The seedings for this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament will be announced Sunday evening, setting off the annual frenzy known as “March Madness.”
This 65-team single-elimination tournament isn’t the only thing about big-time college sports that can aptly be considered “madness.” Much has been written—ranging from dry scholarly books and articles full of regression equations through impassioned charges by critics and countercharges by defenders about the role of athletics within modern American colleges and universities. I’ve followed all this with great interest and have made occasional contributions to this literature myself. Some time ago I stopped reading and writing on this topic because I concluded that everything worthwhile that could be said had already been said, many times, and all that were now appearing were reheated rehashes.
The other day, though, the Wall Street Journal ran a nice piece by economist Andrew Zimbalist, focusing on financial aspects of the NCAA tournament but also touching on broader issues involving the economics of big-time college sports programs. If you’re largely ignorant about such matters, Zimbalist’s article will give you a good first-cut understanding of them; even if you’re already pretty well versed, you’ll find some good new stuff there. In any event, Zimbalist provides plenty of food for thought as you bulk up in preparation for submitting the form that’s going to win you the office pool and settling in on the couch for three weeks of watching college hoops.
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Just as March winds bring April showers, March Madness seems now to extend into April.
I liked the article, and can only add that it would be interesting to go back and look at the admissions and prestige effects of neighboring George Mason’s recent trip through the brackets. Do the effects differ for mid-tier colleges when compared to those in the D-1?
And as Lee can attest, if colleges really want to boost applications, they should treat presidents in their hospitals.
Lee:
I thought I could count on you for some though-provoking post on March Madness.I was going to await today’s brackets but as I’m watching my beloved Buckeyes battle the much-hated Boilermakers and considering your post on religiosity and tolerance, I decided to leave a comment now. I don’t believe my anti-Purdue biases (or for that matter, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, other big-10 teams who are not the Buckeyes) are related to my undergraduate background but . . . ? I’ll be sure to check back after the brackets are announced. BTW, is St, Mary (lame attempt to work in the religion theme) going to make it? Has any NCAA playoff team ever started so many “foreigners”?
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