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Keeping Score
POOL parties were never like this. What used to be a friendly office wager has turned into all-out Web warfare. Welcome to
Bracketville,
Internet styleThere are at least a dozen Web sites offering NCAA men's tournament bracket contests. So much for that $5 investment at the water cooler.
FoxSports.com "It's Madness!'' game will pay $10 million to the contestant who correctly selects the outcomes of all 63 games.
Parting gifts to the runners-up are not too shabby ... $500,000 worth of other prizes to the next top 3,000 players.
Over at Hoops Challenge, sponsored by CNNSI.Com, the site is offering $10 million.
The site I like is on ESPN.GO.Com. Touted as America's Favorite Office Pool, it comes right out and tells you that your chances of going 63-0 are 1 in 9.25 quintillion.
The top prize for the NCAA Tournament Challenge 2000 is a trip to next year's Final Four in Minneapolis.
Guess there should be a disclaimer here. This column does not endorse gambling ... but the above-mentioned contests require no entry fee.
Of course, if you happen to win, I wouldn't mind a finder's fee.
WALL Street also has nothing on the NCAA tournament.
Move over, NASDAQ. Now there's SPORTSDAQ, the new men's college basketball market that lauds itself as the superior barometer of fan sentiment.
This is for serious (time) investors only. No brokers allowed.
It's a securities market simulation game that gives fans the opportunity to turn predictions about the outcomes of sporting events into an investment portfolio of college and pro teams.
Before Cincinnati's Kenyon Martin went down with a broken leg, most traders were predicting a Bearcat market. Now they're being bullish on Stanford and Duke.
There's actually some who have put stock into Tulsa reaching the Final Four. That sure would give the WAC a needed ego boost.
No word as to who gets to ring the closing bell on April 3. Or will that be a closing buzzer?
Insider tip: Think Iowa State. Or maybe pork bellies, as in Arkansas.
IT finally happened. The generation gap reared its ugly head over -- of all things -- the NCAA tournament.
My 14-year-old son couldn't believe there had been a time when it wasn't a 64-team field.
It was a little like saying there actually was an NCAA tournament before ESPN. One where freshmen weren't allowed to play on the varsity.
Such sacrilege. What? A tourney where only the conference champions competed for the title?
"Yes, " I told him as I felt my hair turn grey. "And there was actually a time when it was called the UCLA Invitational.''
Times have certainly changed. And not necessarily for the better when it comes to marketing this event.
While some of the commercials surrounding the Final Four are very clever -- such as ESPN's Bracketville -- one is downright crass.
How 7-Up is getting away with its "Make 7-Up Yours'' promotion is beyond me. I really don't appreciate being assaulted by crudeness while watching television on a Sunday afternoon.
The company spent big bucks to sponsor the tournament selection show last weekend.
But it doesn't give them the right to push their insulting brand of gutter humor on the rest of us.
What happened to the TV ratings system? It certainly should apply to commercials as well.
Money can buy a lot of things but it can't buy class.
Cindy Luis is Star-Bulletin sports editor.
Her column appears weekly.