College Basketball Just Got a $300 Million Injection and Tennis Is Already Paying the Price

March Madness is expanding to 76 teams. Beer companies are throwing serious money at the NCAA. And while basketball programs are celebrating, tennis teams are getting eliminated left and right.

The NCAA's tournament expansion is projected to bring in $300 million in extra revenue over the next six seasons, largely thanks to new sponsorships from beer, wine, and liquor companies. Of that haul, about $131 million will flow directly to the conferences whose schools make the tournaments. It's a huge windfall for the sport. But here's the thing: not everyone is benefiting equally.

The Sports Getting Cut While Basketball Cashes In

While basketball programs are getting comfortable with their expanded revenue streams, smaller NCAA sports are getting axed. Arkansas dismantled its entire tennis program this year. Wichita State cut golf. North Dakota, Saint Louis, and Illinois State also eliminated tennis programs. All told, roughly 20 programs were eliminated across college sports this season, with Olympic sports taking the hardest hit.

The Arkansas cuts were particularly telling. The Razorbacks' tennis programs cost about $2.5 million annually, according to the men's coach Jay Udwadia. That's roughly what it costs to sign a high-profile wide receiver. When Udwadia found out, his first thought was that it had to be a joke. "My initial reaction was, 'That's funny. April fools, right?'" he told Front Office Sports.

What makes this especially harsh is that Arkansas plays in the Southeastern Conference, the second-richest conference in college sports behind only the Big Ten. If a school in the SEC can't make tennis work, what hope do smaller programs have?

Money Flowing in One Direction Now

North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham was asked a blunt question recently: if Arkansas can't figure out how to keep tennis alive, how can anyone else? His answer revealed the brutal reality taking shape. The money flows two ways now. "One is you will be paid to play your game and other is you'll have to pay if you're going to play your game," Cunningham said. Tennis and golf players, it seems, will be doing the paying.

Meanwhile, schools are finding creative ways to generate revenue. Duke signed a landmark streaming deal with Amazon for three of its basketball games, a deal believed to be worth millions. When Georgia and Florida State canceled their home-and-home football series, reporting suggested they were hunting for a similar streamer deal with a neutral-site game. It's the kind of arrangement only the biggest programs can land.

The divide between the haves and have-nots in college sports just got a whole lot wider.

This article was created with AI assistance and reviewed by Seattle On Tap editorial staff. Always verify information with official team sources.