March 26, 2012 by mikepatino00

The Economics of March Madness

As the NCAA basketball tournament gets under way this week, it is not only the teams and players from the 68 schools in the brackets who are trying to win big. Millions of viewers at home are hoping to cash in, or at least have bragging rights for the year, by winning the office pool.

Then there are the 14 host cities for March Madness, which to varying degrees are anticipating economic boosts and a little national exposure by having their names painted in big block letters on the baselines of the courts during the televised games.

Dayton, Ohio, which hosts the first-round games on Tuesday, was so excited about having the opening games that it held a festival on Sunday featuring a parade, a four-mile race, and an Air Force flyover.

“We want to show the country that Dayton means basketball,” said Tim Wabler, vice president and director of athletics at the University of Dayton, in a press release.

Dayton got an additional publicity boost when it was announced last week that President Obama would attend one of the games on Tuesday, along with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Host cities for NCAA tournament games expect to generate millions of dollars for local businesses and tax coffers from the events, according to Rick Horrow, chairman of Horrow Sports Ventures, a consulting firm for development of sports facilities.

“The communities that have a regional tournament can look forward to anywhere from $40 [million] to $80 million of economic impact during tournament week,” said Horrow, who was in El Paso, Texas, last week to explore the possibility of building a multipurpose facility that could attract events like March Madness to the city.

“The NCAA regionals allow the community to tell their positive story to the world…. It’s a catalyst for national recognition, business development, and the economic growth that follows as a consequence,” Horrow said.

Not everyone agrees that hosting games is a guaranteed gold mine. For New Orleans, the host of this year’s Final Four games, it’s just another big event.

“I see the net [financial] impact as fairly small,” said Allen Sanderson, a sports economist at the University of Chicago. “A lot of the activity is just substitution of one thing for another. The tournament may affect where people drink beer, but not how much beer they drink.”

According to Sanderson, the fact that the activities and events surrounding March Madness are concentrated in one area makes it “easier to quantify, but also easier to be misled,” since economic activity in other parts of the city may decrease during this time.

“I suspect that there is less economic activity in restaurants, malls, and movie theaters” during this time, Sanderson said.

Also, many cities—including El Paso and previously Oklahoma City—that have entertained the idea of building brand-new facilities to host these events quickly realized that the costs of new infrastructure must be taken into consideration.

The process of turning a multipurpose facility into a larger infrastructure expansion is much more complicated than, “If you build it, they will come,” many economists warn.

“I’m from a city [Oklahoma City] that spent $120 million to get an NBA team and the state kicked in another $60 million in taxes. If you’re lucky, the city doesn’t lose money on it,” said Jonathan Willner, an economist at Oklahoma City University.

The path to profitability centers on attracting new visitors without disturbing residents or regular visitors.

“When a lot of people see that March Madness is going to be in town, they don’t come,” because they don’t want to deal with the crowds, Willner said.

“What you want is an increase in visitors that is so significantly large that it will generate tax revenues [mostly from hotel and sales taxes] to cover those expenses,” he said. “You want to have a bunch of people to come in that wouldn’t normally come in, and spend a lot of money in the city that wouldn’t normally get spent.”

Another economic balancing act takes place during the tournament in workplaces across the country, albeit on a smaller scale: Many employees for the next three weeks will be torn between devotion to their favorite teams and their jobs.

“As an employer, trying to stop people from paying attention to March Madness—not having office pools, limiting Internet access, yelling at people for being on ESPN—is kind of silly because people are gonna do it,” said Eric Darr, provost and executive vice president of the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology. “It [March Madness] is a tradition…. I’ve been on the beach, on vacation, during March Madness and everyone is around the TV. We are fanatical about it.”

Darr recommends capitalizing on the passion surrounding the tournament to build office morale since attempting to stop people from watching it is a futile exercise.

“If you are in an office environment and you can take 30 minutes, I’d say condone it,” Darr said. “And do it in a limited way. Don’t take the whole day off.”

“Maybe for 30 minutes out of that particular day it gets in the way of productivity, but the long-term benefits of next week, the week after that, of now having better morale in the office, better camaraderie, better working relationships—all of that pays huge dividends with regards to productivity,” Darr said.

