Years ago when the phrase "color and pageantry" of college sports was coined, it probably wasn't meant to refer to corporate signage, logos and product dotting the nation's amateur sports venues. But as the NCAA comes closer to completing reforms that affect the classroom, many believe the next philosophical focal point is the athletics pocketbook and the relationships with entities that fill it.

In a day when big-time college athletics is expected to pay for itself -- a philosophy that in and of itself will be debated in the coming months -- athletics departments have been pressured to up the ante in relationships with revenue sources, including corporate America. To some observers, the predictable result is an over-commercialized end game. It's not that college sports shouldn't have business relations -- indeed, the enterprise has to mingle with money, as does higher education itself, in order to thrive -- but when is the line demarcating fiscal good taste and commercial bloat breached?

Is it acceptable for corporate logos to creep into facility names and onto the fields and courts? Are naming rights for halftime shows and statistical graphics out of control? Is it impossible to reconcile society's insatiable cry for "more" when it comes to quality college sports entertainment, yet "enough" when it comes to the commerce required to sustain it? When is too much too much?

Those are the types of questions the NCAA wrestles with when it enters into agreements with corporations and television networks, especially now that the long-term, bundled-rights contracts with CBS Sports and ESPN have changed the way the NCAA interacts with its corporate partners.

NCAA corporate partnerships before the bundled-rights agreements that went into effect in 2002 included marketing, publishing and radio rights, but not television. The new partnerships (which so far include Coca-Cola, General Motors-Pontiac and Cingular at the corporate champion level, and The Hartford, Kraft and Monster at the partner level) include TV rights, which makes them more attractive but also more expensive. That has translated to "fewer and bluer" corporate relationships, but it also has paved a smoother path for the NCAA to promote its mission. That has been by design.

Coca-Cola was the first to become a corporate champion in June 2002, committing $500 million to be "the real thing" with the NCAA for the entire 11-year bundled-rights ride. The agreement includes marketing and media rights to 88 NCAA championships and an extensive advertising buy on the network telecast of the Division I Men's Basketball Championship.

Being a corporate champion also means that Coca-Cola aligns its promotions to support the NCAA brand attributes of learning, balance, character, spirit, fair play and community.

Two years into the agreement, there are no signs of regret from either side. According to Jim Dinkins, Coca-Cola's managing director of sports marketing, the beverage company saw the relationship with the NCAA as a chance for a meaningful presence at all NCAA championships and with millions of other people through the bundled-rights opportunities. To him, the expense of the contract is outweighed by the dividends -- both tangible and not.

"There's a common belief and culture between the two organizations," Dinkins said. "The NCAA is not just about athletics; it's about helping to improve the lives of student-athletes through athletics. Coke is not just about beverages; our promise to our consumers is to refresh everybody who touches our brand. There's a higher purpose to what we both do in the business."

Further, Dinkins said, both the NCAA and Coca-Cola are about education. He said it may come as news to many that Coke's major philanthropy over the past 50 years has been helping people attain college degrees. The Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation, the largest merit-based scholarship program in America, provides more than 150 scholarships annually to kids going to college. That has translated to $27 million in gifts over the last 15 years.

"That makes us a good brand fit with the NCAA because education is very important to our company," said Dinkins. "From a brand perspective, the NCAA is about authentic competition for those people who play for the love of the game. Brand Coca-Cola, which has been known as 'The Real Thing,' is about authenticity, something you can count on, about refreshment that's been consistent through the years."

If the NCAA wants things to go better with Coke, so to speak, it must decide what kind of corporate presence Coke and the other corporate champions and partners should have. Dinkins said that's the difference between Coke's relationship with the NCAA and other clients. He said since a corporate presence is seller-driven and not buyer-driven, the NCAA has chosen the look of its corporate relationships, and that look at least attempts to be non-commercial.

"To me," Dinkins said, "commercialism means, in a pure sense, advertising. But in a negative sense it's intrusive. We understand that there is a difference between the professional world and the college world. At the end of the day, properties control their own venues, so when you see things in professional sports that are more 'branded' than in the college world, it's because that's the way that particular professional sports property has chosen to market itself. Advertisers don't make those decisions; the people who sell the advertising are the ones making the decisions."

That means the NCAA controls how "commercial" it wants its championship venues to be. So far, the Association by design has been successful in keeping the corporate presence tasteful. Signage and product are limited within the venue to the degree that it's readily apparent that an NCAA event is being held, not a corporate-sponsored one.

