By: Fred Gallatin

March Madness, college basketball’s premier tournament, is one of the most anticipated sporting events of the year. The adrenaline, stakes, and emotion of the 68-team tournament make it a cultural event every spring.

Cinderella stories, miraculous buzzer beaters, and high-intensity showdowns attract millions of people to the tournament each year, regardless of whether or not their favorite team is competing.

The most popular way to get involved with the tournament is by filling out brackets. Across America, nearly 40 million brackets were filled out on online platforms. Competitions among friends, family, and steep odds attract people year in and year out.

If each one of the 63 games were decided by coin flip, the odds of filling out a perfect bracket are around 1 in 9.2 quintillion. Although not every game is a coinflip, this feat has yet to be accomplished once over the forty-year existence of the tournament.

In addition to filling out brackets, Americans engage with the tournament through a large amount of sports betting. Vegas estimated that during the tournament, Americans will wager $3.3 billion on everything from player totals to game spreads. This makes March Madness second to only the Super Bowl in volume of bets placed during a sporting event.

March Madness would not be the same without Cinderella stories. These upsets and shocking moments create the iconic entertainment and excitement that doesn’t exist in other tournaments. The unofficial prerequisite for earning the title of a Cinderella is reaching the Elite 8 as an underdog, which requires three wins in the tournament.

Due to the format of the tournament, these teams are nearly exclusively from smaller conferences around the country. For example, 2022 North Carolina (8-seed to the National Championship) is not considered to be a Cinderella due to UNC’s perennial college basketball dominance.

Prime examples of Cinderella runs include: 2022 Saint Peter’s (15-seed to Elite 8), 2018 Loyola-Chicago (11-seed to Final Four), and 2023 FAU (9-seed to Final Four).

Unfortunately, thanks to NIL, these archetypes are fading in the modern college basketball world. NIL, or Name-Image-Likeness, allows players to be directly compensated for their talent, giving larger, richer schools a huge advantage.

Even when a mid-major (small conference) team overcomes the massive talent gap and finds success in the tournament, their valuable assets are bought away by high-major conferences like the Big 10, Big East, and SEC.

The best example of this comes when looking at Florida Atlantic’s (FAU) miracle Final Four run in 2023. As a 9-seed, the Owls entered the tournament with low expectations. However, the team fought their way through four tournament games before a loss to San Diego State ended their incredible run.

In the following year, the Owls lost their head coach and four star players to larger schools with more available assets.

HC Dusty May – Hired by Michigan, 60-13 since arrival, 2026 Big 10 Champion

G Alijah Martin – Transferred to Florida, 2025 National Champion

C Vladislav Goldin – Followed Coach May to Michigan, all-conference honors

G Johnell Davis – Transferred to Arkansas, All-American

G Nick Boyd – Transferred to San Diego State and then Wisconsin

This deliberate deconstruction sparked conversations about maintaining equality and forcing the prioritization of recruitment and team chemistry over monetary bribes.

By looking at the seed aggregates, or sums, of each Sweet 16 since 2015, a disparity is clearly shown. A lower number suggests that favorites dominated the bracket, whereas a higher number suggests a chaotic and upset-heavy tournament.

Sweet 16 Seed Aggregates: 2015-2026:

64, 72, 68, 83, 49, 94, 74, 78, 53, 53, 47

This pattern is expected to continue trending towards total inequality unless something is done about the talent and resource disparities of college basketball. Otherwise, the most vital parts of March Madness will vanish into irrelevance. Cinderella stories, shocking upsets, and, eventually, the passion of fans will slowly disappear.