It’s that time of year again. In the next two or three weeks, people who haven’t watched a college basketball game all year are suddenly basketball aficionados. Welcome to March Madness. There’s an app for that. There are several of them.
The obvious two are CBS Sports and ESPN Tournament Challenge. Since the early 1980s, CBS Sports has given us the NCAA tournament. This year is little exception. Catch the games, view the schedule and see which game you’ll see. The ESPN Tournament Challenge app has what it suggests: a bracket challenge and a great prize for the winner. But it also has deep information and statistics on all teams, whether they be Duke and Kansas, or more obscure teams like CSU Bakersfield or Middle Tennessee State. There are apps you probably know little, if anything about. There is Bracket the Madness. It helps create pools and brackets through Facebook and emails. There’s FanCake, which will reward you with tickets and prizes if you get enough points through them. With theScore, you can personalize your tournament chase by choosing scores that matter strictly to you. If a 2-secede is going to upset a 15-secede, theScore will alert you. Not all apps are free. Tuneln Pro will cost you $10, but you can get for free just about anything this one charges you for.
In the old days, if you didn’t have a TV, you missed out on the tournament. Now, thanks to smartphone apps, you can watch on the phone when you’re working (not giving anyone ideas) or listen on your device. You can do so much more than watch. You can fill out brackets, challenge others, and win great prizes. Most of these apps are either free or very inexpensive. Did you know March Madness is the second biggest sporting event in America, next to the Super Bowl? Who is in your Final Four bracket?