You can find more than The Atlético’yes Coverage of the men’s NCAA Tournament here and the women’s NCAA Tournament here. Follow live coverage of the first round of the 2024 NCAA Men’s Tournament
On Wednesday, I boarded a flight from San Francisco to Las Vegas with the express purpose of watching college basketball.
Of course, you don’t have to wait for a real basketball game. Those flights were headed to Omaha, Neb., and Charlotte, North Carolina. In my case, I am spending several hundred dollars for the privilege of sitting (or standing) at various sports books and watching NCAA tournament games that are available online. television in my living room.
If inflated hotel prices and $250 tickets for reserved seating are any indication, hundreds of thousands of other sports fans are doing the same.
Betting is probably the draw for many of them, but these days you don’t have to fly to Las Vegas to place a sports bet. Alcohol consumption may be another, but it is also available for much less than a plane ticket.
The appeal of Las Vegas for March Madness is much like the millions of people filling out brackets and cheering on schools and players they had never heard of two hours earlier. It’s because the NCAA Tournament is one of our country’s increasingly rare communal experiences.
New sound!
Special guest @rodger replaces Bruce. We mainly talked about football, but the man is also a savant at picking upsets in the NCAA tournaments.
—Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) March 20, 2024
In this time of polarization, when even the most innocuous topic can become a source of outrage, there is still something that people from all parts of the country enjoy equally: supporting the underdog. There are no two ways for No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson to beat No. 1 seed Purdue (unless you’re a Purdue fan). There is no political agenda behind San Pedro’s upset of Kentucky.
It’s nothing but pure joy to spend two hours watching a team of complete strangers who play most of their games in front of 800 people take on a group of future pros from a power conference and emerge victorious. Or when, with a team’s season on the line, 19-year-old sophomores make a three-point shot to engrave themselves in “One Shining Moment” history for the rest of their lives.
No other sporting event manages to offer so many indelible moments year after year. Sure, there are “surprises” in professional sports. But for the New York Giants to beat the New England Patriots in a Super Bowl is ultimately about one team full of billionaires beating another. It’s not exactly like Oral Roberts beat Ohio State.
College football has had its share of Cinderella moments, like Appalachian State knocking off Michigan or Boise State knocking off Oklahoma. But when it comes to the biggest games at the end of the season, it’s almost always Alabama, Georgia or Michigan beating another Alabama, Georgia or Michigan.
The NBA has LeBron, Giannis and Jokić. But he doesn’t have Sister Jean.
But, above all, in all these sports there are no teams that support the entire country. People don’t suddenly transform into Philadelphia Eagles fans once the NFL playoffs begin. But if you’ve ever been in an arena where the No. 13 seed is still hanging around in the second half, then you know well the buzz of 20,000 people suddenly becoming rabid Furman fans for the rest of the game.
The only thing you can compare it to are events like the World Cup or the Olympics, when an American team or athlete competes. But even the women’s national soccer team has become politicized, with the men mostly causing collective angst for being so mediocre. And you probably don’t even remember the names of most of the gold medalists from the last Olympic Games.
while every college basketball fan forever remembers players like Bryce Drew, Tyus Edney and Kris Jenkins.
Which brings me back to Las Vegas. It doesn’t have to be Las Vegas, though. It could be your local Buffalo Wild Wings. Or your neighborhood dive bar. Or a sports bar close enough to escape to during your lunch hour.
March Madness is the sporting event best enjoyed in the company of others. Ride the roller coaster of scoring droughts and momentum swings in a room full of other captivated spectators as your Final Four team tries to survive a first-round scare. High-five random people around you if Vermonts hits a 3-pointer to go up Duke by nine points.
Or running around the room screaming and hugging strangers if some Long Beach State kid throws one at the buzzer to beat Arizona.
Enjoy the flight, wherever it takes you.
Get ready for March Madness:
(Photo: Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