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March 26, 2012 by mikepatino00

Obama, Cameron Take in ‘March Madness’ Basketball Game

President Obama, America’s basketball-fan-in-chief, brought British Prime Minister David Cameron to Dayton, Ohio, this evening to take in one of America’s favorite sporting events: the NCAA basketball tournament.

Obama and Cameron, dressed casually in slacks and jeans, respectively, watched courtside as Western Kentucky defeated Mississippi Valley State in the opener of the men’s tournament at the University of Dayton.

The president chatted with fans in the not-quite-full arena between plays and, from afar, it looked like the president was explaining aspects of the game to the prime minister as they sat huddled next to each other, according to pool reports.

Obama and Cameron also enjoyed another great American tradition: hot dogs.

The quick trip to the swing state was intended to showcase the “close” relationship between the two nations, according to the White House.

“What makes our relationship special – a unique and essential asset – is that we join hands across so many endeavors. Put simply, we count on each other and the world counts on our alliance,” the president and prime minister wrote in a joint op-ed in the Washington Post today.

The outing, part of Cameron’s official visit to the United States, also gave the president another opportunity to visit the key battleground state.

While Obama carried the Buckeye State in 2008, recent polls show him in a tight race for Ohio with GOP front-runner Mitt Romney.

March Madness: Syracuse’s Melo out and other fast NCAA tournament facts

What began in 1939 with the University of Oregon’s “Tall Firs” winning the first men’s NCAA basketball championship before 5,500 spectators has grown into March Madness. The three-week tournament begins with a few undercard games Tuesday night (one attended by President Obama), but things start in earnest Thursday and Friday with 64 teams in the main draw getting into action in eight cities. Utlimately the road leads to New Orleans, the site of this season’s Final Four on March 31 and April 2. Here’s a collection of random facts to help you enjoy the tournament:

1. Top-seeded teams: Syracuse 31-2; Kentucky 32-2; Michigan State 27-7; and North Carolina, 29-5.

2. Syracuse had its best regular season ever, but the team could be in trouble after it was announced Tuesday that center Fab Melo will not play in the NCAA tournament due to what the school called an “eligibility issue,” the New York Times reported.

3. In an oddity, three of the four top seeds – Kentucky, Syracuse, and North Carolina – enter the tournament after being upset in their conference tournaments.

4. Connecticut, the defending national champion, enters the tournament with a 20-13 record. The Huskies will have to sit out next year’s “Big Dance” because of their poor academic performance.

5. Butler University in Indianapolis, the Cinderella that managed to reach the championship game the last two seasons, did not make the tournament this year. But Virginia Commonwealth, a big surprise in 2011, did.

6. Pat Knight, the son of Bob Knight, has coached Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, to its first NCAA berth since 2000. A few weeks ago he called his seniors “the worst group” he’d ever been associated with.

7. UCLA, which has the most NCAA titles, with 11, not only failed to reach the tournament, but its basketball program is rife with discipline problems, according to Sports Illustrated.

8. The University of Kansas is making its 23rd consecutive tournament appearance, an NCAA record. Duke’s 17-year run is second best.

9. Sportscaster Brent Musburger is credited with popularizing the use of “March Madness” in referring to the tournament in the 1980s.

10. This year the tournament concludes in New Orleans at the Superdome, where four previous championship games have been decided by an average of 2.7 points.

11. Baylor could produce the best overall postseason showing of any school. The men are 27-7 and the Lady Bears 34-0.

12. The highest scoring player in this year’s tournament is Creighton’s Doug McDermott (23.1 points per game), who leads the nation’s most accurate shooting team (50.9 percent).

13. The stingiest defensive team in the nation: Wisconsin, which gives up only 51.8 points a game.

14. Florida State enters the tournament with a very impressive double: a pair of wins this season over perennial Atlantic Coast Conference powers North Carolina and Duke.

15. Cinderella candidates: Wichita State, South Dakota State, Long Island, Montana, St. Mary’s, Mississippi Valley State, et al.

16. North Carolina leads the nation with five teams in the field: North Carolina, Duke, UNC-Asheville, NC State, and Davidson.

17. The schools in this year’s tournament that that do the best job of graduating their players are Belmont, Creighton, Duke, Harvard, Western Kentucky, Davidson, Notre Dame, and Brigham Young.

