Why We LOVE March Madness

As the first weekend of March Madness comes to a close and I look back mourning the death of my brackets I have to say that this is one of the greatest months in all of sports every year.

I would be the first one to tell you that I do not care about college sports. I find the setup of college football's playoff to be insane and uninteresting in every way, and I also can never get excited about the regular seasons when I have the pros to watch. I also never understood the strange allegiances you find people have to schools that they never actually attended. And despite all of this, I will easily and happily say that the finale to the college basketball season is one of those things that makes me love to be a sports fan. From the anticipation that comes with the creation of brackets and the betting or arguing with friends right up until the point when everyone realizes there is no way even the so called "experts" on ESPN could have predicted this, right down the last moments in those games where the the winner is decided with a final shot or free throw. The NCAA tournament is one of the most exciting and entertaining events of the year, and this year is no different.

This tournament single-handedly changes my view of college sports every year and gets me excited for something that I never payed attention to otherwise. Making people that usually never care is a trait that is only attributed to something like the Super Bowl, the World Cup, and the Olympics. Not only could other college sports bet better by taking a note from what the NCAA does with basketball, but the professional organizations could as well. What if we had the same kind of crazy elimination bracket with professional basketball, baseball, or hockey, I don't think there is anyone that would argue that it would be any less entertaining than what they are currently doing, right? Now, I'm not necessarily saying that every sport needs to change the way it's playoffs work simply for the sake of making themselves fit to the college basketball way...but wouldn't it be awesome if they did? What if  there were two championships in each sport, one set up the way it is currently, and a less important but more exciting and insane one set up using this single elimination method?

I know it's a bit crazy to suggest that everyone should do things this way, but if there is one thing that college basketball gives us it is the emotion, underdog victories, down to the wire plays, rabid fans, heartbreaks, and unpredictable stories that we love. It represents the purist, truest reasons why everyone loves and watches sports, and for everyone to copy that would not be such a bad thing.