How March Madness bracketology became a national obsession

The history of March Madness brackets

Every spring, millions of Americans fill out their March Madness brackets in hopes of picking the winner. But where did this annual tradition start? This CBS News article tells the story of how a bar in Staten Island started a $10 pool with 88 participants in 1977, and grew it into a $1.5 million contest that ended up getting shut down by the IRS.

How March Madness Selection Sunday works

March Madness is one of the most popular American sporting events, but most viewers aren't aware of how its 68 teams are selected for the prestigious national tournament. This official process overview breaks down how the teams are selected, seeded, and placed into the bracket. Knowing the ins and outs might not stop you from disputing the committee's selections, but at least you'll understand how they came to those decisions.

The odds of a perfect March Madness bracket are worse than finding one specific grain of sand on Earth

With 63 games to predict, random guessing produces odds of 1 in 9.2 quintillion. Even an informed picker who gets 67% of games right faces odds of about 1 in 120 billion, meaning if every American filled out a unique bracket, we'd expect a perfect one in roughly 366 years.

A hoops expert on the likely March Madness expansion

Rumors about March Madness expanding to a field of 76 teams have led to consternation among some college basketball fans, who believe overcrowding the tournament will dilute what makes it great. HoopsHQ's Seth Davis argues it's a good idea, comparing the change to college football's recent (and highly successful) playoff system.

The surprisingly poetic origins of the phrase 'March Madness'

When legendary sportscaster Brent Musberger called the 1982 NCAA basketball tournament "March Madness," the term stuck and helped popularize the annual event. But he wasn't the first to use the phrase. This Time magazine article explores the contributions of Henry V. Porter, who originally used "March madness" in a 1939 article about the Illinois State basketball tournament, and later in a 1942 poem called "Basketball Ides of March."

The hidden effects of March Madness

March Madness isn’t just a major sporting event—it’s also peak season for vasectomies. Urologists report a 50% increase during the tournament, as patients use recovery time as an excuse to watch nonstop basketball. Meanwhile, workplace distractions from bracket pools and game streaming are estimated to cost US businesses $17 billion.

20 years of NCAA buzzers

The last few beats of the March Madness title game are among the most thrilling in sports. This video compilation collects the final five seconds of every women's championship from the first year of the tournament through 2022. The result is a fascinating document of celebrations, disappointments, and last-ditch efforts. It's also objective proof that basketball's style has evolved considerably over the decades.

See some of the greatest individual performances in March Madness history that ended with a championship

Bleacher Report ranks the greatest individual tournament runs in history, from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 1968 dominance to Carmelo Anthony's 2003 freshman heroics, counting only performances that ended in a national championship.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

The 1968 'Game of the Century' turned college sports into prime-time TV

The 1968 NCAA men's championship was the first game broadcast live in prime time. It met the moment, offering a legendary rematch between UCLA (led by a young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Houston (led by standout center Elvin Hayes). This retrospective breaks down what made the game such a successful spectacle and how it transformed the market for all college athletics.

Guess US city populations via bracket-style game

The US Census Bureau's data visualization team created a game—laid out like a March Madness basketball bracket—where you try to decide which metro area of two has the greater population. Test your knowledge of relative city populations and see...

The forgotten Larry Bird punch that almost changed everything

Larry Bird biographer Keith O'Brien argues March Madness as we know it today began in 1979, with an electric, raucous game that's largely been forgotten. Thankfully, he's dredged up the details (and the footage) to help us relive it.

UMBC became the first 16-seed to ever beat a 1-seed, pulling off the biggest upset in March Madness history

In 2018, UMBC defeated the overall No. 1 seed Virginia 74-54, ending a 0-135 record for 16-seeds against 1-seeds and turning what was expected to be a blowout into one of the most unlikely results in sports history.

Hear why one author thinks college rankings may be irrelevant

For more than three decades, US News & World Report has released an annual ranking of the country's best colleges. An extremely influential list that can determine application volume, funding decisions, and more, the rankings have been compiled by a secret algorithm indecipherable to many on the opposite side of the table. Author Malcolm Gladwell attempts to unpack the calculation, ultimately raising the question: How relevant is the list?

