Well… can’t say we disagree on this one!
As we count down to March Madness, WalletHub has officially declared that the city of Durham is the best city for college basketball this year.
For this year’s report, WalletHub analyzed over 290 cities and crunched the numbers based on 9 key metrics. Those metrics range from the number of teams per city and the winning percentage of each to stadium capacity and social-media engagement.
The “Bull City,” home to North Carolina Central University and Duke University, received an overall score of 55.37. Elsewhere in NC, Chapel Hill ranked 8th, with exceptionally high marks for fan engagement.
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In addition to the ranking, WalletHub also shared some stats about the business of March Madness, including economic impact, recent scandals, and sports betting. Here are 10 facts, as shared by WalletHub.
- $1.14 Billion: Annual revenue for the NCAA in 2022, more than double the amount earned in 2020 and topping pre-pandemic revenues ($1.12B).
- $10.2 Million: Salary for college basketball’s highest paid coach, Kansas’s Bill Self (vs. $710.7K combined for University of Kansas’s chancellor and the state’s governor).
- 47X: Difference between the average NBA rookie’s salary ($3.4M) and a D1 men’s athlete basketball scholarship for a year ($71.4K).
- $16.3 Billion: Corporate losses due to unproductive workers during March Madness.
- $300 Million+: Projected economic impact on Houston from March Madness 2023.
- $334.2 Million: Estimated value of the University of Kentucky basketball program— highest among all schools (generating a revenue of $22M).
- $170.3 Million: NCAA’s basketball fund’s 2023 distribution to D1 schools.
- $0: Amount of money the NCAA pays the players participating in the tournament.
- 72,220: NRG Stadium’s capacity for Final Four 2023 (full capacity).
- 12+: College basketball programs have been involved in a corruption case…
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