In the heat of March Madness, high-profile NCAA tournaments are generating millions of dollars through advertising on ESPN and ticket sales, with the majority of the money benefiting top athletic schools and being fed back into their athletic programs to provide them with the resources to give them a competitive edge year after year.

According to the NCAA website, the tournaments make $469.6 million from television and marketing-rights fees, with $362.6 million going back to the Division I schools.

Of the profits Boston University makes through its sports, a varying amount goes to basketball, hockey and other sports, according to Mike Lynch, BU’s athletic director.

“With basketball, it depends on how far you advance in the tournaments,” Lynch said. “The farther you get, the more money that the school gets back.”

Lynch added that BU does not make a substantial profit on its sports because the basketball team does not often make it to the big tournaments, and the school only receives money from the hockey team when it advances to the NCAA Tournament. This money gained at this tournament provides a financial bonus to members of the athletic department, he said.

With millions of dollars up for grabs, the benefits may seem impressive on paper, but for a big university, the tournaments do not bring in a considerable amount to athletic programs that are already well-funded, according to Lynch.

“When it’s all said and done, the money that comes back is relatively insignificant compared to the entire athletic budget,” Lynch said. “A million dollars is a lot of money, but when you’re talking about a $63 million budget, it’s just a small piece of the pie.”

While $1 million may be chump change to larger universities with prominent athletic departments, the NCAA actually estimate that 70 percent of schools — generally smaller ones — lose money on intercollegiate athletics because they must pay large fees in order to compete.

With all the money large universities generate from athletic programs, they can afford to offer more competitive scholarships to promising athletes, allowing them to dominate the athletic field each year.

Every school does something different with their share of revenue generated from sports, whether the money goes directly back into the athletic program or into a general school fund.

“All of our money flows through the Atlantic Coast Conference,” said Clayton Hamilton, the business manager of the Athletics Department at Florida State, known for its competitive football and baseball programs. “Whatever money we get goes into a pot to fund our Athletic programs.”

George Patrick, the athletics financial officer at Penn State, whose football team won the 2006 Orange Bowl, said that most of the revenue from the school’s athletic programs goes back into the entire school.

“It’s true that most of the revenue goes to the Big Ten [Conference] schools,” Patrick said. “Our money comes in for the sports, but in reality they don’t get to spend it. It goes to the general revenue of the school.”

Lynch said, however, that each sport’s national tournament had brought in different levels of revenue for participating schools. Lynch dispelled misconceptions that BU hockey — with huge crowds and large merchandising revenue — is making money hand-over-fist.

“With ice hockey, we just cover our expenses,” Lynch said, adding that even a Frozen Four appearance for BU would not have generated extra revenue for the school, although it would have had another benefit.

“We would be playing in front of a national audience on ESPN, and there’s a great deal of recognition from that,” Lynch said. “The value is more in the visibility of BU and creating a name for ourselves.”

For smaller and less well-known schools, Lynch acknowledged the advantages of succeeding in an NCAA tournament generally go beyond the money.

“Most of the benefit of competing in these tournaments is the publicity,” Lynch said. “Take a small school like Wichita State, which is advancing through the tournament. Now people recognize the school and the basketball program, which really is more important to a small school than the revenue they receive.”