“Beware the ides of March,” a warning message to Caesar from the famous Shakespeare play that oddly enough has relevant meaning today. Not because there is the impending threat of a mutinous overthrow, but because of March Madness.
March Madness refers to the widely publicized and wildly unpredictable NCAA Division I men’s college basketball tournament. The top 64 teams from across the nation compete in a winner-take-all tournament divided into four separate brackets based on regions of the country.
The four regions are: West, Midwest, East and South. For each of the four regions, 16 teams are selected and ranked within their region based on a combination of their overall team record and their head-to-head matchups against the other teams in their region.
Besides all of the excitement that a couple dozen collegiate basketball games will bring to sports fans, the tournament is also well known for the practice of predicting who the winner will be.
Ever since the first March Madness tournament that took place back in 1939, fans have been filling out brackets of their own and betting on who they think will take home the coveted title. Fans will take empty brackets with only the first 64 teams filled in and pick and choose who they think will move further up the tournament tree.
How people have decided to choose which team will win has become its own field of study, now more commonly known as “bracketology.” While there is no specific date where someone sat down and filled out the first tournament bracket, there is a certain point in the history of the tournament that turned it into the phenomenon it is today.
In 1985, the NCAA decided to expand the tournament to include 64 teams, (the way it is today) increasing the field of teams from 48 in previous years. When they made this change, it eliminated the first round of byes for the top seeded teams. More teams in the bracket resulted in greater variation of people’s brackets, and with greater variation came a sharp rise in interest of the tournament.
Behind every great idea there is a pioneer who changed the way we think, or in this case, created a household word. The term ”bracketology” is a result of who many consider to be the first bracketologist for ESPN, Joe Lunardi. According to a 1996 article in Time Magazine, Lunardi referred to himself as a bracketologist when interviewing with The Philadelphia Inquirer.
So, just how exactly did Lunardi make it happen? How was he able to not only create his own word, but also generate the understanding of that word amongst sports fans so that no explanation is necessary?
“I used to own a college basketball publishing company called Blue Ribbon,” Lunardi said. “I had the idea, ‘What if we added a postseason edition?’ Suppose we could get those picks out on Sunday night and get the book out by Thursday. Would people have an interest in that? Do they want more information?”
A resounding “yes” to answer your question, Joe. This hunger for more knowledge on the topic of college basketball has been the center of discussion for office cubicles nationwide for the past few decades.
The rest is history.