Understanding college basketball's guru, UCLA's John Wooden

John Wooden coached UCLA to an unprecedented 10 NCAA titles, including seven straight from 1967 to 1973. He studied the characteristics that made people successful and, in 1948, created his iconic triangular diagram with 25 common behaviors. This article unpacks the 25-block framework that makes the "Pyramid of Success" and shows how Wooden's off-court wisdom shaped future champs like Bill Walton and Steve Kerr.

How math whizzes exploit sportsbooks

Chris Dirkus is a professional sports bettor who approaches the hobby as a math problem, not from a fan's perspective. He focuses on mispriced odds in popular games where many fans are betting for high liquidity. He's one of a rare segment of sports bettors exploiting slow models and human mistakes.

What it means to call a bracket 'chalk'

If the tournament is rather boring, you might hear a curious word getting thrown around: "chalk." In short, it means that the favorites have been winning. The word's origins go back to horse racing and its sportsbooks, where bookies would post odds on chalkboards. Over time, the bookies came to be known as "chalk" and, years later, tournaments (and their brackets) that seemed to favor those bookies earned the name, too.

A Netflix docuseries turned the sport into a national obsession

Throughout much of its history, Formula 1 racing was a European sport that failed to ever find a major audience in the US. That changed with the “Drive to Survive,” the Netflix docuseries that premiered in 2019. This analysis from two communications professors unpacks how the series has successfully presented the sport for an American audience and cultivated a dedicated fanbase in the process.

How a lawn gnome became the hottest item at the Masters

The kitschy piece of memorabilia debuted in 2016 and has since become a highly sought-after collectible for Master attendees. This ESPN deep dive explores how it happened and what makes the strange little item so attractive for golf fans.

Claims about 'Twenty-One' weren't taken seriously until other quiz shows were exposed

Contestant Herb Stempel alleged that “Twenty-One” was fixed after his loss to Charles Van Doren, saying that everything on the show was “carefully choreographed,” though his claims were dismissed as mere bitterness. In truth, Stempel had been promised a network job if he went along with the con and became outspoken when it didn’t materialize. Van Doren, meanwhile, became a celebrity, donning the cover of Time magazine.

Visualizing how changes to lineups would impact historical baseball games

This visual essay maps how data-informed lineup construction has revolutionized baseball. Amid the embrace of analytics, the game's best overall hitters were moved from the third spot to second, power bats were shifted out of the "cleanup" role, and speedsters—typically the leadoff batters—were pushed to the bottom half of the nine-player lineup. Joe Carter, the hero of the '93 World Series, likely never hits his iconic walk-off from the cleanup spot in a modern lineup.

The marathon is only getting more popular

The marathon has become a part of popular culture, with races in nearly every major city. The largest is the New York City Marathon, which started in 1970. Over 55,000 runners participated in the 2024 race. Its popularity doesn’t appear to be slowing, with younger generations increasingly lacing up their shoes for the race of a lifetime.

An estimated 49 million people played fantasy football in 2022

The number, estimated by the Fantasy Sports and Gaming Association, has grown exponentially since the start of the century. While fantasy sports in general are popular, football is the most popular, with an estimated 79% of fantasy participants playing fantasy football.

Where you fall on the sports misery index

Only one team can win it all each season, which means the majority of fans are disappointed. This bot mines the data on how your teams have performed in recent years and measures your misery index (the higher, the more miserable).

Why the Myers-Briggs test is pure entertainment

The world's most popular personality test isn't used by academic psychologists—but hundreds of companies and thousands of colleges use it to place workers and students. Here's why it's so popular and likely overused.

How George Gallup changed political polling forever

Straw polls had been used in the 19th century, but it wasn't until George Gallup's use of random sampling in 1936 that the art became a science.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Roughly 43 million US borrowers owe roughly $1.7T in student debt, the second-largest source of consumer debt behind mortgages.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

How the most famous Ebola book, The Hot Zone, which sold 3.5 million copies and was translated into 30 languages, got aspects of the disease so wrong.

The distributor behind 'Rocky Horror' pulled the film from its scheduled national release, believing it would be a failure, though it eventually amassed a dedicated fanbase through midnight showings, a trend that continues over 50 years later.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

About 12.5% of US adults experience a phobia in their lifetime, a diagnosis that hinges on the intense fear interfering with daily life and persisting for at least six months.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

Coral polyps reproduce via broadcast spawning, where entire reefs simultaneously release reproductive cells for about one hour, once a year.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.