March Madness Isn't Dead

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01-04-2025

MIKE ZARRILLI/UPI/Newscom
Good morning and welcome to another edition of Free Agent! No April Fools' jokes today, the Yankees' new bats are enough of a joke on their own. But if you can hit 84 mph on the odometer today, do it.
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I've got more March Madness for you today, including some NIT thoughts. I also want to talk about NFL kickoffs and, separately, tattoos?
But first, another update on the Reason Friends and Family Bracket Contest. There were 12 games in the men's basketball tournament since our last newsletter. Some guy named Jimmy Kline predicted all 12 correctly, launching himself to the top of the leaderboard. There were also 12 games on the women's side, which were all correctly predicted by me, your humble newsletter writer—but Jimmy Kline got 11 of those 12 right and is tied for the lead with two others. Each contest is coming down to the wire. Good luck!
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RIP March Madness?
I am reliably informed that March Madness is dead. The time of death was apparently Sunday, March 23, when people were grumpy about all the high-seeded chalk making it to the Sweet 16. The coroners have some thoughts about the cause of death.
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Was it name, image, and likeness (NIL) payments to players? Conn Carroll argues as much at the Washington Examiner, my former employer: "As soon as a mid-major finds and develops a good player, that player then immediately leaves for a bigger school." Or is a unanimous Supreme Court decision to blame? National Review contributor Christian Schneider says so, writing, "In the 2021 case NCAA v. Alston, the court unanimously determined that college sports did not enjoy antitrust exemptions allowing them to deny benefits to student-athletes in the name of 'amateurism.'" Soon after came NIL payments, an expanded transfer portal, and, next year, direct payments from schools to players.
Sky-high TV ratings beg to differ with the death certificate.
Roughly 9.4 million viewers per game in the first two rounds would argue March Madness is alive and well. That's the highest viewership for the men's tournament in three decades. (Viewership was down from those numbers on the first night of the Sweet 16, but still 3 percent higher than last year. We're still waiting on more TV data from the rest of the weekend's games.)
The women's side is usually chalky, and this year is no different with three No. 1 seeds in the Final Four. But TV ratings are still higher than usual—not as high as last year's Caitlin Clark–fueled popularity, but up 43 percent from 2023 (at least in the early rounds). Star power is a big help on the women's side, and there were arguably more stars in the women's bracket (JuJu Watkins, Hailey Van Lith, Paige Bueckers) than the men's (Cooper Flagg).
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One year of chalk need not be the end of March Madness. It certainly wasn't in 2008 when every No. 1 seed made the Final Four. Soon after we had Butler and VCU in the same Final Four, followed by Wichita State (not to mention Florida Gulf Coast's "Dunk City" run into the Sweet 16 as a No. 15 seed). I covered the uncertainty last week, but I think March Madness will still be fun no matter what direction it goes in.
I'm sorry some people aren't having fun with March Madness this year. Fans of mid-major Cinderellas are welcome to tune into the NIT instead.
NCAA NITwits
You know what's not getting millions of viewers per game? The National Invitation Tournament, which you know as the NIT, or The NCAA Tournament's Leftovers. The NIT might just be dead because of NCAA neglect.
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Even the best NIT games have only gotten TV viewership in the 300,000s (thank you to Programming Insider for the data). I've hardly seen anything online about the NIT this year. The semifinals apparently feature basketball powerhouses like North Texas, UC Irvine, Loyola Chicago, and Chattanooga. Even with the first three rounds played on campuses, attendance has been pretty sparse, ranging from a paltry 672 attendees for UC Riverside vs. Santa Clara to almost 5,000 for Chattanooga against Bradley in the quarterfinals (still less than half capacity).
Part of the NIT's problem is that it's got fresh new competition from the College Basketball Crown (CBC), a 16-team tournament that tipped off on Monday, including Georgetown and Villanova, plus five sub-.500 teams like Arizona State, Butler, and USC. The CBC's existence partially explains why there are no Big East, Big Ten, or SEC schools in the NIT. (Though several big schools, including Indiana, Ohio State, and Penn State, decided neither tournament was worth it.) The competition combines the glitz of hosting every game in Las Vegas with all the glamor of FS1 (with the semifinals onward on FOX). How can the NIT compete with that?
The solution is easy: Give the NIT teams something to play for. The NCAA should give the NIT champion a guaranteed spot in the following year's NCAA tournament. Attendance, viewership, and intensity would go through the roof. The winner would have less to play for in the regular season, sure, but they'll still be playing for seeding—they won't want to end up as a No. 16 seed. The same prize would fix the women's equivalent, the Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament.
It's a good idea that would make the NIT more fun at a time of year when people are obsessed with everything basketball-related. Make it happen, NCAA.
Save Kickoffs
Should kickoffs be fun and exciting, or a throwaway play that you can skip if you need to go to the bathroom? Probably the first one.
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NFL owners are meeting this week to consider several proposed rule changes, including doubling down on last season's "dynamic" kickoffs. Under the traditional kickoffs, only 22 percent of kicks were being returned. This rose to 33 percent last season under the dynamic kickoff rules, which changed several things, including moving touchbacks forward to the 30-yard line—but those rules were only approved for one season. The NFL's competition committee proposes to keep the dynamic rules and move touchbacks to the 35-yard line, so kicking teams will have even more reason to avoid a touchback. The committee projects that 60 percent to 70 percent(!) of kickoffs will get returns if enacted.
Traditionalists (including President Donald Trump, for what it's worth) hate dynamic kickoffs. But when kickers can easily hit the end zone, a dwindling return rate is only going to lead to the possibility of skipping kickoffs altogether for possessions that start at some predetermined yard line. Dynamic kickoffs (for which the premerger XFL deserves credit!) can save the kickoff.
The Tattoos Aren't That Bad
I'm not really a fan of tattoos or Michael Jordan jerseys, but I don't think you should get deported for having one.
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Alas, that may be what happened to Jerce Reyes Barrios, a Venezuelan man who was seeking asylum in the United States. His attorney claims immigration officials used his tattoo of a soccer ball, a crown, and the word dios as part of their justification for deportation. Soccer fans might notice a resemblance to the crest of Real Madrid. The attorney says Reyes Barrios has a clean criminal record and a declaration from the tattoo artist verifying its meaning. Worse, apparently a Michael Jordan jersey or sneakers could also put someone at risk of being classified as a Venezuelan gang member subject to deportation.
The White House claims this isn't true, but government documents seem to say otherwise. "No one should end up in an El Salvadorian prison because a cop misunderstood a tattoo," as Reason's Eric Boehm says.
Replay of the Week
The MLB post speaks for itself. The runner went on to score on the next ball in play, and that was enough for a 1–0 Padres victory.
That's all for this week. Enjoy watching the real game of the week, Incarnate Word vs. Houston Christian in softball.
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