The Greatest Sporting Event in the World

There is something magical and mesmorizing about the NCAA basketball tournament. The first two days of the tournament games run all day and night, which creates a massive distraction for offices and businesses around the country (one reason I think Thurs & Fri of tournament week should be national holidays).

It is said that lost production in the workplace will amount to >2 billion during March Madness! Even the president of the United States watches the tournament, and although he may be incompetent when it comes to economics, health care, and foreign policy one of his many redeeming qualities has to be his interest in basketball (do you think he used a teleprompter to fill out his bracket?)

The tournament has something for everyone whether you're a die-hard basketball junkie or a casual fan. There are David vs. Goliath match ups, Cinderella stories, bracket-busters, and buzzer-beaters. Sixty-four teams in a single elimination, do-or-die showdown.

Fans become enthralled with the possibility that their little school could overcome the odds and advance to the higher rounds (those of us who are BYU fans know deep down inside that for us this will never happen, but we like to dream). We fill out brackets in office pools and online, at church, and at home; it's the ultimate form of male bonding. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about other sports.

The NBA playoffs are so long, I don't even care who wins by the end...dido on MLB. The world cup of soccer doesn't even make sense to me. During the last world cup The US didn't score a goal in the opening round and still advanced!?! The World Baseball Classic is equally confusing: if you lose to Puerto Rico 11-0 in pool A but beat the same team 6-5 two days later, then you advance to pool B and can play your way into the semifinals after getting hammered by Venezuela 10-6? The most egregious perpetrator of playoff ineptitude has to be NCAA football.

The best way to explain this whole debacle is that a group of very talented, capable people must have joined together focusing all their energy and enthusiasm on creating the most insane, frustrating, confusing, and down right infuriating system by which a division 1 college football champion is decided. And this is what they came up with: two teams will be selected by a computer program to play for a national title and the other +100 teams eligible for the postseason will be randomly assigned to play each other in meaningless bowl games that have absolutely no bearing on the championship. Congratulations you did it!