March Madness Tournament Research Paper

March madness is the appropriate term this month for any gardener in Indiana! My husband always reminds me it usually snows during bracket season. Don’t you just love the Final Four? Our family does the whole bracket thing; it is a long cherished Petty tradition full of healthy competition among neighbors and coworkers. March 14th-April 3rd the NCAA gets into high gear. A Reader’s Digest article noted that, “this year, “American companies would lose $1.9 billion in wages paid to unproductive workers spending company time on betting pool priorities.“

Avid college basketball fans refer to it as NCAA March Madness. Because it is a one-and-done, single elimination format, it’s packed with excitement. Adding to the intrigue are the smaller schools, known as Cinderella’s, who endear themselves to the hearts of college basketball fans. Former Ohio State University coach Harold Olsen initiated the idea back in 1939.

This year’s March Madness was full of surprises. Many big name teams that were expected to make it to the Final Four were knocked out in the first and second rounds. Only one top seed made it to the Final Four. Many of the predictions missed the mark completely, and many brackets were busted early. Here is a list of 10 March Madness predictions that were completely wrong.

Now in its third year, the March Book Madness reading incentive program continues to make strides in increasing the number of readers in elementary and secondary schools.

When you think of the current NBA, chances are you may have thought of the Golden State Warriors. The Warriors have been a dominant team in the last couple of years. It is a great franchise. They have a great history as a team, great players, and very great success.

When you here the phrase “March Madness” what comes to mind? To millions of fans, March Madness is three weeks of intense basketball, played at a premier level, where anyone can be a fan. March Madness is the NCAA men’s basketball tournament that consists of 68 teams from around the country that are selected to participate in one of the worlds most celebrated sporting events.

Welcome back to the March Madness Mania blog. Once again, this has been a crazy week of college basketball. Top 10 teams have continued to fall and at this point it’s hard to predict who will grab the title this year. In this blog post I will be covering teams with March Madness stock that’s either rising or falling.

When looking at NCAA division programs, one will notice different factors that make it that type of division. These factors all have to be considered when an athletic administrator is looking to move their program up or down in divisions. These decisions are crucial to the university because the outcome can have a positive or negative effect on more than just the athletic staff. One thing an administrator needs to look at is the athletic competition for that university. This is important, because you want to be able to compete at that type of level. You don’t want to waste time and money on a team that can’t compete at the division’s level. Another factor you have to look at is the amount of people. This is important because you need the right amount of staff and people in general to help the program function, whether that be coaches, game-day operators, or fans bringing in revenue. Money is another factor; without money the program won’t survive. Without money, the programs won’t have the means to succeed.

With the selections concluded, travel arrangements made and the "play-in" games in the books, the final 64 teams are ready to do battle for the NCAA Basketball Championship title. March Madness has become a rite of spring for basketball fans all over the world. In this year's field, every team has lost at least four games, showing the presence of parity throughout the brackets. As play gets underway on March 17, it will be the teams that will decide whose the best college basketball team in the country.

First, the randomness of which tournament favorites will perform to the best of their abilities and which will wilt under the pressure keeps fans on the edge of their seat, wondering if perhaps their team might fall victim to an early upset. Generally, in other sports, teams that have dominated the entire season end up winning championships, and sometimes all of the opponents that these teams face do not even get close to winning. Next, fans of an unknown small school or a team that just barely snuck in March Madness have serious reason to believe that their teams could do the unthinkable. In professional leagues and college football, only a select few teams make it to the biggest stage; this severely minimizes the opportunity for most fans to watch their teams play meaningful games. Finally, no other sport integrates brackets and addiction to predicting into their games like March Madness does. Out of all of the different sports in America, including global leagues such as the NBA, NFL, and MLB, March Madness draws people in who want to win pools and prizes more than any other sporting event in this country. Ultimately, someone’s love for March Madness can be basically traced to one main theme. In order to fully understand March Madness, a fan has to not only be a college basketball fan, but they also need to love the underdog. Without heroic lower

March Madness is a widely known college basketball tournament that decides the champion of college basketball. I will not be discussing the teams of this year’s tournament as there are 68 of them and that would take way too long. Instead I will be talking about the history of March Madness, such as upsets and teams who do usually do well as well as teams who usually disappoint.

The passion Unlike professional basketball like in the NBA, NCAA March Madness is played by college students for nothing but the glory of the game. Young people come together in the spirit of sportsmanship and play to their heart’s content. In this games, the players don’t get paid, and you only get one shot at every turn. Nevertheless, they come out and play with everything they have. If not for the game itself, you should watch March Madness to admire the passion and dedication of the players.

Before I investigated March Madness for my research paper, I already had an excessive love towards this event. Ever since my favorite team, the University of Florida Gators, capped off a great season with a national championship over Ohio State, college basketball has played a significant part in my life for the near six months that it is on per season. If my love for sports was paired with my love for knowledge and history, then it is expected that I would be familiar with much that has already happened in the game’s history. While conducting my research, I was pleasantly surprised to find several sources with information that I was unfamiliar with before. One of the biggest fears when I started my

The month of March may be the largest stage for the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The basketball tournament known as “March Madness”, brings in publicity, as well as revenue for the schools. People may ask, “why is this college basketball tournament so popular?” The answer is, it is the student athletes that make it exciting to watch. The athletic director for student services at Kansas State University, Phil Hughes, calls the student athletes “The Entertainment Product” (Varsity Green 13). The nickname may sound rash or rude, however he is right. The student athletes attract the crowds, that lead to sold out arenas. Hughes’ office is in a $1 million facility in the academic learning center at KSU, right next to the $2 million football facility (Varsity Green 14). If it were not for the publicity and revenue from the big-stage events for KSU, there would not be any million dollar facilities for the students and coaches to enjoy.

A second justification for compensating student athletes is also a more well known one which is tied to the amount of money universities bring in from the sporting events these athletes perform in. According to Forbes, the University of Texas in Austin Longhorn Football team brought in over 78 million dollars in profit for the football program and university in a single year. While a portion of this profit certainly goes towards building the football program, including scholarships for these athletes, there is certainly a pot of earnings remaining that could be shared with these players who offered their talents for free, yet, helped to bring that money into the coffers. This is especially true of culminating events in college basketball such as the very popular end of the season tournaments. It is no secret that March Madness, the most competitive display of basketball players in the world, brings in big money. Research completed by PR Newswire explains how much money the NCAA profited from the three week period that is March Madness: “Ticket sales, television, radio, alumni donations, royalties and NCAA distributions, combined bring in over $6.1 billion in annual revenue to colleges.” (Pulsamy 1) From the outside looking in, there