You can find more from The Athlete’small coverage of the Men’s NCAA Tournament here and the Women’s NCAA Tournament here . Watch live coverage of the second round of the 2024 Men’s NCAA Tournament
On Wednesday, I boarded a flight from San Francisco to Las Vegas with the express purpose of watching college basketball.
Not to watch an actual basketball game, mind you. Those flights were headed to Omaha, Neb., and Charlotte, N.C. In my case, I spend several hundred dollars for the privilege of sitting (or standing) at various sports books and attending parties to watch NCAA tournament games that are readily available on the TV in my living room.
If inflated hotel prices and $250 reserved seat tickets are any indication, hundreds of thousands of other sports fans are doing the same.
The betting is probably the draw for many of them, but these days you don’t have to fly to Vegas to place a sports bet. Drinking alcohol might be another, but that too is readily available for much less than a plane ticket.
The allure of Vegas for March Madness is almost the same as the millions of people filling out brackets and cheering their heads off for schools and players they’d never heard of two hours earlier. It’s because the NCAA Tournament is one of our nation’s increasingly rare community experiences.
New Audible!
Special guest @Rodger complements Bruce. We’re mostly talking football, but the man is also adept at picking upsets in the NCAA Tournament.https://t.co/HzE5HbUqnf
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) March 20, 2024
In this polarizing age, when even the most innocuous issue can become a source of outrage, there’s still one thing people from all parts of the country equally enjoy: rooting for the underdog. There are no two sides to No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson beating No. 1 seed Purdue (unless you’re a Purdue fan). There is no political agenda behind St. Peter’s upset Kentucky.
It’s nothing but pure, utter 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 bunch of future pros from a power conference and come out victorious. Or when, with a team’s season under way, 19-year-old sophomores drain a buzzer-beater 3-pointer to go down in “One Shining Moment” history for the rest of their lives.
No other sporting event manages to deliver so many indelible moments year after year. Sure, there are “upheavals” in professional sports. But the New York Giants beating the New England Patriots in a Super Bowl is ultimately one team full of multi-millionaires beating another. Not exactly Oral Roberts beating Ohio State.
College football has had its share of Cinderella moments, like Appalachian State stunning Michigan or Boise State upsetting 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 Jokic. But he doesn’t have sister Jean.
But mainly, in all these sports, there are no teams that the whole country is left behind. People don’t suddenly morph 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 in the second half, then you know well the noise of 20,000 people suddenly turning into rabid Furman fans for the rest of the game.
The only thing it can be compared to are events like the World Cup or the Olympics, when a US team or athlete competes. But even the women’s national soccer team has become politicized, and the men mostly cause collective anxiety because they’re so average. And chances are you don’t even remember the names of most of the gold medalists from the last Olympics.
While every college basketball fan will forever remember Bryce Drew, Tyus Edney and Kris Jenkins.
This brings me back to Vegas. Although it doesn’t have to be Vegas. It could be your local Buffalo Wild Wings. Or your neighborhood dive bar. Or a sports bar close enough to sneak into on your lunch break.
March Madness is the one sporting event best enjoyed in the company of others. Riding the rollercoaster of scoring droughts and momentum swings in a room full of other rapt spectators as your Final Four pick tries to survive the horror of the first round. If Vermont sinks a 3-pointer to go up by nine on Duke.
Or running around the room screaming and hugging strangers if some kid from Long Beach State lays one up at the buzzer to take Arizona down.
Enjoy flying — wherever it takes you.
Get ready for March Madness:
(Photo: Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
