First things first, let’s get this out of the way — college athletics is big business.

Sure, the phrase “student athlete” sounds great, but for college basketball, and especially college football, the bottom line is as big of a factor as anything happening on the hardwood.

During the 2013 March Madness tournament – where Louisville managed its way through the field to beat Michigan in a memorable championship game – advertisers spent more than $1.0 billion on advertising, according to Kantar Media. That total topped even the super bowl, which logged-in at a mere $976.3 million.

This exchange of cash is why CBS and Turner Broadcasting shelled out more than $740 million for rights to cover the games; it’s why ESPN invested $5.64 billion over 12 years to broadcast the coming college football playoffs; and it’s why the Pac-12 Network came to a $3.0 billion deal with Fox and ESPN in 2012.

The money is there in college athletics. And, it’s why every year Ryan Brewer, an assistant professor of finance at Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus, comes out with a list every basketball and football season ranking the value of big time programs if they were bought and sold like professional franchises.

“If you want to do good, solid decision-making, thinking about a university like a business is the [right] idea,” Brewer said.

While not every basketball program is profitable, and in those cases a business decision must be made to see if it’s worth spending money there versus academics, Brewer said that schools that spend around $70 or $80 million typically hit a “magic spot” and brings in a positive cash flow.

So for universities like Louisville or Arizona, it’s not a worry about losing money. It’s about how much can they make.

Arizona and fishing are two things rarely mentioned in the same sentence. Unbeknownst to many, fishing is in fact one of Arizona’s big tourist attractions.

Obviously with substantial natural difficulties that come along with a desert habitat, it takes a lot of work from many different people to ensure that Arizona’s fishing business remains prosperous. It is a legitimate tourist attraction and a vital aspect of the parks and recreation community all across the state.

The Arizona Urban Fishing Program is largely responsible for the success of fishing in Arizona. The program pairs the Game and Fish Department with many local parks and recreation departments to make sure lakes are properly stocked and maintained.

With fully 67 percent of Internet users utilizing social networking platforms today, social media has revolutionized the way we connect with one another across vast distances. But few would be willing to walk the distance to see those far-away friends.

In a recent study, archaeologists and sociologists found that ancient Southwest communities would make the trek to maintain social relationships with people hundreds of miles away.

The study was lead by the director of the University of Arizona School of Anthropology, Barbara Mills, and explored expansion and transformation patterns of social networks in the late pre-Hispanic Southwest from A.D. 1200 to 1450.

Over a five-year period, Mills and her team looked at a combination of new and existing archaeological data as well as analyzed more than 800,000 decorated ceramics and 4,800 pieces of obsidian. They composed a database containing 4.3 million artifacts from 700 western Southwestern sites, which included Arizona and Western New Mexico.

B.J. Denker has a confidence about him.

The Arizona quarterback is fighting for a starting job on a team that just won its first bowl game since 2008.

If he won the job, he’d be replacing an All-Pac-12 quarterback in Matt Scott, who replaced Arizona’s All-time leading passer, and NFL Draft pick, Nick Foles.