NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The nation's most profitable sports enterprises, not surprisingly, are those with athletes making little better than minimum wage: Division I basketball teams.

The teams playing in this month's NCAA men's basketball tournament have profit margins that any pro team -- or other private-sector company -- would kill for.

According to my analysis of data collected from the schools by the Department of Education, the schools in the tournament had basketball revenue of $286.9 million last year. Meanwhile, expenses from those programs -- including coaches' contracts, scholarships and other operating expenses -- were only $140.3 million.

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That works out to an average profit per team of $2.3 million on revenue of $4.4 million, or an operating profit margin of 51 percent, even though 13 of the schools reported losses.

The players themselves share in that only if you view their scholarships and associated trinkets as a salary. What price education, then? In the NCAA, about $8 an hour.

That's what the athletes are being "paid," once all the "voluntary" training and practice time is taken into account, according to estimates from the Collegiate Athletes Coalition, a group trying to organize student athletes.

Even if you go by the 20-hour weekly practice limit on the books for the NCAA for college athletes, their scholarships work out to an average of $15.82 an hour for those going to an in-state Division I-A school. That's well less than the $76.50 a day in meal money that major league baseball players get when on the road.

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But the major-college athete sticking to the 20-hour limit is as rare as the one who graduates early to go to medical school.

"In season it's not uncommon for them to spend at least 40 hours a week, often 50 or 60 hours (on their sports)," said Indiana University professor Murray Sperber, a critic and expert on collegiate sports. "These guys do it willingly because they believe they can win the lottery and become a high-paid pro athlete."

Lots of college kids devote crazy hours to their avocations, whether it's basketball, chess, or videogames. I put in 50 or 60 hours a week on my school newspaper, and got paid less than $1,000 a year, if memory serves. But as CAC chairman Ramogi Huma points out, I had a lot better chance going into my chosen field that these athletes do of getting into theirs.

"For basketball and football you can't consider it on-the-job training since 98 percent aren't going into pro ball," he said. "They're not doing an internship for a career that is obtainable."

My college paper made only a modest profit off my labor in the year I was editor. The University of Louisville, on the other hand, is the richest of the 65 schools in this year's tournament, with revenue of $14.6 million, and profit of $11.2 million, or a 77 percent profit margin.

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What produced such a windfall? The cheap, hard labor of those athletes, of course.

With an in-state tuition, room and board at Louisville costing $8,762, and out-of-state costs of $16,478, that works out to between $11.65 and $21.91 an hour for the players, relying on the fiction of a 20-hour practice week. If you assume they put in 40 hours a week, the Cardinals are paid $7.60 to $14.30 an hour.

Sperber suggests a solution I think makes a lot of sense -- ending the fiction of amateur collegiate sports. Athletes should get monetary contracts to play for schools, which would include the right to take classes either during or after their playing days.

Huma has a far more modest goal: to take a slice of the $565 million a year that the NCAA gets from the basketball tournament and give it to the schools, who would then give it to players.

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His idea is to bridge the gap between the current scholarship levels and what the schools estimate is actually needed to attend. The money would pay for incidentals such as laundry, transportation and school supplies, which players are currently supposed to pay for themselves. Huma said it would be about $2,500 per athlete per year.

"It would make a significant difference for players," he argued. "It would get them across the line between making it or not making it."

It's a lot easier to enjoy the tournament if you ignore the fact that the athletes who make it so exciting are being reduced to begging for toothpaste money. It's fundamentally wrong that the kid working at McDonald's is being paid more than the kid at the foul line with the game on the line.

Fact is, March Madness is highly profitable for the NCAA and CBS and advertisers. It's well past time for some of the millions swirling around the tournament to find their way to those who make it worth watching.