Every March, two giant college basketball tournaments called March Madness begin.
Have you heard of March Madness? It’s the nickname given to two giant basketball tournaments. They crown the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Champions for the year. The tournament started in 1939 as an 8-team invitational tournament played in Evanston, Illinois. Nobody called it “March Madness” then. In the 1980s, a TV announcer started to use March Madness when describing the NCAA Basketball Tournament. And it stuck.
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The NCAA Women’s March Madness tournament has become extremely popular in recent years.
For a long time, March Madness was only for men’s basketball teams. In 1972, Congress passed a law called Title IX to give women the same opportunities in school sports that men had. Women’s sports programs began to grow in schools around the country. By 1982, the NCAA started a March Madness tournament for women’s teams. It started with 32 teams. Now there are as many teams in the women’s tournament as in the men’s tournament. The women’s tournament has become more popular too. In 2024, around 24 million people watched the women’s March Madness championship game. It drew more viewers than the men’s game. Other than the Olympics and football, it was the most-watched sporting event of the past 5 years.
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Fans like to follow along with March Madness using tournament brackets. There are upsets every year which adds to the excitement.
Today, March Madness has 68 teams for both the men’s and women’s tournaments. This year, selection Sunday is on March 15, 2026. This is when teams find out who they will play in the tournament and what their seed, or ranking, is. March Madness is a single elimination tournament. This means that a team must win to stay in the tournament. If a team loses, it is out. Keep in mind, the athletes participating in these games are still in college. While all of this is going on, they still go to classes, study for exams, and do homework.
What Do You Think? What do you think the benefits are of a school having a sports team? What do you think the challenges might be?
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