Better players. More intense competition. Story lines that have been developing for years. The NBA playoffs trounces March Madness and yet somehow the hype is no where near as close. I mean the first weekend of March Madness is considered “The Greatest Weekend In Sports”. So what gives?
The big selling point for March Madness is how many games there are at once. But is that actually a good thing? I mean in theory it sounds kind of sweet but instead of watching a bunch of games all at once you sort of end up watching no games all at once. You know what I mean? And it’s not like Redzone for football where you’re getting only the highlight reel scoring moments. It’s mostly bad to decent basketball with possibly two minutes of excitement at the end of the game.
Oh did I mention that most of the games are played during the regular work day. Now I know many people take off work for these days but is burning vacation days really a better scenario than coming home from work every night for weeks and getting to watch competitive basketball played at the highest level. March Madness can be fun. I’m just comparing the two from a holistic standpoint.
People also say that March Madness is accessible to everyone. Everyone can throw their hat in the ring and put their picks on a bracket. But I can’t see a rationale argument for it being more accessible than the NBA. There’s 64 teams to start and in the best case scenario you know a few players on a few teams. Unlike the NBA, where everyone is liable to know at least one if not multiple players on every team. Is the only argument that any one can join because no one really knows anything. Fun!
And lastly let’s get to the story lines piece of this. What is the story line in our “one and done” era? Just that we hate Duke every year? In the NBA there are dynasties, recurring rivalries, and teams that have been building for years to reach the upper echelon. Steph Curry’s incredible run in the big tourney was a super fun toy. But his run in the NBA has been the stuff for the history books. The ups and downs of building from scratch and then being hated as a superteam isn’t just a toy. It’s a full amusement park.
So it’s got to come down to marketing then. March Madness is a super catchy name. Damn even while typing it out I can feel the electricity coming off that alliteration. But it’s overselling the whole thing and dwarfing the NBA playoffs. So from now on, I say we don’t watch the NBA playoffs, we watch May Madness.
