The Madness is here again

At Kansas State University, Bakery Science is offered as a degree program. Puppetry is a major at West Virginia University and if you think that’s funny — you can earn a degree in comedy at Emerson College in Boston.

Around this time of year, many fans who follow college basketball pick up their own minors in a unique field.

Bracketology.

Whether it’s through an office pool, online sweepstakes or playful playground betting, many of us will sort through the field of 68 NCAA men’s teams and pick the overall winner. Thinking with your head or your heart, or perhaps by throwing darts, advancing teams with a blindfold on and seeing if your dog chooses its food between two bowls with a Murray State logo above one and Colorado State logo on the other one — it doesn’t matter.

The tournament gives us a chance to cheer for our own respective team to make a run to the Final Four, while pulling for Cinderella teams to upset the perennial big dogs.

Last year, 5.9 million people submitted a bracket to ESPN’s online Tournament Challenge. When Connecticut was crowned 2011 champion, just two had filled out the bracket perfectly by correctly picking the winners of all 67 games.

The personal glory and payout could be great, but it’s not nearly as hefty as what the NCAA will bring home.

According to CNN, the tournament brings in roughly $650 million dollars each year. Of that, $180.5 million is distributed to the 31 conferences that receive an automatic bid to the tournament. In 2011, the Big East grabbed $26 million for getting 11 teams in, while the Patriot League was awarded $1.9 million for one team.

For teams like Bucknell, the lone squad from the Patriot and even two-time runner up and Horizon League member, Butler, increased exposure can pay for itself.

“It can increase enrollment or, at least, interest and applications to a university,” said Steve Hertz, a sports marketing expert and President of IF Management of New York. “It’s not just a regional scale, from a marketing standpoint, it’s a national level.”

Tickets for the second and third round games at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, are going for over $200 on secondary outlets like StubHub after being sold out for weeks.

Hertz said that in some ways the NCAA tournament is bigger than the Super Bowl in an interest and involvement aspect because it lasts for a few weeks, rather than one day. The exposure, itself, brings schools to the limelight and it unites the country together. In 2011, 30 states were represented in the “big dance.”

So if you haven’t already, fill out a bracket, play along, and join in on the cash cow of college sports.

And to get a leg up on next year’s tournament, enroll at Indiana University to study for a graduate degree in Decision Making.

Then you’ll be a certified bracketologist in no time.

Matthew Peaslee is a sports writer for The Vindicator. Write to him at mpeaslee@vindy.com.