Most of the college basketball season is dwarfed in popularity by football; only in the third month does the competition hit overdrive and become a battle royale among tall men shooting an orange sphere.
March Madness kicks tonight, and within a few hours of the start of the NCAA Basketball Tournament millions of fans across America will be despairing over their already-ruined brackets.
March Madness, a joyful time for sports fans, generates even more joy for TV executives and the NCAA. CBS took in over $400 million from the 2009 tournament; the network is paying the NCAA $6 billion over 11 years for the broadcast rights, and rumors abound that the NCAA could opt out this summer in search of an even bigger deal with ESPN.
Pitching is so important in baseball that as the position players arrive at their Florida and Arizona stadiums this week for spring training, they'll find the pitchers and catchers already there, limbered up and ready to go.
This year, the Winter Olympics are being held at a lower altitude than ever before: 69 feet above sea level, in Vancouver. (The only other year that comes close was 1972, in Sapporo, Japan. Elevation: 75 feet.) Also oddly, this winter has been one of the warmest on record in Vancouver, with almost no snowfall. Most of the snow is being trucked or flown in.
Unlike the Summer Games, with their roots in antiquity, the Winter Olympics are a thoroughly modern invention, launched as a separate event only in 1924. That year, with 10 countries competing in just 6 events in Chamonix, France, the Scandinavian countries nabbed 29 of the 46 medals awarded (63%).
Current NBA superstar Lebron James is leading the league in points per game and averaging over 10 assists. But there’s one hoops accomplishment likely to elude the great small forward (and everyone else) as his career continues to blossom: averaging double figures in points, rebounds, and assists—the so-called “triple-double”—over the course of an entire NBA season.
The 2010 Winter Olympic Games begin tomorrow in Vancouver, Canada. Athletes from over 80 countries will compete for the chance to bring home a medal in fifteen events. But which country has the best chance of winning a Gold?
Want your team to win the Super Bowl? Pray they lose the coin toss.
For all the parents out there dreaming their progeny will grow up to catch the winning touchdown in the ultimate Big Game, here are the odds a player will make it to the Super Bowl—and secure that ring.
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