Countless stadiums, arenas, golf tournaments and bowl games have sponsors in their titles. The world’s most prestigious soccer league was named the Barclays Premier League until 2016. Private equity firms currently hold ownership stakes in more than 60 North American sports franchises, according to Pitchbook, as well as many of the top soccer clubs in Europe.

But when news broke Thursday that the Big 12 is entertaining both a potential title sponsorship deal with insurance giant Allstate and a $1 billion private equity partnership, you could almost hear the collective reaction: “How dare they?!”

GO DEEPER

Big 12 discussing PE investment, sale of naming rights to Allstate

Kirk Wakefield, a Baylor University marketing professor, had a much different reaction to the possible title sponsorship.

“You wonder why people haven’t done that already,” said Wakefield, who runs a research firm that studies sponsorship impacts for sports leagues and brands. “It’s such an obvious opportunity.”

USC sports business professor David Carter looks at the plight of the Big 12, which lags hundreds of millions a year in revenue behind the Big Ten and SEC, and sees private equity as a matter of Darwinian survival. To win national championships, Big 12 schools need to be able to spend like…

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

Four days, 48 games (well, technically 52 when including the First Four), and a weekend devoid of sleep and full of basketball. Now we’re down to the final two weekends of play. The Sweet 16 is set, and the matchups are exquisite.

So many varying and contrasting styles face one another. Some games present clashes of rosters with similar ethos and questions alike.

There’s a beautiful yet gut-wrenching duality of the NCAA Tournament, which is largely what makes it one of the most compelling phenomena in sports. The tournament is about testing mettle, seeing what a team can do on the fly with limited time in heightened scenarios in front of huge crowds. The stakes elevate and much of what is known and practiced can go out the window because of a random heater by a backup two guard from an unheard-of town in Minnesota.

Great teams with years of legacy and expectation can fall because of an off night. A team that struggled with injury and inconsistency all year might just hit the right groove at the right time, find confidence and ride that high to a Final Four.

Watching that team make a run…

Caitlin Clark will headline the 2024 WNBA Draft, but she is far from the only impact guard who will make her way into the league. As the professional game modernizes, franchises are looking for more playmakers on the perimeter in an effort to improve the pace and spacing of their offenses. Clark is the most prolific and recognizable guard in this group, and she is joined by a deep class — including several international prospects — of shooters, pure points and combo guards who are eager to make their impact at the next level.

The draft is less than three weeks away, taking place April 15 in Brooklyn, N.Y., just eight days after the national championship. In anticipation of the event, eight WNBA general managers shared their candid opinions about the upcoming draft class with The Athletic before the NCAA Tournament. They were granted anonymity to allow them to speak openly. Thursday, we’ll run another installment that includes their unvarnished takes on frontcourt players such as Cameron Brink, Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese.

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WNBA Mock Draft: Where will Angel Reese land? Who will be picked after Caitlin Clark?

After the tournament, we’ll release our final mock draft and a GM scout of the potential picks in the 2025 WNBA Draft.

Players are listed in alphabetical…

The Sweet 16 in the women’s NCAA Tournament is almost entirely built of the top four seeds in each region. Only three teams (No. 5 Colorado, No. 5 Baylor and No. 7 Duke) won on the road in the second round to advance to the Sweet 16. My model projects the likelihood of upsets now that we’re in the tournament’s second week.

South Carolina is, of course, the overwhelming favorite. The Gamecocks won the national title in 42.4 percent of my simulations. They made the Final Four more than 70 percent of the time.

My projected favorite in the other regions are Texas, UConn and UCLA. UConn is only the No. 3 seed in Regional 3 in Portland, but No. 2 Ohio State lost in the second round and my model does not rate USC as highly as its No. 1 seed.

UCLA is the favorite in Regional 2 in Albany ahead of No. 1 seed Iowa. The Hawkeyes are a strong favorite against Colorado in the Sweet 16, but would be an underdog in my model against either UCLA or LSU in the Elite Eight. That region is balanced among the top three teams with Iowa, UCLA and LSU all making the Final Four in more than 25 percent of my simulations.

Before getting into the numbers, it’s worth explaining what you’re looking at. I created a college basketball model to project the outcomes of games. I take several metrics into…

Eight teams have already punched their tickets to Albany and Portland for the Super Regionals.

South Carolina, after only managing a close road win over the Tar Heels earlier this season, rolled to an 88-41 second-round victory against North Carolina with the majority of its starting five receiving some rest. Reserves such as MiLaysia Fulwiley, Tessa Johnson and Chloe Kitts took center stage against the Tar Heels, combining for 43 points.

Elsewhere, the Pac-12 continued to make the most of its swan song. No. 5 seed Colorado beat No. 4 seed Kansas State, No. 3 seed Oregon State took down No. 6 seed Nebraska and No. 2 seed Stanford beat No. 7 seed Iowa State in an overtime thriller. The conference now waits on USC, UCLA and Utah — who all play on Monday — to see if the Pac-12 can own six spots in the Sweet 16, with Arizona as the lone conference team that didn’t advance to the third round of the tournament.

Here’s what else you need to know from a jam-packed Sunday of women’s March Madness.

