By Jacob Tomaneng
The seeding of the men’s and women’s March Madness brackets was released on Sunday, March 16, sparking three weeks of excitement.
The March Madness tournament marks the end of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I basketball season. As of 2025, the premier event will be turning 86 years old. The intensity of players, coaches, and participating universities has kept the nationally and globally loved tournament popular over decades.
Since the early days of the tournament, underdog stories have been called “Cinderella stories.” Fueled by the vast 64-team bracket containing basketball players and coaches fighting to show their passion for the game on the largest stage. Eventually, after the Final Four, fans get to reflect on the feelings and physicality left on the court as a new music video plays over the song “One Shining Moment” by David Barrett annually.
“The NCAA Tournament is one [of] our country’s increasingly rare communal experiences,” said The New York Times.
The tradition of filling out brackets reflecting predictions on the tournament’s results enhances the unifying fan experience. ABC News 10 reported that approximately 60 to 100 million brackets are filled out by fans from across the world each year. They are now often filled out through online platforms and used in competitions to see who can make the most accurate prediction between friends.
Young adults showing that they have plenty of emotion to lay out on the court ensures that the March Madness games remain special. Whether in pursuit of a professional career or their very last game in a sport they dedicated their life to, each player has a story. Every year new players come into the spotlight by leading a Cinderella run, a shockingly elite one-game performance, or even a viral meme.
According to NCSA College Recruiting, “In June 2021, the NCAA implemented an interim policy on name, image and likeness, or NIL, allowing student-athletes to make money from their personal brand.”
After the approval of NIL, some college athletics like football have seen many positive changes in attitude towards the game. Because of this many are optimistic about March Madness and underdog athletes’ chances to thrive financially from their time in center stage.
According to on3, the 2024 Associated Press Women’s College Basketball Player of the Year Caitlin Clark earned an estimated $3.4 million from NIL brand deals.
The 2025 women’s March Madness tournament will finish with the Final Four on April 4 and 6 just one mile from The University of Tampa campus at Amalie Arena in downtown Tampa, Florida. This is the first year the city will be home to any women’s Final Four games since 2019, and Tampa will soon experience the excitement that March Madness brings to basketball enthusiasts around the world.
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Thumbnail Image Caption: Amalie Arena before the 2019 NCAA Division 1 women’s basketball championship game. Photo courtesy of The Uconn Blog.