Did you know if you’re sitting within the proximity of TV cameras at an NCAA tournament, you’re only allowed to be drinking out of certain cups? It all centers around the sponsorship deals the NCAA has in place, which help generate millions of dollars in revenue.

Wait, so what’s this cup policy?

Throughout the tournament, you’ll see media members post photos of signs the NCAA puts up around venues to remind them of the policy:

Here’s the official policy, from the NCAA itself to SB Nation via email:

The NCAA will provide the necessary equipment/product for all media and team areas. POW­ERADE (Coca-Cola) branded equipment/product must be available for all practice sessions and games. Participating teams must use the NCAA-issued coolers, cups and water (squeeze) bottles while in the facility on practice and game days.

POWERADE and DASANI bottled product may be used courtside by media, staff, and coaches. Student-athletes are to use the cups and water (squeeze) bottles provided. No other cups, cans, coolers or water (squeeze) bottles or bottled products, may be used in locker rooms, courtside, or in the media areas. Generic napkins are to be used in the media refreshment and buffet areas. These items may not bear any commercial marks. All other cups should not have any commercial advertising.

During championships, the NCAA only wants brands that pay it ad revenue to be present on broadcasts. Sure, Bud Light would probably love to have “dilly dilly” [insert heavy sigh] cups visible on TV, but since the NCAA doesn’t have a sponsorship with Bud Light, that’s not going to fly. Yes, that sounds heavy-handed and odd, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles here.

It’s so thoroughly branded, even some NCAA cups aren’t allowed:

Powerade is on one of them because Coca-Cola is one of the NCAA’s biggest corporate sponsors. This has caused some awkward moments in years past. The Gators, from the university where Gatorade was founded, once had to drink out of Powerade bottles. The year before, the Gators just blatantly poured Gatorade straight into those bottles:

Coke is one of three “corporate champion sponsors,” the other two being Capital One and AT&T. You probably remember some of the Capital One commercials featuring Charles Barkley and Spike Lee in recent years:

Additionally, the NCAA has 14 official corporate sponsors.

These are actually a big part of the whole tournament:

Companies pay the NCAA big money to attach their names to the 21-day championship, and they don’t want to share the spotlight with sponsors that normally inhabit the venues.

No detail is too small — not even the sodas that officials, coaches and media drink courtside. Signs in the hallway outside warn: “Only NCAA cups allowed beyond this point.”

”The sponsors have a lot invested,” said George Belch, a marketing professor at San Diego State. “They want consumers thinking about their brand and nothing else.”

NCAA officials would not disclose how much they receive from the tournament’s 18 corporate partners. But marketing researchers say March Madness ranks with the Super Bowl, Olympics and World Cup as one of the most valuable properties in sports.

Some other sponsors include Buffalo Wild Wings, Buick, Enterprise, Lowes, and Pizza Hut. In 2017, it was announced that the 2016 tournament generated $1.24 billion of national TV ads, a record, up 4.7 percent from the year before. General Motors spent $93 million on TV ads, followed by AT&T at $80 million.

All this money brings up a glaring issue — that somehow, there still isn’t enough money to pay the players.

In 2014, Wisconsin’s Zach Bohannon voiced his frustration in the NCAA continuing to cling to amateurism, despite making billions off of the players themselves:

“With all of the corporate sponsors, it’s like a professional league, only the student-athletes are amateurs, and we don’t have any say in the process,” said Bohannon, who is involved with the College Athletes Players Association, which has been behind the organizing effort at Northwestern.

The NCAA, for its part, says the branding in the tournament is not much different from that seen at universities around the country in the football and basketball seasons. The association also disputes the notion that the athletes are forced to pitch products.

“We don’t force anybody to do anything,” said Mark Lewis, the NCAA’s executive vice president for championships and alliances. “There is no requirement that anybody drink anything or hold anything of any kind.”

This cup policy doesn’t extend to just the NCAA tournament.

Every NCAA championship event has the same protocols in place. Here’s hockey:

Baseball, too:

But some NCAA cups will live forever, even if the NCAA vacates a championship, like it did to the 2013 Louisville Cardinals: