What Is March Madness? An American Tradition Explained

Only in America can someone look at a bunch of kids playing amateur basketball and figure out how to make big money off the operation. And nothing moves that money quite like March Madness, the culmination of the college basketball season in a frenzied tournament that crowns the national champion. But what exactly is March Madness? I’ll break it down, adding a few numbers so even the obsessive sports fan might learn a tiny bit.

 

The Overview

College athletics in the US are governed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The NCAA has done a masterful (also known as not-so-masterful) job of preserving the purity of amateur athletics while allowing for significant economic gain by many parties, not including the actual athletes. (Of course, some athletes do get a free education, and others are able to monetize their name, image, and likeness.)

In terms of NCAA basketball, the highest level of participation is called Division I, which is the category I’ll be referring to. And for the sake of simplicity, I’ll discuss the men’s game, even though women’s college basketball has a large following and a similar tournament.

There are approximately 351 Division I men’s college basketball teams, divided into 32 conferences. (The approximate number indicates some degree of flux.) Of these teams, 68 are lucky enough to qualify for the end-of-the-year tournament that decides the national champion. The almost three-week event begins in mid-March and goes by many names, including the NCAA tournament (or simply the tournament), the Big Dance, and March Madness.

 

The Tournament

In terms of qualifying for the Big Dance, the 32 conference champions, typically determined by individual conference tournaments, receive what are called automatic bids. That leaves room for 36 other teams to be invited based on merit, receiving what are called at-large bids. The decision regarding these invitations is made by a tournament selection committee, and criticism of this committee is part of the annual ritual.

In order to make the numbers work, eight of the qualifying teams have to compete in play-in games, leaving four winners and decreasing the number of overall teams from 68 to 64. The 64 teams are divided into four regions, with each region’s teams being seeded from 1 to 16 (best to worst). In the first round, the 1 seed plays the 16 seed, the 2 seed plays the 15 seed, the 3 seed plays the 14 seed, and so on. The single-elimination format allows for the occasional upset, and a victory by a particularly low seed can earn them the label of Cinderella. After four rounds of games, each region will have a winner.

The winner of each region has the privilege of playing in the Final Four, often held in massive stadiums designed for football and often taking place in early April (not March). Ultimately, just one team is left standing.

A good chunk of the national obsession with this event is driven by trying to predict the winner of individual games as well as the eventual champion. Filling out tournament brackets and testing yourself against a pool of competitors can be a source of entertainment, pride, and money (if so designed).

 

Some Numbers

Here are a few basketball-related numbers.

1939

The year of the first NCAA tournament. Eight teams participated, with Oregon winning the championship.

67

The number of games played under the current tournament format, including the four play-in games.

11

The number of championships that UCLA has won, more than any other school. Kentucky has 8; North Carolina and Connecticut 6; Duke and Indiana 5; and Kansas 4.

8

The lowest-seeded team to ever win the tournament. That was Villanova in 1985.

2

The number of times a 16 seed has beaten a 1 seed (out of 156 chances).

 

Other Numbers

Here are a couple other numbers for perspective.

800,000

The approximate number of paying fans for all games combined in the 2013 tournament. That remains the largest number to date.

1 billion

The approximate revenue in US dollars that the tournament generated for the NCAA in 2023. The vast majority of this amount was distributed to the conferences. None went directly to the players.

 

So go ahead—fill out a bracket and put some money on it. Then turn on the TV and start watching some basketball. You can ignore work, the spouse, and the kids. And don’t be ashamed—it is culturally very acceptable. It is, after all, March Madness.

(This article was updated on April 9, 2024.)