Recently the Ashland University women’s basketball team won the GLIAC tournament and was invited to the Elite Eight tournament in San Antonio, Texas. This was no short trip for them, with San Antonio about 1,400 miles to the southwest of Ashland. With only 3 games between them and a national championship, the team knew they had to make the journey south to face their foes.

Luckily for the team, the NCAA provided the means for this transportation. The NCAA provides all of the money for athletic teams when they travel. This is what allowed the women to make their trip to the tournament. Anything that the players, coaches, and staff need while on this trip was taken care of by the NCAA, including transportation costs, meals, housing and any other related expense.

The team was even able to charter a flight, which was also completely covered.

“The NCAA is very generous in taking care of the teams when they travel to NCAA events,” says Mark Hamilton, AU’s faculty athletic representative to the NCAA. “All of the postseason play is covered and taken care of.”

When traveling to a tournament, schools must choose a traveling party that will accompany the team to the games. This party includes a specific number of people that the NCAA will pay for, and may include players, injured players, coaching staff, trainers, equipment managers and athletic administrators.

Each school must include an exact list of who will be accompanying the team.

The money is then calculated from this list at a per-person, per-day rate.

“It’s a pretty good amount of money,” says Hamilton. “It’s enough to take care of all the needs.”

This is what allows schools that do not have large athletic budgets to travel and compete with larger-funded schools. The process assures that no team is left out of post-season play or other NCAA tournaments or championships.

The money that the NCAA provides does not simply grow on trees, however.

Most of it comes from lucrative broadcasting contracts, like CBS’s television contract for March Madness.

“The NCAA takes a portion of this money and uses it for the teams when they travel,” Hamilton said.

This contract between CBS and the NCAA was reached in April 2010 and gives CBS the rights to broadcast the March Madness basketball tournament for the next 14 years.

The deal was worth a total of $11 billion.

This separates the NCAA from other school athletic organizations such as the NAIA, in which teams pay for their own expenses to championship events.