Dear Charlie Baker and the NCAA,
As March Madness approaches, we thought it was extremely important that we make known our age-old grievances against the infamous bracket tournament style.
- It’s old and it’s out of style. Times have changed, so why haven’t we? While all the big schools get the golden ticket into the March Madness bracket, smaller schools struggle to compete. This is why instead of comparing apples with oranges, we should determine who gets to compete based on the amount of social media followers they have on Instagram. Not only will this allow the NCAA to determine which teams are the most popular, but also allow those teams to really shine and bring in more viewership.
- If you’re not willing to change up the methods of selecting teams, the tournament itself should be changed. It is too discouraging for the teams and players in their current form because they are unable to compete in the same environment. We should have only one game in the college basketball season: one game at the same time, same location and at the same court. We would shuffle all of the teams randomly into two teams, and from that point on, it’s every man for themselves. Now THIS is entertaining basketball! This is the only way to make the selection process fair for all teams because everyone would be able to play the same amount of games with the same setting, keeping all of the environmental factors the same. That isn’t difficult at all, right?
- The tournament enforces systemic discrimination against players. (Unacceptable in this day and age; how could you?) Every team should have an equal chance of winning, and certain teams having taller athletes makes the competition egregiously unfair. The NCAA could also make limitations based on the average height of the players on the team; in fact, we think that we should restrict how fast athletes run or how high they can jump because of the unfair edge they are given over other competitors. Our sports need to be more equal, not unfairly competitive.
- If you want to bring in the cash, you can make this whole thing a reality TV show, where we get to see all the locker room drama after games and dissect the coaching strategies of the teams. It’s not like privacy matters in our modern world.
We hope that our suggestions will be given serious consideration for this upcoming March Madness season, and we would like to give our best, equally equal wishes to all of the teams!
Best,
The Howler
