Life is full of choices, so why can't they all be made using brackets? Well, authors Richard Sandomir and Mark Reiter have a little book that breaks it all down for you - "The Enlightened Bracketologist". Hardly an original concept, the book does offer some interesting brackets on some ridiculous topics such as Male Vices, Game Show Catchphrases and Plastic Surgery Disasters. However, the sideline reporter "Who Would You Do? tournament bracket is conspicuously absent.
In the simplest of terms, brackets are fun. You don't have sports in March without a 64 team basketball tournament. And without a bracket structure, there is no Madness. It's difficult to see why other sports haven't considered converting their post seasons to fixed brackets.
For instance, what if the NFL put all of its 32 teams into a bracket to the Super Bowl? Seeding could be based upon some combination of team record, margin of victory, computer ranking, etc. You would then have 5 weekends of playoff games as the bracket filled itself out. Eliminate a preseason game or two and it's not as if the season would be any more grueling.
Who wouldn't want to participate in an NFL tournament bracket pool? The amount of cash wagered on football would skyrocket. The NCAA will never admit it, but the gambling interests in its tournament is an economic boon to college basketball. The more brackets that get filled, the more viewers tune in to watch the games, the higher the broadcast rates the NCAA can charge. The benefits would be no different for the NFL.
The only difficulty I see in making this happen is sorting out the home field advantage issue. Although, it would be hilarious to have Soldier Field serve as a neutral site to host the NFC South regionals where two football games are played back-to-back on a wintery Sunday. The playing field turf would be absolutely destroyed.
