Illustration by Maytal Bach
It’s now midway through March, and in the sports world that means March Madness: the three week long basketball tournament in which 68 college teams battle it out for the national title. Run by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the selection of the teams that get to participate is highly anticipated. A big part of the hype of March Madness is getting to select your own brackets and place bets with your friends or family.
The event was not always so large, but it has exploded in recent years. In 2015, 80.7 million viewers watched the games through the NCAA March Madness Live, which was an increase of seventeen percent from the previous year. 350 million Twitter and Facebook impressions were generated during the 2015 Tournament, which was an increase of 45 percent from the prior year. Sixty million people did brackets last year, which is an astonishing number.
For those who don’t know, the tournament is bracket play, meaning that if you lose, you’re eliminated. The four regions: South, East, West, and Midwest, will host the first two rounds of play. This year, the Final Four round and the National Championship will be held in San Antonio, Texas.
As for the teams participating this year, conference winners gain automatic entry to the tournament. Atlantic Coast Conference winner University of Virginia was ranked number one in the country going into Selection Sunday, meaning they were a shoo-in for the overall number one seed and received their preferred region and game destinations – a perk of being the best of the best. The three other number one seeds, Xavier, Kansas, and Villanova, will attempt to live up to their rankings as they battle in the West, Midwest, and East.
The hype that surrounds this tournament is almost unmatched in sports, as the unpredictability and excitement of the event brings basketball fans and non-fans together in their quest for a perfect bracket.