There are a lot of great tournaments in sports; there is The Masters, the UEFA Champions League, the NFL playoffs, the US Open, Wimbledon. the list goes on and on. But if you ask me there are two that are better than all the rest, and they are The World Cup and March Madness. These are the two greatest tournaments in the world.
Last week saw the start of a 63 game, drama packed event that stretches over 3 weeks of what can only be described as Madness! What started as 347 teams in college basketball was reduced down to 68, and when all is said and done only one team will have their “One Shining Moment.”
There are a lot of similarities between March Madness and The World Cup. First off are the fans. There is nothing that comes close to an entire nation and their love for their soccer team, and the passion that ensues, but if there is one sporting event in America that can even be mentioned in the same breath as the World Cup it would be March Madness.
College basketball is a sport that has been played for over 120 years. There are towns, cities, and communities that revolve around their school and team. The only reason people even know where some of these places are on the map is because of their basketball team. If it wasn’t for Kentucky basketball or Kansas basketball, sports fans probably would never have heard of Lexington or Lawrence, but that is not the case.
These fan bases bleed for their team, they cry for their team, they live for this time of year almost to the point of obsession. They follow their team's every move; pack stadiums no matter where their team travels. Hell, over 20,000 fans for each team go to their team's first official practice of the year in what is called "Late Night." These fans are delusional about their expectations for their teams, just like fans who are passionate about any team, and any loss is means for dismal of their coach, replacement of players, or any doomsday scenario you wish to insert here. These fans expect championships every year and anything short of that is a failure in their eyes.
College basketball fans can be compared to an entire country's passion is because of size. If we look at Kansas basketball; Lawrence is a town of around 80,000 people. 25,000 of those people are students. Every year fans graduate and “new” fans enroll for years and years. Fans go out and new fans go in but they stay fans for life. You very rarely will meet a Kansas fan who would walk by another Kansas fan wearing the team's apparel and not say “Go KU” or “Rock Chalk.”
These fans are not confined to the area of one city or one state or one country. People from all over who may know nothing about basketball enroll in a school and after one visit to a game they have their entire world turned upside down. They are hooked.
This may not be the exact same as the love countries have for their soccer teams, but on its own level it is at least similar.
The format of March Madness is also similar to the World Cup. Each team participating in either tournament is required to “qualify” for it through games against other teams competing for the same thing. After playing these games only a select few qualify for the actual tournament. In the case of The World Cup it is 32, in the case of the NCAA its 68 (at one point March Madness only had 32 teams but expansion has gotten the tournament up to 68).
After group play in The World Cup, the field is reduced down to 16 teams playing single elimination matches. In the case of March Madness, all games are single elimination, but the field will be reduced down to 16 just like soccer in route to one ultimate champion. The formats are not exactly the same, obviously, but how a team reaches the championship is similar.
The drama of March Madness and the World Cup is also extremely similar. Sports are amazing for so many reasons, but one of the best is they are truly unscripted dramas playing out right in front of your eyes. The amount of time, work, and dedication put in to all sports by their athletes, trainers, coaches, and fans means there is so much riding on every shot, kick, pass or score. When you love something so much and want it so bad and it’s so hard to get and only one team can ultimately achieve it, that leaves a lot of people caught up in drama.
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The moments make these tournaments so special, the corner kick in the final minute to take the lead, the goalie save in the biggest spot, the buzzer beaters, the upsets, the lucky bounce, or bad break, the great pass, or great tackle, the play you will remember forever, the play you want to forget, the joy, and the heartbreak. There are no other tournaments that truly emulate all of these for such a mass audience the way The World Cup and March Madness do. They are the two greatest tournaments in the world.
Companies estimate they lose close to $1.7 billion in productivity due to March Madness, so if you are at work try to stay focused – actually I don’t care, call in sick. When that first ball is tipped (even though it may not be a soccer ball) there will be great passes, and great shots, bad shots, and misses. There will be deflections, and scores made from the corner. There might not be free kicks, but there will be free throws. There will be flopping, and fouls, joy and heartache. Some teams will experience happiness on a level like no other, and some teams and fans will experience the ultimate pain that only March can bring them every year, but everyone is striving for that same goal, to be the only team left standing. It is truly one of the two greatest tournaments in the world!
God I love sports.
