May The Brackets Be Ever In Your Favor

It looks like the two biggest media events of the weekend will be the Regional Finals of NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament and the release of the movie adaptation of "The Hunger Games". It's oddly fitting that both are going on at the same time. March Madness and the Hunger Games themselves have many striking similarities. They're both nationally televised, single elimination tournaments, featuring mostly teenagers selected from set regions across the country that captivate the country once a year with their drama and surprises (cynically one may argue that they are also both slightly rigged by powerful, malevolent institutions).

Given the interesting parallels I always wondered while reading the books (well, technically listening to them on audio book while commuting, props to Carolyn McCormick for a boss narrating job) whether the Hunger Games (it's not like the Olympic Games, it's just one big event, shouldn't it be just the Hunger Game?) were treated anything like March Madness in Panem.

First off, I would assume that only the folks in the Capitol (and maybe some of those loyalist lapdogs in District 1 and 2) would actually watch it as a form of entertainment rather than a horrifying reminder of the government's absolute power over them. Given that, would there be many of the fun trappings of the Big Dance? I would imagine productivity amid the offices of the Capitol go down due to the organizing of pools and filling of brackets, but considering that the Capitol is just a grotesquely decadent Sodom of the privileged maintained by slave labor, I can't imagine too much office work, or really work of any kind, being done (maybe a a decline in lurid orgies and vomitorium assisted bacchanals).

I guess that would just leave even more time for focusing on the Games, constant armchair analysis of the favorites, looking over the field for possible sleepers. It's funny to think that in the case of the Games, when someone considers who this year's George Mason would be they may literally be referring to an actual former tribute named George Mason. Personally I think Katniss has all the makings of a dangerous sleeper pick poised to make a deep run: coming from an unheralded mid-major district (with only one champion in the past 73 Games for crying out loud), fundamentally sound, undersized, but with impressive range. Though, I guess it's not a true tournament, there are still a myriad of ways to gamble on the outcome: selecting the winner, over/unders, elimination order, etc. Aside from the official presentations and pageantry would there be plenty of additional analysis and insights from sports journalists and discissions on morning sports talk radio about participants and scenarios? Would there be a Capitol version of Joe Lunardi with a weird mustache and blue skin, breaking things down with his science of Hungertology? Does that make Caesar Flickerman their Dick Vitale?

Also it would be pretty awesome and apropos if they played "One Shining Moment" as the sole remaining tribute is airlifted out of the arena.

Baracketology

For all those who are completely oblivious to the national sports scene, that sudden decline in attention and productivity within your office/school/factory/etc. can probably be attributed to the start of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament and all the wagering and bracket projecting that it entails. It's a yearly national phenomenon, kind of like the Super Bowl stretched out over weeks. Even if you have little to no connection to college basketball, chances are if you've got friends, you've filled out a bracket or two. While pundits, professional gamblers, sports experts, and Joe Lundari would like to have you believe that there is some sort of advanced science to making accurate bracket predictions, in the end it's just as random as picking lottery numbers.

That's one of the big reasons it has such wide appeal. Anyone can participate, even if you have no idea how the game of basketball is played. All you have to do is make binary decisions that narrow a field of 64 down to 1. Of course a little bit of research and knowledge of the particulars can only help when those decisions, but more often then not it seems like the sports illiterate secretary or the guy in class who doesn't watch TV, or someones 8 year old is the one coming out ahead in a large pool full of fans and experts.

So of course what better way for a president to endear himself to populist sentiment then to do his own bracket as well. Maybe it's because we have a young, hip, basketball loving president, but I can't recall news stories any of the prior presidents making their own March Madness sheets. While writing up your own sheet as the President may seem like an innocuous bit of positive publicity, I think it's nothing but trouble:

• The biggest drawback of having a public bracket is that right off the bat you are snubbing 63 out of 64 schools. When the President makes a Super Bowl prediction, he'll obviously alienate the hometown fans of one city over another. With the NCAA tournament, you can only pick one out of 64. Just as soon as the bracket was announced, Duke's Coach K immediately announced is displeasure. In the words of another prominent Illinois Commander in Chief:“You can’t please all of the people all of the time".
• Just one look at the President's brackets seem to indicate a fairly by the numbers, chalk heavy approach to his selections. There are very few upsets or surprises here. For a candidate who ran on a platform of change and bold new thinking for this country, it certainly isn't reflected in his selections. It looks like standard Washington bracketing as usual. The last thing you want is for people to be calling your brackets conservative.
• In addition, apparently Obama originally picked Pitt and Louisville in the national title game with Louisville winning but then quickly scratched it out and replaced Pitt with UNC and had the Tar Heels winning it all. This bit of publicized indecision is not the image you want to reflect as the President. If you're going to pick, pick boldly.
• Perhaps it's not the best move for Obama to align himself with an activity that is inherently driven by billions in illegal gambling and is associated with workplace unproductiveness, especially in this economic climate. You want to project that you're working day and night to solve the credit crisis, not working on the office pool.
• Obama picked, UNC, probably the second most polarizing college basketball team. The only worse team he could have chosen would have been Duke. He should have gone with a more neutral favorite like Pitt or Louisville or maybe a trendy upstart like Wake Forrest or Syracuse. Atleast he can't be accused of rampant homerism by taking overrated Illionis deep into the tournament.