UCLA lead the way in championship titles
The most successful college program in the history of the competition is the UCLA Bruins, with 11 titles to the team's name. The Bruins' achieved unparalleled success in the 1960s and 1970s, taking home 10 championships between 1964 and 1975. However, the Los Angeles-based team has found success harder to come by in recent years, with its last title coming back in 1995. The Bruins did reach the Final Four in 2021, before losing out to Gonzaga in overtime. The Kentucky Wildcats team from the University of Kentucky hold the record for the most appearances in the March Madness tournament. The Wildcats have played in 58 editions of the event, with their most recent championship title coming in 2012. In terms of individual records, Austin Carr tops the list for the most individual points scored in a single March Madness game. The Notre Dame guard, who went on to have a successful career in the National Basketball Association (NBA), scored a record 61 points in a game against Ohio during the 1970 tournament.Thousands flock to the arenas, while millions more watch at home
As a result of the unpredictable nature of the knockout tournament, March Madness has become one of the most popular sporting events in the United States among basketball fans and casual viewers alike. The average TV viewership across the whole NCAA tournament stood at 10.7 million in the United States in 2022, a figure which has remained fairly consistent over the last decade of tournaments. Unsurprisingly, viewership peaks towards the end of the tournament, with over 18 million viewers from the United States tuning into the championship game in 2022. While many fans watch the dramatic games from the comfort of their own homes, thousands also attend the games live in the arenas.A big event for betting
Since sports betting became legal in the United States, March Madness has been one of the main events on the betting calendar. Fans can wager on the outcome of individual games, the eventual tournament winners, or even fill out entire brackets to predict how the whole tournament will pan out. These so-called brackets have become a staple for the tournament, with betting companies and media outlets hosting annual contests where huge sums of money can be won by those who successfully predict the outcome of every game. Estimates suggested that around 36.5 million adults in the United States intended to fill out a bracket during March Madness in 2022, while approximately 45 million U.S. adults intended to bet on the tournament games. However, there are some mixed opinions about whether betting on college sports, which remains at an amateur level, should be allowed at all. During a March 2021 survey, 36 percent of respondents from the United States felt that sports betting should not be allowed on any NCAA tournaments featuring student athletes, while 33 percent maintained that it should be allowed.March Madness returns after 2020 cancelation
As with many sporting events throughout the year, the 2020 edition of March Madness was canceled as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In fact, falling so early in the year, the tournament was one of the first high-profile sporting events to fall victim to the health crisis and it was the first time that March Madness had been canceled since its inception in 1939. Unsurprisingly, this cancelation had a huge impact on the players, their colleges, and the whole of the NCAA. As one of the organization's most lucrative events, the NCAA lost millions of U.S. dollars of revenue in television and marketing rights, as well as in media rights, ticket sales, and sponsorships. Each individual college that missed out on the chance of playing in the tournament lost an average of 280.3 thousand U.S. dollars per game played, meaning a shortfall of over 1.4 million U.S. dollars for those programs who could have reached the championship final. The city of Atlanta was also one of the big losers of the canceled tournament. Atlanta was due to host the Final Four round of March Madness in 2020, which could have generated earnings of around 100 million U.S. dollars for the city across the Final Four event.A year later, the 2021 tournament took place entirely in the state of Indiana, marking the first time that the event had been hosted in its entirety in a single state. However, some lingering safety doubts remained and, in a March 2021 survey in the United States, some 61 percent of respondents believed that players should have been able to opt out of March Madness during the coronavirus pandemic without impacting their scholarship. The tournament ultimately went ahead under strict COVID-19 protocols and was eventually won by Baylor Bears, marking the first national championship in the program's history.
