Lose Your Mind for March Madness: Why the Tournament Is the Best Sporting Event

Forget the Super Bowl—it’s more about commercials and halftime nipple-slips than the game itself. The NHL and NFL playoffs drag on too long. The World Series is too often a letdown after the pennant races end and American and National league champions have been crowned. And the Olympics has watered itself down by including “sports” like bridge and ballroom dancing.

Hands down, March Madness is the best sporting event of the year.

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament is able to transform non-fans into die-hards. It makes people cheer for colleges they can’t find on a map. People can quote detailed statistics of players they hadn’t heard of a week earlier. Men and women of all ages take the time to fill out tournament brackets, trying to predict the winners of every game in the 65-team tournament.

Think of all of the elements that make people sports fans, all the elements that make sports beautiful—unpredictability, drama, player passion, frenzied fans, and unforgettable moments. March Madness has it all.

Sportscasters and play-by-play announcers use the adage, “That’s why they play the game.” It means that no matter which two teams are playing, either has a chance to win. Sports are unpredictable; they’re the original reality TV. Never is this truer than during March Madness.

The tournament has come to be synonymous with upsets. It seems that in every third game a top-seeded team falls to an underdog. It’s true that the Cinderella teams don’t usually win the championship, but they do shock the sports world. And no one has ever correctly guessed the outcome of every game on a tournament bracket, despite the millions of them that are completed every year.

Drama is borne out of this unpredictability and magnified by the single elimination format of the tournament. There are no second chances. It’s not a best of seven series, and to win the tournament a team must go undefeated, so every game is meaningful.

If a team comes out flat or a superstar gets in early foul trouble, even the best team can be eliminated in an early round. But if a mid-level seed gets hot at the right time, it can go all the way. 

The pressure in every game breeds fierce competition, and there’s something about the players in college. It seems they’re trying harder. They are young men playing for their schools, coaches, and teammates, but not playing for money. Granted, a good performance at the tournament can ensure mega-contracts in the NBA for some players, but the majority will never play pro ball.

There’s a passion that these players have at the college level. When they lose, they’re devastated, crying on the hardwood. When they win, they’re ecstatic, seemingly jumping higher in celebration than they had during the game.

This purity of purpose is what resonates with fans. It’s refreshing to see players give it their all.

The passion of the players is matched by the fervor of their fans. College students rushing the floor after their school wins is one of the only unadulterated things that exists in sports today. Most can’t afford to go to the Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup Final—but droves of ordinary college students support their classmates at tournament games.

Without question, March Madness creates more breathtaking moments than any other sporting event. There are always buzzer-beaters, Cinderella teams, and outstanding individual efforts. Look at last year’s final: Kansas star Mario Chalmers sent the Championship game into overtime when he hit a three-pointer with just over two seconds left. Kansas ended up winning.

The 65 teams that will compete in this year’s tournament were announced yesterday, and the tournament gets underway this weekend.  March Madness will again prove itself as the best. There are great Super Bowls and there are bad ones, as in all other major sporting events, but March Madness always delivers.