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What’s next for Virginia Tech after unfair ending?

On Feb. 29, the Hokies were celebrating an outright ACC regular-season title, the first such crown in program history, and were riding a 10-game winning streak. A repeat run to the Final Four wasn’t the expectation but seemed fully…

Welcome back to Bracket Breakers, where we are excited to keep extending our search for upsets in the NCAA women’s tournament. This year, the potential Cinderellas on the women’s side are more interesting than ever, with more bracket-breaking weapons in their arsenals. Today we’re breaking down which of those teams has the highest chance to beat an overdog in Friday’s first-round games.

As on the men’s side, our statistical model Slingshot, developed with help from the Furman University Mathematics Department, begins by estimating the strength of all D-I teams according to their scoring margin per 100 possessions, adjusted for strength of schedule. We then adjust those basic power ratings for how strongly teams carry traits associated with successful tournament teams of the past.

For underdogs, these characteristics generally include factors that widen the variability of a team’s play, such as shooting lots of threes and working to force turnovers. For favorites, it’s just the opposite: higher seeds cruise to wins when they cut risks and avoid chaos. Then we estimate matchup results.

Before we continue, two observations and one caveat. First, as we’ve mentioned, while parity is increasing in the women’s game, and there are more viable contenders for the…

The Athletic has live coverage of Selection Sunday and the NCAA Tournament bracket reveal. 

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

Pure. Chaos.

Madness came early on Saturday, leaving a trail of stolen bids, burst bubbles and flummoxed bracketologists in its wake. Now? Selection Sunday is here.

We know we have four legit bid thieves: NC State in the ACC, Oregon in the Pac-12 and two more coming Sunday in the A-10 and AAC. Drake’s upset over Indiana State in the MVC title game might end up as a fifth functional bid thief. Wild.

Get your March Madness printable bracket

The bracket reveal is mere hours away. In the meantime, we’ll do our best to calculate the bubble math and take stock of an absolutely wild day of college hoops.

Here’s my best estimation of where things stand entering Sunday:

• There are 32 automatic qualifying bids via conference champions. There are 36 at-large bids. Total of 68.

• At least 21 of those 32 conferences will be one-bid leagues, including the Ivy League championship between Brown and Yale on Sunday. So let’s start with 21.

• Give at least four bids to the ACC: AQ and three at-large locks….

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

Conference tournaments are here and Selection Sunday is nigh, which means Bubble Watch is in full swing.

One day before the bracket is revealed, bid thieves are the big storyline. We know we will already have one in the Atlantic 10 with Dayton out of the mix. Three more are lurking between now and the selection show: North Carolina State in the ACC, Oregon in the Pac-12, and anyone other than Florida Atlantic in the AAC. How those shake out will be critical for a bubble that is nearly at capacity.

NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt suggested on Saturday morning that there were “at least another four or five spots” up for grabs as far as at-large bids. That might be overstating it a tad, and will of course depend on how those possible bid thieves shake out, but there are clearly still decisions to be made.

“We have 35 at-larges out of the 36 voted into the field”

NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball, Dan Gavitt, joins @TheAndyKatz to explain the scrubbing process and give a seed line update! pic.twitter.com/RIMaSEuHRQ

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB)

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

It only took until the day before Selection Sunday, but finally we can say for sure who the top eight seeds will be in the 2024 NCAA Tournament.

With Tennessee and Arizona losing on Saturday and North Carolina advancing to the ACC tournament, the Tar Heels will join Purdue, Houston and UConn on the top line. The only minor intrigue left there is whether Houston passes Purdue for the No. 1 overall seed.

Tennessee and Arizona will be on the No. 2 line, along with Marquette and Iowa State. The Cyclones beat Baylor to reach the Big 12 title game and have more than made up for a lackluster nonconference slate, while Marquette got to the Big East final without All-America point guard Tyler Kolek. Given the Golden Eagles’ impressive resume and insistence that Kolek will be back next week, a No. 2 seed is in order.

Clarity comes at the top, and the bubble continues to come into focus as well. Mississippi State and Texas A&M locked up spots by beating Tennessee and Kentucky, respectively. New Mexico beat Colorado State in the Mountain West semis and should be safely in. Colorado finally gets over…

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

Conference tournaments are here, and Selection Sunday is nigh, which means Bubble Watch is in full swing.

I’ll be making regular, daily updates to Bubble Watch from now until the bracket is revealed, so be sure to bookmark this page and check in all week as conference tourneys heat up and the NCAA Tournament field comes into focus. As soon as relevant games in each conference wrap up, I’ll have fresh thoughts on what it means for those teams and any other bubble watchers impacted by the results.

I’m in Kansas City covering the Big 12 tournament, but I’ll do my best to update things in real-time, and I’ll try to hop into the comments and answer questions as well. Even the mean ones.

An important note: An expanded “Movement” section for each conference will be refreshed as often as necessary, while the corresponding team charts will be updated each morning with accurate records, NET rankings and other metrics.

We’ll keep track of the number of auto-qualifiers as they roll in, whether or not there are any “bid thieves” among them, and how the math is shaping up for the rest…