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March Madness Research Paper

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Why March Madness is the Greatest Sporting Event in America With how many sporting events that there are in this country, it is common to see fans that love multiple games. Professional sports are typically favored by most followers, but there is a clear deficiency that hurts the leagues. Professional sports are exhilarating if one is a fan of a playoff team or especially a team that wins championships on a regular basis. While this is great for traditional powerhouses and teams with endless amounts of money, the majority of teams in these leagues serve as punching bags for years or even multiple decades. There is a fine line between these teams and other organizations that struggle just to make financial ends meet. Teams in financial …show more content…

The first almost massive upset occurred between “the one-seed Georgetown Hoyas and the sixteen-seed Princeton Tigers” (Gregory and Wolff, “The Game That Saved March Madness”). Coming into the game, “Georgetown was a national championship favorite, who featured one of the best players in the country in Alonzo Mourning. Small schools such as Princeton had been clobbered for years by teams like Georgetown, which resulted in many fans and NCAA officials wondering if these small schools belonged in the tournament in the first place” (Gregory and Wolff, “The Game That Saved March Madness”). Princeton’s players gave the effort of their lives, as they battled and fought with heavyweight Georgetown up until the last shot. Despite the fact that “Bob Scrabis’ game winning shot was blocked by Mourning”, Princeton had proven to the critics that it was possible for an unthinkable upset of this magnitude to materialize. Fast forward twenty-four years, and a new small conference underdog, the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles, became the talk of the entire country after “they became the lowest seeded team to win two NCAA Tournament games and make it all the way to the Sweet 16” (O’Halloran, “Cinderella Story Florida Gulf Coast Has Its Shining Stars”). No one could have predicted that this unknown school that “had never even made it to the NCAA …show more content…

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

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