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“March Madness” brings fleeting glory to those student-athletes lucky enough to be part of a winning team. For coaches, though, the effects last far longer, boosting careers and pay, in some cases dramatically.

With Championship Week under way, every conference except the Ivy League is handing out an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. For most teams, a title is not a realistic possibility, but even a short run in the tournament can be important for a school and its coaches.

According to a 2007 study in the Southern Economic Journal, an appearance in the Sweet 16 can raise a college's application rate by as much as 3 percent, and winning a National Championship could mean a 7 to 8 percent boost in applications.

Rodney Fort, an economics professor at the University of Michigan and a member of the International Association of Sports Economists, said the rise in basketball coaching salaries has come with the rise in value of athletic programs.

“You have this nice confluence of things happening,” Fort said. “The values of the television contracts are exploding. That's all being generated by the athletes...Coaches are seeing salaries explode.”

An NCAA Tournament appearance can be a coach’s ticket to a bigger school and payday. Seven seasons ago Bruce Weber was the head coach at Southern Illinois. He led the Salukis to the NCAA Tournament the year after going to the Sweet Sixteen and was offered the job at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

While Weber has been head coach, the Fighting Illini have won almost three out of every four games. Weber has taken Illinois to four NCAA Tournaments, including a runner-up finish in 2005. Illinois finished second in the Big Ten Conference this season.

As Illinois' basketball fortunes have risen, so has Weber's. Over the past six years, his salary has risen 70 percent.

In 2003 Weber signed a contract that paid him $500,000. Not including bonuses or the profit from his summer coaching camp, Weber will make $850,000 this season according to documents released by the university through Illinois’ Freedom of Information Act.

A USA Today study, the last national survey of its kind, found that the average compensation for a coach whose team made the 2006 NCAA Tournament was $800,000. At the time, Weber was making exactly the national average in guaranteed income.

Weber will also earn 90 percent of the profit Illinois earns from his basketball camp. Further, he stands to earn a number of bonuses if his team advances. Illinois uses a standard incentive policy for all its athletic coaches. For basketball, a Big Ten Champion or NCAA Tournament appearance adds 5 percent, while an appearance in the Sweet 16 earns an extra 8 percent.

Weber's salary breaks down this way: a base salary of $200,000; $50,000 for public relations and educational events; $180,000 paid to Bruce Weber Basketball Enterprises through a personal services contracts; and $420,000 for radio and television appearances.

“TV and radio have been around awhile,” Fort said. “The difference now is it's so valuable. I guess fans are just hanging on the edge of their chairs for every homily a coach can say.”

Weber’s contract does come with its drawbacks. His contract, after numerous extensions, now runs through April 30, 2012 and if he wants to leave before then he’ll have to pay the school a $1 million buyout fee.

Clauses like that are included to make it more difficult for coaches to change jobs for bigger paydays. According to Fort, coaches are the most mobile asset in the collegiate sports market, and therefore have the ability to maximize their profits in the market.

“Wouldn't they work for less? Of course they would,” Fort said. “Something else is happening. Even though there's a lot of competition involved. A lot of the value they're collecting is way more than what keeps them occupied in college coaching.”

For coaches at smaller schools the pay is not quite so high. University of Illinois at Chicago head coach Jimmy Collins’ contract calls for him to receive $299,027 for the 2009-2010 basketball season. He also receives a stipend of $10,000 for conducting the school’s summer camp along with 50 percent of the remaining profits – not including the stipend.

UIC’s play on the court is also important to Collins’ salary. At the end of each season the success of his team is evaluated and he can receive merit based pay. The first review should occur sometime around March 31. That means that UIC’s Horizon League Tournament loss to eventual league champion Cleveland State hit Collins not only on the court, but in the wallet.

Now UIC (16-15) will hope for a bid into one of the smaller post-season tournaments. Advancing in the brand new CollegeInsider.com Tournament or two-year old College Basketball Invitational could raise the public’s awareness of UIC.

With the economy in recession and college tuition costs continuing to rise, how do students and fans feel about big coaching paychecks?  Apparently they're fine with it, as long as the coach is leading the team to victory.

Jim Calhoun, head coach of the University of Connecticut's men's basketball team, is the highest paid public employee in the state with an annual salary of $1.6 million. A poll released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University found that 61 percent of Connecticut residents think Calhoun should keep his entire salary rather than donate it to help with the state’s economic problems.

Calhoun has won two national titles in 15 NCAA tournaments and led UConn to victories in 73 percent of their games overall. Bottom line: winning matters.