{"id":72,"date":"2024-04-03T18:15:55","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T18:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/?p=72"},"modified":"2024-04-03T18:15:56","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T18:15:56","slug":"but-its-april-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/but-its-april-now\/","title":{"rendered":"But It\u2019s April Now\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Super Bowl may be the single most-watched sporting event in America. But for millions of rabid and casual fans alike, nothing beats March Madness. This year, Iowa\u2019s Caitlin Clark shattered \u201cPistol Pete\u201d Maravich\u2019s 1970 record to become the top scorer in Division I college basketball history, leading her Hawkeyes to a 31-4 record and Big Ten championship. That was enough to earn Iowa a #1 seed in the Big Dance. But nobody is a guaranteed winner, and Clark faced stiff competition from the likes of LSU\u2019s Angel Reese, USC\u2019s Juju Watkins, and Uconn\u2019s Paige Bueckers. The spectacle has become so popular there\u2019s even a\u00a0men\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

March Madness has been entertaining fans since 1939, when the Oregon Webfoots crushed the Ohio State Buckeyes, 46-33, to emerge as champions. Since then, it\u2019s become big business, too. This year, the men\u2019s tournament will generate $1.2 billion dollars in broadcast rights, merchandising, ticket sales, and corporate sponsorships. The women\u2019s tournament will add over $600 million more. So it\u2019s no surprise that money is crowding out tradition and threatening to change the freewheeling character of the event. Naturally, that means big money for tax collectors, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest questions right now involve deciding who gets to play. Both men\u2019s and women\u2019s tournaments include 68 teams. Thirty-two conference champions automatically qualify, while the tournament selection committee invites the remaining thirty-six (and turns the \u201cSelection Sunday\u201d announcement into its own moneymaker). Naturally, there are voices calling to expand the tournaments to 76, 80, or even 96 teams. That would certainly give more programs (and more tax collectors) a chance to cash in. But it could also render the regular season even more meaningless than it already is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current structure gives teams from smaller conferences like the Ivy League the chance to upset bigger-name schools, like St. Peter\u2019s (who?) over Kentucky in 2022, or Yale over Auburn this go-round. But not everyone appreciates that particular diversity. Greg Sankey, who makes $3.7 million per year as commissioner of the SEC, thinks the current structure gives too many of those precious slots to the bracket-busting Cinderellas that make March Madness so much fun. In short, he wants more of his own SEC teams competing so he can make more money. (A married taxpayer earning $3.7 million in Sankey\u2019s hometown of Birmingham pays about $1.3 million in federal income tax, $95,000 in FICA, and $120,000 in Alabama tax.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These questions coincide with new rules letting college athletes cash in on \u201cname, image, and likeness\u201d (NIL) rights. Players don\u2019t get paid yet, although the Dartmouth team\u2019s decision to unionize last month may help change that. In the meantime, college athletes can now sign endorsement deals just like the pros. Caitlin Clark has already signed contracts with Gatorade, State Farm, and Nike. (Can you imagine \u201cCaitlin from State Farm\u201d?) Angel Reese has signed with Coach and McDonalds and shared an ad for a Goldman Sachs investing initiative highlighting the wealth gap between black and white women. NIL rights are especially valuable for athletes from \u201cnonrevenue\u201d sports like gymnastics, which don\u2019t lead to professional opportunities. And as an added bonus, they give college athletes the chance to learn about 1099s, 1040s, and K-1s at the same time they wrestle with topics like anatomy, calculus, and geology (aka \u201crocks for jocks\u201d). Yay!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basketball fans will read anything they can about March Madness\u2014including this lame blog post. But where there\u2019s big money, there\u2019s usually a tax collector waiting to catch his share. Fortunately, we\u2019re here to play defense for you. So polish up your footfakes and three-point shots to\u00a0make<\/em>\u00a0the money while we use our moves to help you\u00a0keep<\/em>\u00a0it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Super Bowl may be the single most-watched sporting event in America. But for millions of rabid and casual fans alike, nothing beats March Madness. This year, Iowa\u2019s Caitlin Clark shattered \u201cPistol Pete\u201d Maravich\u2019s 1970 record to become the top scorer in Division I college basketball history, leading her Hawkeyes to a 31-4 record and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[32,30,31,4,10,11,9,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-72","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-taxes","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-march-madness","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-tax","12":"tag-tax-reduction","13":"tag-tax-savings","14":"tag-tax-strategy","15":"tag-taxes","16":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions\/74"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}