The 2019 version of the NCAA Men's College Basketball Tournament bracket was released last night, starting what has become an annual tradition known simply as "March Madness". Just about everyone I know is busy filling out their tournament bracket, all the television and radio sports personalities are arguing about who deserved to be in the tournament's 68 team field as well as who should have been seeded higher, and work productivity nationwide is about to experience a precipitous decline. "March Madness" typically coincides with Internet delays and office computer system shutdowns as employees look up the win-loss records of teams in the tournament, research what all the experts are saying about each team, and watching games or looking up scores during the tournament itself. Some experts estimate that lost productivity in the United States during the month of March costs between $175 million to $1 billion!
"March Madness" even affects casual fans who may never even watch a college basketball game during the regular season. A quick review of an online research library database used by faculty and students at over 75 libraries in the United States showed the number of articles accessed online decreased by about 6 percent starting on the Monday following "Selection Sunday". Apparently that trend continued at colleges and universities whose teams were still "alive" in the tournament during the month of March. Moreover, the number of articles accessed dropped even further (close to a 20% decline) on the day after these teams won a game. In contrast, the number of articles accessed returned to baseline if the team lost.
Filling out tournament brackets has become extremely popular - probably because you really don't need to know too much about college basketball to fill one out. I still remember when one of my daughters filled out her bracket based upon a coin flip - her bracket was closer to what actually happened that year than the rest of the family! There was another time when our youngest daughter filled her bracket out based on which team mascots seemed more powerful (as an example, a tiger would beat out a bulldog or a blue devil would beat a billiken). Apparently, the odds of filling out a perfect bracket are 1 in 9.2 quintillion. If those kinds of numbers don't mean anything to you, just consider that the billionaire Warren Buffet once offered $1 billion for anyone who filled out a perfect bracket.
Surprisingly, "March Madness" has its roots, not in college basketball, but in high school boy's basketball. Apparently, the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) first started holding statewide tournaments in boy's basketball in 1908. The tournament became extremely popular in the 1930's, and a former high school basketball coach named Henry V. Porter first coined the term "March Madness" in a newspaper article in 1939:
A little March madness may complement and contribute to sanity and help keep society on an even keel.
The IHSA trademarked the phrase in 1989, and the NCAA acquired a license to use "March Madness" for its tournament in 1996 after a series of contentious legal battles. The name has stuck, and it perfectly describes what happens during the month of March. Perhaps Henry Porter was correct too. In other words, maybe the reason that we all go a little mad during the month of March is because it's a good way for us to escape all of the difficulties in our daily lives. Perhaps our madness during the month of March does keep us on an even keel. Now, I better go fill out my bracket before the play in games start!
No comments:
Post a Comment