By Jordan Guthrie
March Madness is one of the most intense and entertaining sporting events in America, in my opinion. If you are not too familiar with the NCAA Basketball Tournament, known as March Madness, here are some facts to know. It is a Division 1 college basketball tournament where 68 teams participate. It is single elimination where there are seven rounds and a Final Four which leads to the championship. The University of Virginia are the defending champions who won in 2019 over Texas Tech in overtime with the score being 85-77. Unfortunately, March Madness was canceled last year due to Covid-19.
Besides the playing part of the tournament, fans also tend to participate in the tournament at home, school, and workplace. The American Gaming Association says that every year 70 million predicted brackets on who is going to win March Madness are submitted. At least 40 million Americans participate and have more than one bracket. The AGA says that it costs $29 for brackets to be submitted and at least two billion dollars is wagered just on pools. You even can get rewards – for example, if you guess the whole bracket correctly you can get up to one million dollars or even more.
This year, March Madness so far has been a wild series of events. Also many heartbreaks for those people who submitted their brackets. Seems like this year there are already more upsets than any other tournament before and there will likely be more surprises to come.
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