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Looking at basketball game expenses

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By David Heitz | Monday, June 2, 2008 12:07 AM CDT | () comments

Q: There’s a lot of information during the college bowl season about how much money each team gets to go to a bowl game, but what about basketball? Do the teams get paid to attend tournament games or at least have travel expenses paid?

— Dan, Eldridge, Iowa

A: We turned to veteran Quad-City Times sports reporter Steve Batterson to explain this one.

He said that unlike the bowl system, which operates outside the structure of the NCAA and leaves teams to cover expenses from bowl payouts they receive, the NCAA covers all travel-related expenses for teams involved in its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. Since 1991, the NCAA has utilized a revenue distribution formula to allocate revenue dollars above expenses back to its member schools.

The formula provides an annual revenue stream to each member school and conference — $60,000 per school to be used in an academic enhancement fund and $221,600 per conference to assist in funding officiating, compliance, enforcement and equal-opportunity programs, Batterson explained.

Participating schools also receive an amount for each game they play in the tournament. Last year it came to $177,000. Those dollars don’t necessarily all go to the schools. As is the case with bowl revenue earned above expenses, the Big Ten pools its dollars. They are then distributed evenly to all schools on a rolling six-year basis, allowing for the normal peaks and valleys of receipts to be accounted for in the budgeting process at each institution.

Q: Why don’t they round the price of gas to the nearest penny instead of having the nine-tenths?

— Quad-Citian

A: The practice seems to go back to the Depression, according to several Web sites. In the 1930s so many people couldn’t afford gas for their cars and trucks that many gas stations were in financial trouble. They started using fractional prices in the hopes people would think gas was a little cheaper than it was. By now, the practice is deeply ingrained.

Follow-up files

n Len from Davenport called in with a tip on managing Creeping Charlie. He said Ortho Weed-B-Gone is an effective way to battle the nuisance, as we suggested, but added that it may take four or five applications approximately one to two weeks apart to completely knock the plant out.

Jeff Miller, owner of Home Hardware in Davenport, also offered a tip for making the crafty weed crumble. He suggested mixing 10 ounces of 20 Mule Team Borax with 2.5 gallons of hot water and sprinkling it on the vixen vine. He cautions not to use more than that, as it could burn your lawn. Also, it’s best to wait and apply the concoction until the temperature stays above 70 degrees at night.

n Denny Mosher from the Moline-East Moline Pigeon Club called to help the reader who found a dead, banded pigeon in his shed. To find out whom the pigeon belongs to, call the American Racing Pigeon Union at (405) 848-5801. To learn more about the bands, go to pigeon.org/lostbirdinfo.htm.