18. Indiana University, which finished last in the Big Ten Conference four years ago, has returned from the dead with a 25-8 record.

19. The minimum seating capacity to host the Final Four is 70,000. In 2013, Atlanta’s Georgia Dome hosts the finals, with Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, to follow in 2014.

20. Harvard is making its first appearance in the tournament since 1946 and is doing so without Harvard grad and current NBA phenom Jeremy Lin.

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March 25, 2012 by mikepatino00

Obama, Cameron catch “March Madness” basketball game

DAYTON, Ohio (Reuters) – President Barack Obama, America’s basketball fan-in-chief, treated British Prime Minister David Cameron to courtside seats for “March Madness” on Tuesday, taking him to an NCAA tournament game in the presidential election swing state of Ohio.

The quick trip to Dayton to show off one of the country’s most popular sporting events was intended to help underscore what has long been touted as a “special relationship” between transatlantic allies, the White House said.

Obama, an avid basketball fan, whisked Cameron out of Washington to attend the National Collegiate Athletic Association game between Western Kentucky and Mississippi Valley State at the University of Dayton sports arena.

Obama chatted with fans and leaned toward Cameron at times, explaining aspects of the game. In a bit of Americana midway through the first half, the two munched hot dogs and Cameron sipped a Coke. Western Kentucky won the game 59-58.

In a halftime interview with truTV, Obama noted both teams were shooting poorly. “It may be nerves,” he said. “These are not teams that normally end up coming to the tournament.”

Cameron said it was his first basketball game and the pace was “fast and furious.” He said Obama helped him follow the action, while Obama said Cameron was going to return the favor by teaching him cricket.

“Because I don’t understand what’s going on with that cricket thing,” Obama said.

Obama’s law school alma mater, Harvard, made the NCAA tournament from the Ivy League. But he predicted Ohio State would be one of the tournament “Final Four” semifinalists.

Obama and Cameron will hold formal talks at the White House on Wednesday and the British prime minister will be honored at a state dinner on Wednesday evening.

The Ohio visit also carried a touch of domestic politics. Ohio is a battleground state in the November 6 election, crucial to Obama’s hopes of securing a second term in the White House.

The Democratic president won Ohio in 2008 but polls show he faces a tough fight keeping it in his column if matched up against Republican front-runner Mitt Romney.

At the same time, Obama had a chance to strengthen his personal bond with Cameron. When Obama visited Britain last May, the two leaders took on a pair of teen-age boys in table tennis.

Obama regularly plays pickup basketball and attends his daughters’ games. He has also made it a tradition, like millions of Americans, to predict winners of the match-ups between college teams in the “March Madness” championship tournament. The White House will soon publicize his bracket picks.

But Cameron’s visit will be about more than just fun and games. The leaders will discuss the war in Afghanistan, the Iran nuclear standoff, violence in Syria and the global economy.

(Reporting By Matt Spetalnick; editing by Todd Eastham)

March 25, 2012 by mikepatino00

Top basketball teams could face March Madness ban

(Reuters) – As college basketball’s March Madness rolls on, the NCAA is on the verge of banning a perennial contender from next year’s championship tournament because of poor performance – not on the court, but in the classroom.

The University of Connecticut men’s basketball team – last year’s national champions – has announced that it cannot meet the new, higher standards for academic performance that the National Collegiate Athletic Association enacted last fall.

A dozen other teams – including Syracuse, this year’s top seed, Ohio University and Florida State – are at risk of failing to meet the standard, according to a study released this month by the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports.

The new rules have substantially strengthened long-standing NCAA requirements on academic performance. Schools must now ensure that at least half their players are passing courses and moving steadily toward graduation. Teams lose points for each player who drops out, flunks out or transfers after falling behind academically.

Perhaps most importantly, the new rules make suspension from the tournament automatic for schools that fail to meet the bar. The NCAA had previously punished lagging teams mainly with mild sanctions such as cutting the number of scholarships a school could offer. A handful of teams with especially dismal academic records were barred from post-season play in past years, but most had no chance of making the tournament anyway.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he fully expects the NCAA to abide by its new rules, even if that means some top teams sit out in 2013.

“If they don’t improve, you simply won’t see them in the tournament,” Duncan said.

