As the year rolls into springtime, the months of March and April bring a thrilling buzz around the country. Brackets, bets, and brand deals pave the way for growing excitement in the March Madness season and it’s showing. Featured on many major airing channels, college basketball is in its prime with the men’s tournament generating more than 31 million total brackets made and the women’s side resulting in over 4 million. Both tournaments are reaching record numbers, and the brackets are only the beginning.
So, what exactly is March Madness? With the first occurrence in 1939, March Madness, also known as the NCAA Division 1 Basketball Tournament, takes 68 men’s and women’s teams and places them in head-to-head matchups over three weeks to determine the national champion. The viewership of many of the games exceeds millions of people, with the men’s tournament averaging 9.07 million viewers through the second round and the women’s second round averaging 1.4 million viewers, and viewers can immerse themselves in the madness of March by creating their own brackets and following them. With opportunities for money and bragging rights, millions of people from around the country opt to participate in filling out brackets. Participants must try to correctly fill in the winner of all 63 games, yet year after year, the impossible odds and improbable runs by Cinderella teams have prevented any of the average 60 to 100 million created brackets from getting close to perfect. In fact, with the 1 in 9.2 quintillion chances of having a perfect March Madness bracket, it is more likely to get struck by lightning, bit by a shark, win the Powerball, or have quintuplets before having a perfect bracket.
In the spirit of March Madness, Radnor has opportunities for other tournaments and brackets for students to participate in. Students can take part in the Radnor-created tournament known as the Battle of the Books which consists of eight of the best heroes and eight of the best villains from notable books and movies. Characters such as Percy Jackson, Voldemort, Dracula, and more compete for votes to be crowned winner. French classes in Radnor offer another tournament known as Manie Musicale. A worldwide competition, Manie Musicale takes popular French songs and puts them against each other. Students can create their own brackets to predict who will take first place!
In the men’s tournament, pressure builds with millions of people watching. The Selection Show, where the 68 teams are selected and placed in the bracket, had viewership up 16% from last year. In addition, games on the first day of the second round reached an average of 10.8 million viewers, which March Madness Men’s Basketball TV states is the most-watched first day of the second round ever. In the men’s bracket, the top-seeded teams include defending champions Connecticut as well as Houston, Purdue, and North Carolina. Other top prospects include Arizona, Creighton, Duke, and more. As well as the tournament generating tons of views, some of the players have taken it upon themselves to promote their social media and names to the public to get brand deals. Some of the most famous include Robert Dillingham of Kentucky, Elliot Cadeau of UNC, and Jared McCain from Duke as pictured above. So far, many athletes have also been able to use their platforms as a means of moneymaking through NIL (name, image, and likeness) deals. Players will promote brands via commercials or social media because they have a large following, and receive compensation by doing so. Jared McCain, Rob Dillingham, and Elliot Cadeau are great examples of this, with their brand deals including Champs Sports, Celsius, SKIMS, Marriott, NerdWallet, and more.
Going into the women’s tournament, the top seeds include undefeated South Carolina, Iowa featuring star player Caitlin Clark, USC with freshman phenom Juju Watkins, and the Texas Longhorns. There are also talented contenders in Notre Dame, UCLA, Connecticut with skilled Paige Bueckers, and others. Much like the men’s college players, women’s games have experienced a huge growth in viewership and deals between athletes and brand names. The player depicted above, Caitlin Clark, has been responsible for a huge uptick in ticket sales when it comes to Iowa’s games and has partnerships with State Farm, Nike, Gatorade, and more. The numbers speak for themselves, and according to the NCAA, ticket prices have gone up 224% since Clark joined the Hawkeyes, and outside of Iowa’s stadium, the Hawkeyes have helped sell out or break attendance records of 30 of 32 games this season. Clark has also drawn the attention of celebrities including Travis Scott, who has attended Hawkeyes games, as well as Tim McGraw and Alex Morgan, who wore her jersey in support. With other rising stars in Paige Bueckers, Angel Reese, and Juju Watkins, the attention towards women’s basketball is moving in a positive direction with CNN reporting a 60% increase in viewership across all national networks. As for ticket prices in the tournament, Axios reports an astounding jump from $214 in 2022 to $416 in 2023 for resold women’s Final Four tickets.
To witness this rave for college basketball in full effect, the Radnor Girls’ Basketball team attended a matchup between the Iowa Hawkeyes and Maryland Terrapins in early February and it did not disappoint. Upon arrival, there were thousands of people waiting for the gates to open and by the time everybody got inside, the arena was packed to the brim. This could be attributed to the “Caitlin Clark effect,” where Iowa’s guard Caitlin Clark, had made such an impact on women’s college basketball that she had been selling out stadiums wherever she went. It became obvious that even a home-court advantage didn’t matter when teams were playing Iowa. Clark ended up with 38 points and 12 assists by the end of the game, securing a win by 8 points against the Terps. However, the best part of the trip was seeing former Radnor Girls’ Basketball star Mary Sareen, who now plays as a guard for Maryland!
As the March Madness tournament unfolds, it will be interesting to see how teams react to their presented challenges and how fans’ brackets fare against the inevitable upsets. With millions watching, talented players, and buzzing environments, it’s surely going to be an exciting few weeks!
So, Radnor, how did you have winning?
