March Madness

March Madness 2020

March Madness is one of the most well known sporting events in the country. It takes place every year in March. March Madness is the end of the year tournament for NCAA Division 1 college basketball. The top team from around the country compete to crown one winner. The college basketball postseason is like no other. The tournament is comprised of the best 64 NCAA Division 1 basketball teams competing in a 16 round, single elimination style bracket. There are four divisons which the teams get split into. In each division, the teams are seeded from 1 to 16. The number one seed will face the number 16 seed, the number 2 seed will play the number 15 seed, and so on in the first round of action. If you win, you advance. A big part of the fun that gets many fans involved is filling out their own brackets. Every year, millions of fans across the country fill out their own bracket before the tournament starts to predict how they think the tournament will play out. One strategy is to pick all the higher seeds to advance to the next round, but that is not always the case. Fans compete against each other and celebrities to see who can guess the winners the closest to right.

The first two rounds of this well-known event were scheduled to take place March 19 through March 22, 2020. However, the world would see unpredictable measures that would lead to the first cancelled March Madness ever. The coronavirus, classified as a global pandemic that is rapidly spreading throughout the world, would lead to the cancellation of the end of the year tournament. The first cancellations were seen in the post season tournaments for each basketball conference. Following those cancellations, the NCAA later announced they would be cancelling the whole March Madness tournament. There would be no end of the season tournament to crown a NCAA Division 1 men’s basketball champion. The first two rounds of the tournament were scheduled to take place in Albany, New York; Spokane, Washington; St. Louis, Missouri; Tampa, Florida; Greensboro, North Carolina; Omaha, Nebraska; Sacramento, California; and Cleveland, Ohio. All these cities would be struck with the news that their cities would no longer be hosting the tournament. This is a huge loss of money for these venues.

After the first two rounds, the next rounds consist of the Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight, Final Four, and Championship game. The rounds get their names from how many teams are still left in the tournament. These rounds of the basketball tournament bring in huge amounts of money and fans to watch and tune in to. This cancellation struck most of the population to be upset. One of the most well-known, most followed, sporting events was now cancelled.