NCAA President Myles Brand said that's the key to defining the venue as a college sports event, not a professional sports one.

"One of the problems that professional sports faces is being overrun by the entertainment industry. We saw that in the Super Bowl," Brand said. "The collegiate game is different from the professional game in that while it has entertainment value, it's still the game that is paramount.

"As we work with our corporate champions and partners, they understand -- and we understand -- that this uniqueness and integrity of the college game is the best thing we have to offer. We would make a tragic mistake if we sold that perspective out for short-term revenue gains."

Greg Shaheen, NCAA vice-president for Division I men's basketball and championship strategies who oversees the corporate-partner program, agreed with Brand, saying that the storylines of all NCAA championships are what is most compelling, and that the integrity of the sites and the student-athlete experience should remain as paramount objectives. "Really, our approach under the new contracts is to heighten our understanding of the priorities of the corporate champions and partners as well as most clearly express to them the goals of the NCAA and our various advocacy initiatives currently under way," he said.

Shaheen said in doing so, both the NCAA and the corporations it chooses to associate with learn how to meet each other's objectives.

"These organizations are making an extraordinary investment in what the NCAA is and what it does -- it isn't a matter of pressure to generate revenue, it is a matter of appropriate and tasteful recognition for that investment and the Association we are most proud to have," Shaheen said. "In the past two years our focus has been on building activation plans for common benefit and not focused on pressure."

Dinkins said Coca-Cola, for one, understands the NCAA's commercialism concern. He said venues can be overly commercial if there's too much of an emphasis on signage, a default mechanism for many companies because it's so easy to do. But Dinkins said Coca-Cola believes marketing is about more than slapping logos on the court.

"People get hung up on signage, but signage is just one tactic in marketing," he said. "There are other things that creative minds can think of to make the experience more enjoyable for fans and participants. We do recognize and appreciate that an NCAA championship venue is unique, and we work together with the NCAA to be creative in ways that are relevant for the fans and for the brand."

Dinkins cited a program featuring Dasani, Coke's bottled water that is available on the sidelines at all NCAA championships, as an example of a program that brings attention to the Coke brand and to the NCAA brand without being intrusive or dependent on signage. On the Sunday between the Men's Final Four semifinals and final, Coke stages Dasani Fest, which is free and open to the public and features famous chefs who "coach" various NCAA basketball coaches during an interactive cook-off. Dasani Fest, staged last year for the first time, attracted about 12,000 fans who enjoyed a party atmosphere with food, music -- and Dasani bottled water, of course.

"Our strategy in marketing is to try to connect our brand with the NCAA brand in a relevant way to the passions people feel for college athletics. How do you do that? A logo is a way, but something like Dasani Fest is better.

"What does the brand Dasani stand for? It stands for vitality, for getting the best out of life -- it stands for food, music and culture," Dinkins said. "Dasani adds to the student-athlete experience by being on the sidelines, but how do we add value to the fan experience? Dasani Fest is an example of how we like to bring marketing to life. Here's what the brand stands for, and here's an opportunity to make it more exciting and fun for the fans."

Adding value to the brand

Coke's "Spirit of Champions" tour also brings a promotional component to various championships. It also is a fan-interactive event with various booths and activities that can be customized to fit whatever championship at which it's being staged. Dinkins said the tour not only promotes Coca-Cola, but it helps drive attendance to the championship.

Other corporate champions have worn creative hats to come up with similar tactics. Pontiac's "Greatest Plays" promotion -- in which fans watching NCAA televised events were shown various dramatic clips from college basketball and football games and asked to vote for their favorite -- was a successful campaign without being commercially intrusive or philosophically removed from the NCAA brand. This year, Pontiac will promote another fan interactive in which men's basketball tournament viewers will vote online for the game's greatest players. The five-person team will be announced during Final Four weekend.

"We don't put a lot of value on logos and signs," said Steve Tihanyi, general director of marketing alliances and regional operations at General Motors. "Our primary objective is to use the assets and drive opinion, consideration and intention for our cars and trucks. The advertising creates the awareness -- the promotions must drive these other metrics.

"We want our presence to focus on what is truly important to us -- our products. How can we expose them in the best light to the right audience? We want to make certain our brands are positioned properly, and to become part of the fabric or content of the various things the NCAA is doing without being overtly commercial."

