You can find more of The Athletic’s coverage of the men’s NCAA Tournament here and women’s NCAA Tournament here. Follow live coverage of the 2024 men’s NCAA Tournament first round
On Wednesday, I boarded a flight from San Francisco to Las Vegas for the explicit purpose of watching college basketball.
Not to attend an actual basketball game, mind you. Those flights were headed to Omaha, Neb., and Charlotte, N.C. In my case, I am spending several hundred dollars for the privilege of sitting (or standing) in various sportsbooks and viewing parties to watch NCAA Tournament games that are readily available on the television in my living room.
If the inflated hotel prices and $250 tickets for reserved seating are any indication, hundreds of thousands of other sports fans are doing the same.
Betting is presumably the draw for many of them, but these days you don’t need to fly to Vegas to place a sports bet. Alcohol consumption may be another, but that, too, is readily available for far less than a plane ticket.
The allure of Vegas for March Madness is much the same as it is for millions of people who fill out brackets and cheer their heads off for schools and players they’d never heard of two hours earlier. It’s because the NCAA Tournament is one our country’s…
