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You are here: Home / Archives for March Madness

March Madness

Sports Are the Last Public Rituals in America, and Gambling Is Killing Them

Friday, April 24, 2026 at 8:33 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall
Sports gambling in professional sports

April used to be about the games. Now it is about the bets. From March Madness to the NBA, sports gambling is turning shared spectacle into private transactions. iPINIONS argues that when every play becomes a wager, the communal ritual that once defined sports begins to die… Read my full take on Substack: https://ipinionsdaily.substack.com/p/sports-are-the-last-public-rituals Read more.

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Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: American culture, FanDuel, gambling addiction, Kalshi, March Madness, Media and Sports, NBA, public rituals, sports betting, Sports Gambling

Hey Nocera, Paying College Athletes Is Good Mess

Friday, April 10, 2026 at 8:45 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall
Joe Nocera on student athletes getting paid

Joe Nocera is right that paying college athletes has created a mess. But as iPINIONS argues, this is good mess… the kind that exposes old injustice, shatters NCAA hypocrisy, and forces long-overdue reform. The chaos around NIL, transfers, and athlete pay is not the problem. It is the moral bill finally coming due. Read my… Read more.

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Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: amateurism, athlete pay, college athletes, college sports, House v NCAA, Joe Nocera, March Madness, NCAA, NIL, women's basketball

March Madness: College Women Are Playing Too

Monday, March 23, 2026 at 8:58 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall
NCAA march madness brackets and image of Jane Air

March Madness remains a cultural rite of passage. But sports media still treats the women’s tournament like an afterthought, even as its stars shine and its bracket players outperform the men by a mile. iPINIONS calls out the chauvinism, the coverage gap, and the gambling culture distorting the whole spectacle. Read my full take on… Read more.

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Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: college sports, gender equality, iPINIONS, March Madness, Media Criticism, NCAA Women's Tournament, Sports Gambling, Sports Media, women's basketball

NCAA Bracketology: The Madness Isn’t the Upsets — It’s the Gambling

Saturday, March 22, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall
Madness of NCAA bracketology

Every March, Americans pretend they’re just in it for the love of the game. But iPINIONS contends that, when office pools, online betting apps, and billion-dollar bracket challenges flood the airwaves, it’s clear: March Madness isn’t about basketball — it’s about the high. And like any addiction, it doesn’t matter how impossible the odds are… Read more.

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Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: American culture, bracketology, gambling, March Madness, NCAA tournament, office pools

The End of March Madness: Hail, Women of Baylor, Men of Virginia!

Tuesday, April 9, 2019 at 7:50 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

Organizers hype the annual NCAA Division 1 Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments as “March Madness.” They do so to exploit “the thrill of victory and agony of defeat” of watching low-seeded teams (a.k.a. Cinderellas) upset top-seeded ones — often with buzzer-beating hail marys. Unfortunately, the tournaments rarely live up to this hype, respectively. True to form,… Read more.

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Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: Baylor, March Madness, Muffet McGraw, NCAA Basketball, Notre Dame, sports coverage inequality, student athletes, UConn Women's Basketball, Virginia, women's basketball

March Madness 2018…

Thursday, March 29, 2018 at 7:23 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

Is thinking Sister Jean has anything to do with Loyola’s miracle. Organizers hype the annual NCAA Division 1 Basketball Tournament as “March Madness.” They do so to exploit “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” inherent in low-seeded teams (a.k.a. Cinderellas) upsetting top-seeded ones — often with buzzer-beating hail marys. Incidentally, I decided years… Read more.

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Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: Basketball, Final Four, Loyola, March Madness, Michigan State, Mississippi State, NCAA tournament, sexism in sports, Sister Jean, UConn, women's basketball

NCAA March Madness — and Then There’s the Women of UConn

Thursday, March 30, 2017 at 7:12 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

Organizers hype the annual NCAA Division 1 Basketball Tournament as “March Madness.” They do so to exploit “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” inherent in low-seeded (a.k.a. Cinderella) teams upsetting top-seeded ones — often with buzzer-beating hail marys. Except that this year’s tournament hasn’t quite lived up to that hype. After all, the… Read more.

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Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: Final Four, gender inequality, Geno Auriemma, Gonzaga, March Madness, NCAA tournament, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, sports sexism, UConn, women's basketball

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Anthony L. Hall is the founding columnist of The iPINIONS Journal, where he’s published sharp, independent commentary on global affairs since 2005. Read more.

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