March Madness

By Gage Snyder

---

    March Madness is one of the most exciting sporting events of the year. One of the reasons that March Madness is so popular is because of all the chaos that happens with it. For example, the low-sided teams beating the higher-sided teams make them a Cinderella team. There is almost always a Cinderella team that makes it further than anyone expected. Another way that makes March Madness so special is the brackets that people make. In 2025, there were more than 40 million brackets. Out of all those brackets, only 286,354 correctly picked all four teams for the 2025 Final Four. Also, out of every year, brackets were made; there has never been a perfect bracket. The odds of doing a perfect bracket are 1 in 9.2 quintillion.

The First March Madness tournament was in 1939, and there were only 8 teams in the tournament. The first team to win the tournament was Nebraska. Since then, there have been 37 different schools to win the tournament. March Madness got its name from Henry V. Porter, who was an official with the Illinois High School Association after he said, "a little March madness may complement and contribute to sanity". But in the 1939 tournament, there were only 8 teams that would compete. Then, in 1951, the NCAA doubled again to 32 teams. Now there are 68 teams that are put into the bracket to compete in the tournament. In 2025, there were 10.2 million viewers watching the entire tournament.