March Madness Manifests Monetary Mayhem

Maddox Miller

March brings sports fans one of the best and involving sporting events in the world. The NCAA men and women’s March Madness basketball tournaments are a spectacle as they are the largest sporting tournaments in the United States, and two of the largest in the world.
All basketball fans can obsess over 64 teams playing in a single elimination bracket until one makes it all the way to becoming champion.

A key part of March Madness is the bracket, the tournament is a 64 team layout showing who plays who, and which teams could potentially play one another if they win. The importance of the bracket is that it gets fans involved in planning their own brackets and predicting winners using websites. Fans predict each game’s winner and the tournament winner. People can also print paper versions if they wish. 

Fans with zero basketball knowledge have the ability to make a bracket whether they are guessing based off of team mascot, seeding, or other random reasons. March Madness has an appeal that can’t be matched. Other sports struggle to draw in new fans, but March Madness includes most people. 

An online Scribe survey revealed that most people watch March Madness including those who aren’t basketball fans.The survey showed that 71 out of 74 respondents know about March Madness. 

Only 28 claimed to be basketball fans, while 46 said they were not. Some of the 46 said they were making brackets for March Madness, which shows that people who aren’t basketball fans are still getting involved.

Another aspect of March Madness that continues to draw people in are the upsets and Cinderella teams. These are the teams that are unknown by the national media or are expected to lose based off of seeding. 

Cinderella teams are special as they defy the odds and make the tournament exciting by adding chaos to brackets by beating teams that are expected to win. March Madness, while inclusive for fans, also embraces smaller colleges by giving them a chance to make a name for themselves during the tournament.

The beauty of March Madness is that it is inclusive and one of the most enjoyable sporting experiences.