There is a beautiful madness that comes with March, and it isn’t just the giddy delirium present as people break cabin fevers cultivated over the long winter. Sure, folks are excited as seasons change and the warm air of spring starts to waft through the air, but there is something else out there, stirring the proverbial Kool-Aid.
It is a sporting event that is among the most perfectly constructed in all of the American landscape, one that transcends the realm of athletic competition and seeps into the popular culture at large. The NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament, The Big Dance, March Madness, whatever handle seems most apt, is one of the few events in American sports that has a life beyond those who sit glued to ESPN’s 24-hour news cycle or receive constant updates from their sporting smart phone apps. The tournament, like the Super Bowl, the Masters, the Indianapolis 500, and Louisville’s own Kentucky Derby, is a part of American life that is well known to every sports fan, but also general knowledge to those who don’t quite understand the intricacies of the 2-3 zone or full court pressure.
The tournament is known as March Madness because of its frenetic pace; its non-stop action; and the pressurized environment created by a system where if you win, you move on, and if you lose, you’re going home for the summer. For sports fans, the tournament is such a special time of the year because it puts on display so much of what makes athletic competition a compelling form of entertainment. Its single elimination format has manifested a reputation for everything from unexpected victories and elephant-sized upsets to surprising individual performances and buzzer-beating baskets. And within the quantum mechanical level of uncertainty that the tournament creates lies its most recognizable and appealing aspect: the bracket sheet. It leaves folks across the country rapt by their own tournament predictions, and spreads the tournament’s appeal beyond the average sports fan. Every March, that gridded black and white jungle slips into the purse or back pocket of just about everyone you meet.
And, as anyone who has filled out a sheet in the past can tell you, the brackets only add to the madness on the court. Predicting how things will play out can become nothing short of an excruciatingly frustrating endeavor. It seems to never fail that spectators watch helplessly as that No. 2 vs. No. 15 match-up they inked in without a second thought turns into the upset of the weekend, with the team they were riding all the way to the championship game getting bounced out of the tourney in the second round. Even if you don’t know Kansas from Canisius or a three-second violation from a parking violation, you can take part in March Madness by filling team names into the bracket and seeing if your predictions hold up. It’s fun, it’s easy, and it satisfies the ego. It’s both the thrill of the gamble and the vivid excitement of guessing right.
Breath-removing moments and the ubiquity of the bracket sheet are what make the tournament so popular, and they also speak to the national attention that can come to cities and schools that are chosen as hosts for the tournament’s games. In 2012, that includes Louisville. The KFC Yum! Center will be home to the first real weekend of action, hosting the “Round of 64” on Thursday, March 15 and the third round on Saturday, March 17. Having tournament games in Louisville puts our fair city in the national spotlight and provides a boost in tourism, revenue, and activity in the downtown area and beyond. According to Financial Edge, historical occupancy levels for host city hotels have increased 40 percent during the NCAA Tournament. Fast Company reported in 2010 that cities hosting games can look forward to an additional $8 million in revenue from visiting tournament fans. And that’s in addition to the boost for host schools, like the University of Louisville, which make around $600,000 on average.
Louisville has not hosted the NCAA Tournament since 1991. And this year is an especially lucrative year to do so. The potential for heart-stopping moments and big-time upsets that could easily ignite the crowds at the KFC Yum! Center is one thing, but there is also a more regional appeal that could come into play. While the U of L (like all host schools) is prohibited from playing tournament games in its home arena, the current (at press time) No. 1 team in the country, Lexington’s University of Kentucky, is likely to be one of the four regional No. 1 seeds in the tournament, if not the No. 1 overall seed. This top seed comes with the advantage of being placed as close to their home city as possible for their second and third round games, meaning that they will, in all likelihood, play right here in Louisville. For a city with a year-round interest in college basketball and a population that is split nearly 50/50 in its support for U of L and UK, this means that many Wildcat fans will get to see their favorite team perform right in the heart of their city’s downtown and many more visitors from the not-so-far-east will make the short pilgrimage to Louisville to see their favorite squad.
Hosting the tournament, combined with the portend of UK games in our own backyard, makes this March a particularly maddening one for residents of the River City. The tournament’s influence on not only the world of sports but the American consciousness will be felt to an even greater extent locally, where Louisville’s status as host city adds further fuel to basketball discussions that burn here nearly year round. The action is as close to home as it can possibly be. The games played here in town could not only lead to more tournament games heading to Louisville in the near future, but also show the entire country how committed the city is to basketball (and possibly garner the kind of attention that would turn the head of an NBA franchise on the move). So as the tournament approaches and fans nationwide start to feel the itch to fill out their bracket sheet, they will also be provided a window into what makes Louisville such a spectacular host for the spirited, intense action that is always found on college basketball courts come tournament time. It’s going to be a mad, mad March here in Louisville, so hang on tight and enjoy the ride.
– Mark Schultz
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