Ballin'!!!

Take a brief step away from the madness, and let's talk money and college basketball.  As we all know, the sports industry is a huge moneymaker, but what exactly does that mean for these basketball programs at D1 schools?

For the third consecutive year, Forbes.com has ranked the Top 20 Most Valuable College Basketball teams, based on the following four factors (in order of weight):

1. The value of contributions to the institution for academic purposes, including scholarships for basketball players.

2. The net profit generated by the basketball program retained by the athletic department.

3. The value contributed to conference peers via tournament revenue.

4.  Estimated direct spending by visitors to the county attributable to home basketball games.

Ranked at #1 for two straight years and valued at $29 million are the North Carolina Tar Heels.  Coming off of their 2009 Championship, the Tar Heels are stacking their chips and saving for a rainy day.  Good thing they are, because ladies and gentlemen, that rainy day has arrived!  Last year, 2009 NCAA Champs, this year, a round-trip ticket straight to the NIT.  Can't wait to see how a disappointing season impacts their 2011 ranking. 

And, because you simply can't mention UNC without hearing Duke (or vice versa), the Blue Devils are ranked #11 with a value of $16.4 million.  For the second consecutive year, their value has dropped.  The steady decline is attributed to their enormous operations budget which is 50% more than any other team.  This seems a bit excessive, especially when they share a market with UNC.  Anytime twice as much money is spent to do the same job, questions should be asked, eyebrows should be raised, and people should be fired.  Just sayin'.

For the complete list of rankings, check out the article and slideshow. 

You may now return to your regularly scheduled program with beer in one hand, bracket sheet in the other.