Players historically get the short end

You get the invitation to a swanky steakhouse, triggering the designed Pavlovian slobber, only to see the gristle seam nestled down the middle: you have to sit through a financial planning pitch before you bite one!

That is how skeptics, at least one, me, sees the Final Four and the entire mens NCAA basketball championship for that matter. It is ostensibly about determining the best college basketball team in the country. High minded but at its core, the weekend will only identify the team that scored the most points in the last game of the season. Whoever that might be, they will assume the crown, sell t-shirts (if licensed so the suits get their cut) attesting to the fact, and savor the potential windfall until next season. Though 'quarter may be the more accurate portrayal.

JFM is how the corporate world views this time of year, not as a pilgrimage to some synthetic pinnacle. January, February, March as the acronym refers to is a crucial point on many company's fiscal calendar. The budget cycle goes JFM, AMJ, JAS, OND.

Then there is the NCAA and CBS. They also expect their JFM numbers and the opening salvos of April, May, June to be big. Final Four big.

Could basketball be the 'free' steak? And the tournament is actually a huge marketing opportunity; a weeks long platform to sell beer, computers, cars and male ED potions?

The fans get their fix, the marketers get eyes and ears, the promoters, the NCAA, TV networks et. al., get stacks of money a show horse couldn't jump.

And the players? They get scholarships.

Which may or may not be worth something, depending largely on the individual's intellectual bent.

Everyone in the New Orleans Super Dome this weekend has a financial stake. Fans paid to be there. Coaches, administrators, ushers, sweat boys and girls; you know the kids who mop up perspiration under the baskets. The media of course cash checks and get the best seats for free in return for shilling the 'greatest event in sports.' Everyone but the 10 guys on the floor and their bench bound friends get hard cash. That is not to diminish the benefit of a free college education. That is a good thing. But not if the kid can't read and write when his one and done is done.

There are student/artists and student/musicians on scholarship at American colleges. Applying to them, the standards to which student/athletes are held would prohibit painting a family portrait, or playing a weekend wedding gig if they were paid for it. Imaging, losing one's scholarship for sketching someone's dalmatian or offering up "Happy Birthday" on a cello.

Have no fear though. The NCAA doesn't stand to gain financially from student/non-athletes. End of story.

But when will we start referring to March Madness as what it is? Mass Marketing.