But banning true contenders could change the nature of March Madness, the 68-team college championship tournament that has evolved into one of the nation’s premier sporting events and generates some $800 million in revenue annually for the NCAA.

ACADEMIC RATINGS

The biggest immediate impact could be the absence of UConn, which lost in the first round this year but has been a perennial national title contender for the past two decades.

For many fans, a tournament without the Huskies is inconceivable. “March Madness is the best time of year,” said Kevin Meacham, a UConn alumnus who blogs about the team. “To see that UConn might not be a part of it is very depressing.”

The school is pushing hard for leniency, but its initial application for a waiver of the rules was denied. The most recent data available, for players entering UConn in 2004, shows that just 25 percent graduated within six years.

The team’s four-year average Academic Performance Rating, which is based on how many players stay in school and pass their courses, stood at 893 out of 1,000 for the academic year 2009-10. That is far below the NCAA’s new standard of 930. The only team in this year’s tournament with a lower rating was Mississippi Valley State University.

In its bid to have the rules waived for next year, UConn acknowledges “unacceptable” academic performance by the men’s basketball team but insists it has turned the corner. University officials now track each player’s academic progress closely; a typical memo notes that one player missed his Monday communication class but “everyone else was perfect.”

Players are now required to take summer courses to rack up credits in the off-season. They must attend study hall 10 hours a week. Head Coach Jim Calhoun’s contract has even been rewritten so he forfeits pay if his players fail to make the grade.

Mike Enright, an associate athletic director, said the team improved last year and is on track to achieve a near-perfect academic rating this year. However, the NCAA calculates tournament eligibility based on an average of recent years, so it is mathematically impossible for UConn to make the cut. Some other teams on the bubble, including Syracuse, say they are confident they will make the grade for next year.

UConn officials say it is unfair to punish current players for the academic failures of past teams. That argument did not fly with the NCAA initially, but UConn hopes it will reconsider at a meeting next month.

“The waiver process continues,” Enright said.

STRONG RESOLVE

The University of North Carolina at Wilmington, which has made the tournament four times since 2000, is also requesting a waiver.

The NCAA would not comment on any waiver application.

The March Madness tournament accounts for the bulk of the NCAA’s annual revenue; unlike in football, where TV money flows directly to conferences and schools, the basketball tournament is run by the NCAA itself. The association keeps about 40 percent of the revenue and sends the balance back to colleges and regional athletic conferences. The schools that consistently perform best in the tournament receive the richest payouts.

The tournament is also very important for the powerhouse teams. Tournament wins bring in top recruits, give a college national visibility – and rally school spirit. “Basketball really brings a lot of people together,” said Amanda Cole, a junior at Syracuse, where the campus bookstore displayed rack after rack of tournament T-shirts and orange team jerseys.

Mike Bobinski, who will chair the NCAA’s Division I Men’s Basketball Committee next year, said the leadership had “a very strong resolve” to stick to the rules, despite the costs of banning top teams.

“If you send the message that (academics) are not optional, that this is what you’re here for, students will live up to it,” said Bobinski, the athletic director at Xavier University in Cincinnati.

Schools that succeed both on the court and in the classroom say it takes effort and investment. Athletes at Western Kentucky University have a 10,000-square-foot study center, as big as the weight room. An academic adviser travels with the Xavier team; this week, he was nagging freshman guard Dee Davis to finish a writing assignment on ecology. Ohio University, eager to raise its academic rating and avoid sanctions, recently began pairing players with retired faculty who act as “academic encouragers.”

Even critics of the NCAA say the new rules seem effective in prodding more teams to take academics seriously. But some say the NCAA should go further.

Less than 5 percent of tournament revenue goes to support athletes in the classroom with services like tutoring. (Another 8 percent helps them pay for necessities such as books.)

The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics has urged the NCAA to award a large chunk of tournament revenue to schools that do a great job graduating athletes – even if their teams never make it to the Final Four.

A 50 percent team graduation rate should be a “minimal expectation,” not a gold standard, said Amy Perko, the executive director. “It’s all about emphasizing the ‘college’ in college sports,” she said.

