Much like bowl games, conferences are allowed to give gifts to all those playing in conference tournaments, and the NCAA gives gift packages to those who make the tournament. Unfortunately for these players they won't be able to resell any gifts they don't need or want until after they are out of school.

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/03/20110307/Colleges/NCAA-Gifts-Popup.aspx

I think that the coolest gift is that Final Four participants get a piece of the actual court.

I agree that getting a piece of the court is pretty awesome. What some of the conferences get seems pretty shitty though. I mean its free so what does it matter but you'd think a conference like the Pac-10 would get something more than a backpack of snacks with a Dr Pepper in it.

Big Ten gifts suck as well.

The Sunbelt Conference is giving a stationary set with case? WTF that sounds like something I would have bought my grandma (RIP) for Christmas when I was in 4th grade.

Iliketurtles;706264 wrote:I agree that getting a piece of the court is pretty awesome. What some of the conferences get seems pretty shitty though. I mean its free so what does it matter but you'd think a conference like the Pac-10 would get something more than a backpack of snacks with a Dr Pepper in it.

The Pac-10 isn't worth more than a backpack of snacks with a Dr. Pepper.

Nothing says swag like a 20 oz bottle of Dr Pepper.

I think this is a bit of the NCAA hypocrisy at its bets. The kids cant sell any items they get from participating in NCAA athletics, yet they allow tournaments to provide them with the swag. Eliminate the swag and just give each player the $$$$ amount of the swag?

Make sense?

september63;706353 wrote:I think this is a bit of the NCAA hypocrisy at its bets. The kids cant sell any items they get from participating in NCAA athletics, yet they allow tournaments to provide them with the swag. Eliminate the swag and just give each player the $$$$ amount of the swag?

Make sense?

No, cause no company is gonna give the NCAA money to give to kids lol. The NCAA is getting these gifts cause ti promotes said gifts.

The Pac-10 gift was my favorite. It's very fitting. The kind of thing a mid-major conference would give out.

The A10 this is year is pretty good. I ended up getting one of the gifts last year and they were some pretty nice headphones with an ipod touch. Kinda interesting to see conferences with some obvious money spend jack shit on people.

Maybe they don't give them shit because they didn't have to do shit to get there...A-10, a few other conferences/leagues are the only ones that don't have all of their teams in the conference/league tournament. It's not like reaching a bowl game, where you had to have a good season to get there.

sportswizuhrd;706482 wrote:Maybe they don't give them shit because they didn't have to do shit to get there...A-10, a few other conferences/leagues are the only ones that don't have all of their teams in the conference/league tournament. It's not like reaching a bowl game, where you had to have a good season to get there.

I think this is only given if you make the NCAAs.

There was another article written earlier last week about conference tournament gifts and how they are given out (although I can't find the article now). It said that conferences are allowed to spend up to $325 per player on gift sets. It quoted the Big Ten saying that they have chosen to give out travel kits because it saves the conference money. It made it sound like the conference is responsible for purchasing any gift they give out, none of them are donated by sponsors (unlike in bowl games where sponsors of the bowl game typically donate the gifts). Since the Big Ten Tournament doesn't even have a title they pay for all the gifts themselves, so they decided to not spend the max to save money.