Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski says NCAA can't go another year without NCAA tournament

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said Tuesday he doesn't believe the NCAA can afford – literally – to go another year without the lucrative NCAA tournament.

March Madness was canceled this past spring as the coronavirus pandemic began. 

"We're the thing that the NCAA is most concerned about because men's college basketball and the tournament pays for something like ... it produces 98% or more of the money for the NCAA," Krzyzewski said in his ESPN radio interview on "Keyshawn, JWIll & Zubin."

"We need to have the tournament. We can't have it where two years in a row you don't have the NCAA tournament."

The NCAA depends on the men’s basketball tournament for a large chunk of its annual revenue – close to 85%, according to a USA TODAY review of its most recently available audited financial statement. More than half of the profit is distributed directly to Division I schools and conferences. The money comes mostly from a multi-billion dollar media and marketing contract with CBS and Turner, but it also is driven by ticket and merchandise sales.

The NCAA had $1.12 billion in revenue for the fiscal year ending Aug. 31, 2019. Of that amount, $804 million came from the CBS/Turner deal. Another $170 million was attributed to “championships and NIT tournaments,” with a sizable portion of that likely coming from the men’s basketball tournament. 

Dan Gavitt, the NCAA's senior vice president of basketball, on Monday publicly referenced the organization's "contingency plans" in potentially shifting the start of the season (typically set for November), as well as a proposed "bubble" format for the NCAA tournament. A decision on the season is expected by mid-September. 

"Make sure you have the tournament. It doesn't make any difference when it is," Krzyzewski said Tuesday. "Because we don't even know when the NBA season is going to be next year. And we should look at them to see how they navigate the waters going forward. They've navigated them really well with the bubble."

Contributing: Steve Berkowitz