NCAA Tournament rakes in millions on efforts of unpaid athletes, but what’s the solution?

LOS ANGELES — Fieldgoal percentage and turnover margin aren’t the only statistics that matter as the college basketball season reaches its crescendo with the Final Four this weekend. Look at the dollars. The remaining teams — Villanova, Kansas, Michigan and upstart Loyola Chicago — generate a combined $49 million in revenue each season, according to the latest U.S. Department of Education figures.

The NCAA, meanwhile, expects to earn $857 million from its television deal for this season’s tournament.

When sports economists compare these numbers with the value of scholarships that athletes receive, they see a trigger for the corruption scandal enveloping the game.

“If we think about the word ‘exploitation,’ it has a specific definition,” Southern Utah professor David Berri said. “‘Exploitation’ means you’re being paid a wage less than your economic value ... any restriction below market prices is going to lead to cheating.”

It was late September when federal prosecutors leveled the first charges stemming from an investigation into fraud and bribery inside numerous programs across the nation.

Among the 10 names listed in initial FBI complaints were financial advisors, shoe company representatives and four assistant coaches, including Tony Bland of USC, Emanuel Richardson of Arizona and Lamont Evans of Oklahoma State.

NCAA leaders quickly established a committee to assess the situation, focusing on such issues as the NBA’s “oneand-done” age limit and the relationship their game has with such outside forces as agents and shoe companies.

The committee is expected to issue a report in April.

“We must take decisive action,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said recently. “This is not a time for half-measures or incremental change.”

The Pac-12 Conference also created a task force, which delivered its findings this month. Emphasis was placed on the “one-and-done” rule which, in effect, forces players to spend a year in college before entering the NBA draft.

The minimum-age limit is considered important because some athletes who do not really want to attend college might be more likely to accept money under the table. But Berri and others suspect that eliminating this relatively small percentage of young men from the equation would be insufficient.

In the absence of a free market, they say, a black market will always arise. As Jim Lackritz, an emeritus sports business professor at San Diego State, put it: “Players are worth whatever someone is willing to pay them.”

In this case, that “someone” could be unscrupulous recruiters, boosters and agents. But college leaders have traditionally resisted paying their own money to athletes for a variety of reasons.

Looking beyond arguments about tradition, a pay-to-play model could be complicated — how much should a starting quarterback receive as compared with a coxswain on the rowing team? How do you justify the difference?

And how can the same rules fit Kansas, where the basketball team generates $18.2 million, and Loyola Chicago, whose program brings in $2.8 million?