower in the latter, however, it would mean their GPA would have to be much higher and reach 2.500. They should have required enough credits from required courses as well. In recent years, it has become possible for high school students to sign a letter of intent, in order to enter their football program. Students can participate in sports for up to 4 years.

Men's Programs

In the men's programs, there are 20 different sports spread out over 3 different divisions in which students can participate in. Basketball is the most popular of these sports, with the most participants in all three divisions. This is followed by cross country, baseball, track and field then golf. There is a selection of men's programs that do not exist for women, which are baseball, football and wrestling.    

Women's Programs

The women's program has more sports on offer than the men's, with 22 sports programs in total. Again, the most popular being basketball and the second most popular, cross country. This is then followed by track and field, volleyball, soccer and softball. Much like in the case of the men's sport, there are some women over only sports programs, with the addition of beach volleyball, bowling, field hockey, rowing and softball. Hence, there are two more sports in the women's programs than in the males.

Rules Violation

The NCAA has an investigative staff that looks into any suspected rule violations that are committed by athletes or schools operating within their programs. These begin with a preliminary investigation which can then be followed up by a full-blown inquiry if it is deemed necessary. Several violations form the same school, they may be brought in front of the NCAA committee.

Penalties can vary, but the NCAA has the authority to ban schools from participating in events if the misconduct is deemed serious enough, which is known as the death penalty. This has happened 3 times in the past. In in 1987, the most notable occurrence of this happened to Southern Methodist University's football team. They had their whole season cancelled that year. An incident which they have never recovered from.

Finances

The NCAA are a non-profit organisation, and as such, are tax exempt. As we have mentioned above, they generate revenue somewhere in the range of $1 billion, which sees a budget surplus of $80 million. It is believed that $700 million comes from NCAA tv licensing, while a fair share also comes from investments and an endowment fund, which since it was established in 2004, has increased to well over $380million. A significant sum of their finances also comes purely from their basketball leagues.

However, they also have a lot of out-goings. The most significant of these are $210.8M for Sport Sponsorship and Scholarship Funds, $160.5M Division to a Basketball Performance Fund and $96.7M Division for Championships expenditures, which they offer to their students to compete at and covers things such as travel and food.  

One of the key things about the NCAA and their finances which has brought them into question is the fact they do not pay their athletes salaries. Which means that the athletes still must manage to keep their finances in check all alongside studying, training and of course competing. As such, they are under a lot more pressure than normal students. While there are scholarships in place, the lack of legitimate salaries has previously been brought before a court.

Notable Records and Stats

While the goal of the NCAA is to further sportsmen and women’s careers, only a minority of their athletes go on to pro.

The highest conversion rate to going pro is baseball, where 9.8% go on to play for major teams. Followed by Ice Hockey which sees a conversion rate of 6.9%, then football which sees 1.6%. Despite it being one of the most popular NCAA tv listings, Basketball has one of the lowest conversion rates, with 1.2% going on to go pro for males, and 0.8% going pro for the females. As such, only the best of the best, even within the NCAA, ever make it big. 

Now you know how it works, start hunting out NCAA tv listings now or find yourself an NCAA live stream to catch some superb sports on TV from some of the most talented young athletes in the business.