(Reporting By Stephanie Simon in Denver, additional reporting by Nick Toney and Debbie Truong in Syracuse, New York; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Matthew Lewis)

March 24, 2012 by mikepatino00

Top basketball teams could face March Madness ban

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he fully expects the NCAA to abide by its new rules, even if that means some top teams sit out in 2013.

“If they don’t improve, you simply won’t see them in the tournament,” Duncan said.

ACADEMIC RATINGS

The biggest immediate impact could be the absence of UConn, which lost in the first round this year but has been a perennial national title contender for the past two decades.

“The waiver process continues,” Enright said.

STRONG RESOLVE

The University of North Carolina at Wilmington, which has made the tournament four times since 2000, is also requesting a waiver.

The NCAA would not comment on any waiver application.

Even critics of the NCAA say the new rules seem effective in prodding more teams to take academics seriously. But some say the NCAA should go further.

Less than 5 percent of tournament revenue goes to support athletes in the classroom with services like tutoring. (Another 8 percent helps them pay for necessities such as books.)

(Reporting By Stephanie Simon in Denver, additional reporting by Nick Toney and Debbie Truong in Syracuse, New York; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Matthew Lewis)

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March 24, 2012 by mikepatino00

Obama Picks North Carolina in NCAA March Madness Bracket

President Obama, sports-enthusiast-in-chief, made his bracket picks for the NCAA basketball tournament, choosing the North Carolina Tar Heels to go all the way.

The president appeared on ESPN’s SportsCenter to discuss his picks in a feature that has come to be known as “Barack-etology.” He predicts that North Carolina will beat Kentucky in the championship game, seeking some revenge for a loss to the Wildcats in December. Coincidentally, North Carolina is a swing state in the 2012 election, but no word on politics.

“They are an older team, a more experienced team,” Obama said. “And since they won it for me the last time I picked them, hopefully I’ll be able to get a little redemption for the last two years.”

Obama doesn’t have the best track record with his NCAA picks, choosing the eventually doomed Kansas Jayhawks to win the past two years. But in this tournament, he said it’s important to look at momentum when picking teams. “Whoever is looking hotter at the end of the year, those are the teams that I’m more inclined to pick,” he said.

Not surprisingly, our nation’s point guard likes point guards. He explains, “The ability to control the game, limit turnovers, I think that ends up making a difference. Other than that, it’s just throwing darts.”

Notably, the president did not pick his alma mater, Harvard, to get out of the first round. Education Secretary Arne Duncan once played for Harvard’s basketball team. “I will be rooting for Harvard,” Obama said, “but it’s just too much of a stretch.”

And it seems that the economy isn’t the only thing that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney treats differently than the president. The former Massachusetts governor will not fill out a bracket for the NCAA basketball tournament. Romney is not known for his love of sports, and he has gotten heat for saying he knows NFL and NASCAR team owners.

“I’m not betting on this one,” he said on Fox News on Thursday. “I’m sitting this one out.”

The first round of the NCAA Tournament starts on Thursday, going until the National Championship game on April 2 in New Orleans.

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March 24, 2012 by mikepatino00

March Madness 101: An introduction to the NCAA basketball tournament

The month of March, beside its reputation as the gateway to spring, is also known for madness – “March” madness, that is. Beginning next Thursday, sixty-four men’s college basketball teams from the NCAA’s Division 1 will compete in this annual ritual that will have both devoted and novice college basketball fans scurrying to fill in their “brackets” to try and determine the winner of college basketball’s national title when the championship game is played in New Orleans on April 2. CBS will broadcast the tournament live throughout – both over the air and on CBSSports.com.

The bracket of teams is set with Sunday night’s selection show, and that promises to be infused with considerable emotion: from the height of elation for those borderline or “bubble” teams making the field, to the depths of disappointment of those having been “snubbed” or otherwise overlooked in the selection process. That process is handled by the NCAA Div. 1 men’s basketball committee, made up of university athletic directors and conference commissioners. These so-called “at large” bids, thirty-seven in all, are based primarily on a team’s Ratings Percentage Index; in other words, the strength of its schedule and overall performance against that schedule.

Websites like Rivals.com compute these statistics, which are integral to compiling the teams’ overall rankings. Typically, the lower a team’s RPI, the stronger its chances of receiving an at-large bid. Though RPI has been the generally accepted means of selecting teams for three decades, it is not infallible. Controversies can erupt when partisans of overlooked teams argue that their school’s statistics outweigh those of teams that were accepted. And with so much money and prestige at stake in making the tournament, the perceived subjectivity of the selection committee’s decisions can produce bitter and acrimonious debates.

