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The Evolution of March Madness Through Three Defining Eras
Three Eras That Changed Everything
Building the Best Tournament
Nothing welcomes spring in the sports year better than March Madness, the annual NCAA basketball tournament that has captivated fans for decades. But there is a long March Madness history that existed well before anyone ever thought to fill out a bracket or gauge the chances of a No. 12 seed advancing.
Let’s look back at the three defining eras of March Madness tournaments.
When Eight Teams Made History
Decades before professional basketball started after World War II, many colleges were playing the game. But it wasn’t until 1939 that a tournament was set up to determine that season’s champion based on an idea from Ohio State coach Harold Olsen.
At the time, the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) operated the tournament rather than the NCAA. The first-ever tournament featured just eight teams, it ran from March 17 – March 27, and Oregon edged out Olsen’s Ohio State Buckeyes in the championship game, which was played in a small campus gym.
HUNTER DICKINSON DOING IT HIMSELF 🔥
The Jayhawks put on a show in the first half against Oklahoma State 🙌
(via @CBSSports)pic.twitter.com/1wuCptTAgJ
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) February 22, 2025
With no TV deals at the time and minimal ticket sales, historians suggest the 1939 tournament may have been a $2,500 loss for the NABC, which handed over control to the NCAA. But the final game of the 1940 tournament generated over $8,500 in revenue, and things picked up from there.
The field grew to 22 teams in 1953 as the popularity of the sport grew.
Magic, Bird, and the Television Revolution
In the 1970s, the tournament continued expanding to 40 teams. But the biggest change came from NBC’s television coverage starting in 1969. The initial TV deal for March Madness was $1.2 million and not all games were televised.
The 1979 national championship game proved to be a watershed moment for the tournament as Larry Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores lost to Magic Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans in a game that drew nearly 40 million viewers, the highest Nielsen ratings in American basketball history. Fittingly, that game helped create a rivalry between Magic and Bird that carried the NBA in the 1980s when they joined the Lakers and Celtics.
4️⃣1️⃣ years ago, @MagicJohnson and @MSU_Basketball got the better of Larry Bird in the 1979 national title game. pic.twitter.com/SXngAyWlAT
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) March 26, 2020
But their college matchup led to increased interest in the NCAA tournament, which continued fiddling with the format in the 1980s, a decade that started strong with a moment like a young Michael Jordan hitting the game-winning shot for the North Carolina Tar Heels in the 1982 championship game. It was also in 1982 when CBS bought the TV rights from NBC.
Billion Dollar Brackets
It was 1985 when March Madness really grew into the phenomenon it is today when the field expanded to 64 teams split across four regions with no byes. Teams were seeded 1 through 16, and that made the bracket format very popular as fans tried to predict the outcome.
Take a deep dive into the absurd odds of a perfect bracket: 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808.
Fill your bracket out here:
👉 https://t.co/sfuizyhwHs pic.twitter.com/YyrQVcwyTn— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 21, 2019
This era was soon filled with March Madness highlights from Villanova’s perfect shooting night against Georgetown (1985) to Christian Laettner’s shot against Kentucky (1992) to Kris Jenkins’ dagger 3 for Villanova (2016).
We coined the term “Cinderella” to label underdogs pulling off an upset, and we’ve come to love traditions like winners cutting down the nets and hearing Luther Vandross’ “One Shining Moment” over the final highlight package.
The field expanded to 68 teams in 2011, and the current annual revenue for the tournament is $1.1 billion with a TV deal worth $10.8 billion. Today’s games average 10 M viewers, and a record 80.7 million streamed games in 2016 on March Madness Live.
Before you fill out your brackets and watch the 2025 edition, be sure to check out the NCAAB March Madness odds.