Monster, the leading global online careers site and flagship brand of Monster Worldwide, hinged its corporate partnership with the NCAA on an online initiative called NCAA CareerCoach, which helps guide student-athletes in career development and provides information on a range of job opportunities. Those who administer the NCAA corporate-partner program see that type of initiative as enhancing the student-athlete experience and adding value to the NCAA brand in a relevant way.

Dinkins said not every corporation understands that relevance.

"To me," he said, "the real question about commercialism in general is, No. 1, is what you're doing relative to your brand? And No. 2, is it relative to the consumer?"

For example, he said, plentiful and gratuitous signage that doesn't add value to the consumer in a relevant way may cross the line into commercialism. He cited some of the bowl games -- venues that the NCAA does not control -- as examples. He said in those cases it's more about television advertising than adding value to the participants and fans. Or, Dinkins said, if a football coach is shown wearing a headset that has the logo of a cereal company rather than a communications firm, that, too, would cross the line because it's not relevant to the fans.

"But if it's something like a commemorative cup that you can get at a championship and then take home," he said, "it isn't commercialism because it adds value to the experience. Or let's say there was a fan interactive during halftime of the volleyball championship that made the experience more fun for the fans and students. Is that commercialism or enhancement? To me, it's really a question of relevance to the brand and adding value to the fans and participants. If it does those two things, then it's not commercialism."

"Commercialism to me is the corporate presence being plastered everywhere to the point where the consumer is asking, 'Why on Earth are they there?' " said GM's Tihanyi. "It's being so overt in your actions that it becomes obnoxious."

Smaller is better

Tihanyi said it is important to note, however, that companies pay substantial sums of money to be involved with the NCAA and do expect a considerable return on investment.

"That is where both sides need to be creative in how we promote around and at the events," he said. "What assets can the NCAA bring us that meet our business objectives, yet don't rub the consumer the wrong way? This is what we're focusing on, because at the end of the day, if we cannot demonstrate a sufficient return on investment to our executive management and others, we have to look at other methods of making our money work harder."

CBS Sports, which is responsible for selling the NCAA's corporate partnerships as part of the bundled-rights agreements, tries to make the commercialism distinction clear to potential corporate champions.

Mike Aresco, senior vice-president for programming at CBS Sports, said when the network begins negotiating with a potential partner, the NCAA philosophy is explained to them. Aresco said that neither the NCAA nor CBS want to over-commercialize.

"These companies understand that we're dealing with the NCAA -- an amateur sports organization with the highest standards and values -- and they understand that it's mutually beneficial to be affiliated with a brand like that," Aresco said. "While there may be some limits on the kinds of promotions they can do, it still will enhance their brand by being affiliated with the NCAA."

By nature -- and by design -- the raise-the-bar climate of the corporate-partner program has reduced the number of companies able to play the game by those rules. No longer does the NCAA have 15 or 20 corporate partners with varying goals and levels of contribution, it has five or six that are committed to a much more common and lofty outcome. Some might see the reduction in the number of partners as an indication perhaps that the corporate relationships are less valuable than before, or that they're too expensive and thus not worth the investment.

Aresco, however, doesn't see it that way.

"It's not a negative that the number of corporate partners is smaller," he said. "We actually want it to be -- and in the end it will make for a much healthier and more productive program. What you have are large companies that not only want to align with the NCAA brand, which is an outstanding brand, but also support the whole program and not just the Final Fours. They understand the need to make a year-round presence, and they have the resources to do it. It's not the easiest thing to find those companies, and you want to be very selective."

The NCAA's Shaheen agreed, emphasizing that the broad context of a complete relationship is what distinguishes today's corporate champion or partner from those in the past.

"The NCAA championships must not be simply another 'media buy' for our corporate champions and partners," he said. "Rather, these organizations are committing to the mission and goals of the NCAA, and what our championships mean to the individual student-athletes. By supporting the NCAA year-round, these entities are viewed as investors in the quality and virtue of amateur athletics and the kinds of pure competition we stage at more than 700 sites each year."

That means an over-commercialized venue would be out of place.

"We need to keep the entertainment value other than the game itself within limits and we need to present college sports as a healthy and wholesome activity," NCAA President Brand said. "Our corporate partners not only understand and approve of this, but they appreciate our desire to do so."

Dinkins said Coca-Cola has heard the message and is happy to abide by it.

"We all want to make sure we protect and appreciate the product the NCAA puts on the fields and courts, which is amateur sports," he said. "With amateur sports, there needs to always be a respect for the fact that these are young people who play for the love of the game. Things surrounding that need to be respectful of that fact. Having a venue that reflects that is positive."