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Arts & Culture

FRONTLINE: Money And March Madness

Sonny Vaccaro, former executive at Nike, Adidas and Reebok, in Berkeley, Calif., 2010. “Money And March Madness,” takes an inside look at the multi-billion dollar business of the NCAA and its brand of amateur college sports. In this investigation, correspondent Lowell Bergman gains access to Vaccaro, who helped bring about the rapid commercialization of college basketball.
Courtesy of Noah Berger
Sonny Vaccaro, former executive at Nike, Adidas and Reebok, in Berkeley, Calif., 2010. “Money And March Madness,” takes an inside look at the multi-billion dollar business of the NCAA and its brand of amateur college sports. In this investigation, correspondent Lowell Bergman gains access to Vaccaro, who helped bring about the rapid commercialization of college basketball.

Airs Friday, April 1, 2011 at 9 p.m. on KPBS TV

“Money And March Madness” takes an inside look at the multi-billion dollar business of the NCAA and its brand of amateur college sports. In this investigation, correspondent Lowell Bergman gains access to Sonny Vaccaro, a former marketing executive at Nike, Adidas and Reebok, who helped bring about the rapid commercialization of college basketball.

Vaccaro’s success made coaches, administrators and companies rich. But the players remain at the mercy of the NCAA, which, despite a new $10.8 billion contract for its basketball tournament, has continued to insist that the athletes don't get paid. Now, Vaccaro has left the business world and he’s spearheading a class-action lawsuit that aims to ensure that players get a piece of the action.

Also in this newsmagazine hour, an intimate portrait of a man who’s sometimes called China’s Andy Warhol — Ai Weiwei. He’s a global art star who’s now using his international renown, along with a video camera and a growing underground Twitter following, to push the boundaries of freedom in today’s China.

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Later in the hour, as the fall-out from WikiLeak’s continues, an exclusive interview with Private Bradley Manning's father, who speaks out for the first time about his son's upbringing and troubled youth, Manning's time in the Army and why he still believes his son did not hand over the largest cache ever of classified documents to the whistle-blowing site.

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Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

FRONTLINE continues its new monthly magazine program with the lead story “Money And March Madness,” an inside look at the multi-billion dollar business of the NCAA and its brand of amateur college sports. In this investigation, correspondent Lowell Bergman gains access to Sonny Vaccaro, a former marketing executive at Nike, Adidas and Reebok, who helped bring about the rapid commercialization of college basketball.

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

As the fall-out from WikiLeak’s continues, FRONTLINE presents an exclusive interview with Private Bradley Manning's father, who speaks out for the first time about his son's upbringing and troubled youth, Manning's time in the Army and why he still believes his son did not hand over the largest cache ever of classified documents to the whistle-blowing site.