However, RPI rankings are not the only means by which a team can enter the field. Thirty of the thirty-one remaining slots will be filled with conference champions. These come from both “major” conferences such as the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big East, Big Ten, etc., and “mid-major” conferences, or those that fall outside the traditional major or “power” conferences. Harvard University, in the tournament for the first time since 1946, is the only exception, as its conference, the Ivy League, does not have a championship tournament.

On the Tuesday and Wednesday immediately preceding the start of the round of 64, there will be a “First Four” playoff in Dayton, Ohio where eight teams (the lowest seeded at-large bids and the lowest seeded automatic bids) will play an elimination round. These games will be broadcast on truTV, beginning at 6:30 p.m. ET.

The four victorious teams then join the other sixty teams in the main tournament, which is divided into four geographic regions, East, West, Midwest and South – each consisting of sixteen seeded teams. The first seed always plays the sixteenth, the second the fifteenth, and so-on. Since the tournament went to sixty-four teams in 1984, a sixteen-seed has never beaten a first – though in 2001, fifteenth-seeded Hampton University defeated second-seed Iowa State. This is part of the appeal of the tournament – trying to correctly spot the “upsets” while simultaneously preserving your “Final Four” teams through to the championship round.

Additionally, it’s a great deal of fun to watch and check in on so many games in the first rounds – thirty-two games broadcast over the first Thursday and Friday that are frenetic, fast-paced and fraught with heartbreak and happiness. There are blowouts and “buzzer-beaters”, the drama of the occasional David-defeats-Goliath contest, tears of joy and sadness, the “pig piles” and court rushings – all concluding with one team’s jubilation in cutting down the nets following the championship game.

For nearly three weeks, this emotional roller coaster will keep college basketball fans riveted to the cathode-ray glow of our national campfire.

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March 24, 2012 by mikepatino00

20% of March Madness Traffic Comes From Smartphones, Tablets [STUDY]

In what it’s dubbing “March multi-screen madness,” comScore is reporting that more than 20% of online viewings of the NCAA basketball tourney have occurred via a smartphone or tablet thus far.

That figure is about double the share of views of non-sports content via non-PC devices, comScore reports. Although the first 32 games of the tournament likely prompted more tune-ins, the study found about the same percentage of views occurred on the three Thursdays and Fridays before the event started.

[More from Mashable: 2014 World Cup in Brazil Already Going Social and Mobile]

During the first day of the games on Thursday, March 15, total sports-related traffic jumped 79% compared to the average of the three previous Thursdays. Total traffic to all other web content fell 2%.

“The NCAA Tournament, like the Super Bowl or the Olympics, is one of those events where sports fans don’t want to miss a beat of the action – especially if they can’t be in front of a TV,” said Debbie Bradley, senior director of comScore, in a statement. “Over the past several years we’ve seen fans become more reliant on the web for NCAA tournament coverage, especially while they’re tied to their desks at work during the first round matchups. As media formats continue to evolve, we’re rapidly seeing America’s national college basketball obsession increasingly bleed over to other screens like smartphones and tablets.”

[More from Mashable: Timsanity! Tebow Joins Lin in NYC; Can Internet Handle it? [UPDATED]]

comScore’s figures came from its Device Essentials unit, which measures traffic via smarphones and tablets as well as PCs. Since the division was only introduced in June of 2011, there are no comparable figures from last year’s March Madness. comScore’s measurement is based on viewings via mobile browsers and doesn’t take into account views from apps.

Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, adamkaz

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Tag Archives: March

The Economics of March Madness

Obama, Cameron Take in ‘March Madness’ Basketball Game

March Madness: Syracuse’s Melo out and other fast NCAA tournament facts

Obama, Cameron catch “March Madness” basketball game

Top basketball teams could face March Madness ban

Top basketball teams could face March Madness ban

Obama Picks North Carolina in NCAA March Madness Bracket

March Madness 101: An introduction to the NCAA basketball tournament

20% of March Madness Traffic Comes From Smartphones, Tablets [STUDY]