The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is responsible for overseeing the rules and regulations for college athletics at more than 1,000 member colleges and universities and screwing over as many non-major college football teams as possible with the odious BCS cartel.

Searching for yet more ways to keep Boise State, Utah, TCU and other schools from having a realistically fair shot at the national championship and the sacks of money that go with BCS bowl appearances every year requires a high volume of data and complex processes, which rely on a mix of software application hosting and a substantial IT infrastructure.

“A significant portion of the NCAA’s relationship with its member institutions is transactional in nature,” said Brad Alderson, Managing Director of Information Technology.

The IT staff was required to focus on keeping the site going, “leaving little time for enhancements and innovation,” said AT&T (News - Alert) officials. So theychoseAT&T to host, manage, support, monitor and maintain its collection of web applications, including IBM (News - Alert) WebSphere Portal tools and IBM Lotus Web Content Management, which power the NCAA.org web site.

By relying on the eBusiness pros from AT&T to verify application hosting optimization and online performance, the NCAA “frees its internal resources to focus on creating innovative strategies for future growth and development in support of schools and students,” NCAA officials say.

The AT&T Synaptic Infrastructure, a utility computing platform, “provides the NCAA with on-demand bandwidth for website availability without excessive costs or labor-intensive infrastructure maintenance,” AT&T officials say.

“More than 1,000 colleges and universities across the U.S. run their athletics programs in compliance with NCAA standards,” NCAA officials say, noting that they also work with USC. In addition, the NCAA provides access to information, maintains records, and provides guidelines on everything from eligibility and recruitment to sportsmanship and diversity.