The impact of television sports money is huge and growing bigger.

Beano Cook of Pittsburgh, an acerbic longtime observer of the athletic scene, has said it often: “The greatest thing that ever happened to sports was television; the worst thing that ever happened to sports was television money.”

A lot of non-sports television viewers may be inclined to agree with that when their favorite shows are pre-empted by NCAA basketball coverage in the next few weeks — especially while military action is being taken against Iraq.

Youngsters tuning into Nickelodeon may get an NCAA men’s basketball tournament game instead. Shows on TNN and TV Land also might be bumped by tournament games. It’s all part of a contingency plan CBS has worked out. Because the United States has gone to war during the NCAA Tournament, CBS, owned by Viacom, may move live games to three of its sister cable networks.

It says a lot about the power of television money to see what CBS, with its outlandish $7 billion-plus contract with the NCAA, is doing to reap as much loot as possible.

There were 16 games on each of the first two days of the men’s tournament, this past Thursday and Friday. Then there were eight games each on Saturday and today. The network is saying all they are interested in is serving a sports-minded public, primarily basketball-minded throngs. But when an agency works so hard to indicate it’s not about the money, it only proves it’s about the money!

Little wonder, considering how many dollars are at stake.

Take the NCAA men’s tournament financial history. In the first official tournament in 1939, more than $3,000 was lost and each finalist team took home a token $100 for its national championship endeavors. The next year, however, with Phog Allen and Kansas playing in the title game in Kansas City, the NCAA showed a profit, and Kansas and Indiana were awarded $750 each. Indiana beat Kansas that year.

Things became steadily more lucrative during the 1940s, even with World War II, and the money pot began to bubble handsomely in the 1950s. That’s when such stars as San Francisco’s Bill Russell, Kansas’ Wilt Chamberlain and Cincinnati’s Oscar Robertson made such heavy impacts in fan interest and favor.

Televising college games began in 1946 with limited interest until the Kansas-North Carolina title game in 1957. Many considered TV a gallant savior of college sports, because it was projecting college football teams to the general public as well.

From there it became more and more “about the money.” Television revenue for the 2002 NCAA tournament was a whopping $272 million. Gross receipts from the tournament amounted to $36 million. Teams’ shares totaled $40 million, and the NCAA walked home with a net gain of $16.6 million. What a far cry from those $100 and $750 payoffs in 1939 and 1940.

Television showcases a lot of good, talented people and focuses on many good aspects of college sports and a college education. But TV also dictates dates, starting times, pregame and postgame appearances. Too often the ticket-buying fan is the lowest person on the totem pole.

There’s no end in sight when a war is, in some eyes, a distraction from sports rather than an overriding news event.