View From The Dugout

A College Coach's Perspective

Brian Tompkins is the Head Coach of Men's Soccer at Yale University in New Haven, CT. See full bio

March 19, 2009, Sport and Competition

Basketball Insanity - Two Weeks On The Brink

Why is the NCAA basketball tournament so popular?

There are few annual sporting events that capture the imagination of the American public more completely than the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Take a cross section of any community in the country and one can find fans wrapped up in basketball insanity regardless of age, gender or socio-economic status. Even in a crammed menu of televised sports that ranges from the Super Bowl to the Summer Olympics, the NCAA tournament is viewed with a unique and special reverence. But why? What is so special about the NCAA tournament?

Firstly, everyone can "participate" on some level. The fervent rooting interest of the students, fans and alumni of the 65 invited teams is expected but there are also hundreds of thousands of others who jump on numerous collegiate bandwagons by virtue of the NCAA pools to be found in almost every workplace, office, school and bar across the country. These pools generate incredible interest( and prize money) even among the most casual of fans and "bracket-watching" has become a March tradition. Picking the winners is a serious scientific pursuit for some and there are ample web sites and publications to aid the hard-core prognosticator. Others may take a more relaxed, untraditional approach and select their teams based on their liking for the particular city that the school is in, or the color of their uniforms or the weather in that particular town. In a tournament where upsets abound there are no sure-fire ways to win and the picks of the uninitiated part-time fan are equally valid to those who purport to know about basketball.

Another attraction of the tournament is its abundance of opportunities for romance. Not Romeo and Juliet-type romance but the sort that sees an individual overcome personal obstacles or injury to make or miss the game-winning shot or the unheralded team that somehow manages to pull off an unlikely victory against a national powerhouse. Add to that the fact that the games are being played by (supposedly) amateur college kids and not jaded professionals and the romance grows. These are the types of stories that NBC has built its Olympic coverage on for decades and they are a magnet for casual and non-sports fans. The NCAA tournament is fertile ground for the emotional and unexpected stories that many TV watchers are suckers for.

Escaping the tournament is almost impossible and CBS, having paid $6 Billion for the television rights and having copyrighted the terms March Madness and Final Four, make sure that we are confronted with an "all basketball, all the time" bombardment of opening round games from morning until late at night. With the later rounds taking up prime time viewing slots and the incessant hyping of upcoming match-ups it can prove intoxicating even for non-believers.

Perhaps the most important reason for the popularity of the tournament is that it is time-limited and immediately consequential. It takes a little over two weeks to play 64 games and declare a national champion. Every game has importance and meaning; win and you advance, lose and you go home. This is a welcome departure from the American tradition of deciding sporting champions by following a six month regular season with the playing of a series of games instead of one honest-to-goodness winner-takes-all contest.

The baseball and NBA basketball seasons are interminable and when they do finally get to the playoff stages feature series of best-of- five or best- of- seven match-ups that can strain the attention of even the most committed of fans. There is nothing more boring or soul-sapping than to see a team sweep another team in a playoff series and in some situations it can take forever to get to a game that really means something with true winner-takes-all importance. That is why fans love to see a "Game Seven", a game where both teams are on the brink. It is the essence of competition, me against you, us against them, last one standing , for all the spoils. The NCAA tournament is two whole weeks on the brink, every game is a "Game Seven" and the excitement of its "do or die" framework is palpable from coast to coast.

Sports and television are, by necessity, money driven and it is understandable that a playoff series can generate more revenue than a time-limited, single-elimination tournament but as fans we are competitive animals that love the meaningful battle, we actually enjoy being on the brink where anything can happen, staring victory and defeat in the face, cheering, cursing, laughing, crying, pulses racing. With brackets in hand, of course.