Something almost all of us have suspected - long article:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports...split/2097115/

That fact brings out a host of critics, who wonder whether the schools responsible for generating that revenue will eventually want to stop sharing it — not just with Division II and III schools but with the so-called mid-majors, such as Wichita State, which earn NCAA "units" for their conference by playing and winning in the tournament over a rolling six-year span. Each unit is worth roughly $250,000. So Wichita State's Final Four run this season amounts to a windfall for the Missouri Valley Conference, which re-distributes that money equally to its members.

The fear among schools at that level, however, is that they would be excluded if the big-time football schools broke away and started their own basketball tournament. In much the same vein as school presidents approved a football playoff because the money was so overwhelming, a basketball tournament outside the NCAA is one of the last major money-grabs available.

An athletics director at a successful non-BCS basketball school, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic, said the major concern at that level is whether CBS and Turner Sports, which carry the men's Division I basketball tournament, will decide they would rather just get the guaranteed ratings with North Carolina, Kentucky and Kansas than risk mid-major programs ending up in the Sweet 16.

"CBS has more or less already said, through the things you hear in this business, 'We don't care if there's 64 or 32 (teams in the tournament), the money is going to be the same,'" the athletics director said. "If the 'Big 5' (conferences) split away, when the next TV deal comes up, why are we (the non-BCS schools) going to be involved in it? It's the one place where the benefits spread to the whole. All the sudden, that's gone. So I can't afford to watch it split away."