As opposed to the winning team receiving a trophy, both teams’ players will receive gold star stickers on their foreheads.
Photo by: Ethan Coston
On February 24th this past year, the National Collegiate Athletic Association renamed its annual basketball tournament “March Happiness” instead of “March Madness” in an attempt to bring its fans closer together.
“We decided that the hubbub surrounding the tournament is often chaotic,” NCAA president Oliver Oop said in a press conference on Tuesday. “In an effort to make college sports less competitive and more fun, we wanted our name to reflect something more positive, like happiness. I think everyone can get behind March Happiness. Anyway, it’s way better than some of the other suggestions people came up with.”
The process for coming up with a name to replace March Madness included a bracket-style competition. The top four names that competed were “March Sadness,” “March Violence,” “March Happiness,” and the runner up, “October Basketball.”
This change comes in the wake of a number of allegations stating that March Madness causes viewers to become hysterical and, in some cases, actually go insane.
“It’s the time of year that my husband absolutely loses his mind,” housewife Vicki Smith stated. “He literally super-glues his butt to the sofa and his eyes to the TV. All of his friends do it, too. Plus, they spend countless hours planning out their brackets. We’ve already used 10 reams of paper printing out empty brackets so he can try out all the different combinations of teams who might win. I’m at my wit’s end.”
Another woman, Jenny Green, alleged that her husband lost all their savings in a bet with his friends over a bracket he filled out the past year. “We’ve been living in my mother-in-law’s garden shed,” she said. “We lost our house, lost our car, lost custody of the kids … and he just started a GoFundMe so he can bet on his bracket for this year.”
In response to the extreme reactions their husbands have towards March Madness, Smith and Green founded the National Association Against March Madness, and they are advocating for reforms within the NCAA. This past July, as part of their “Down With March Madness” campaign, the two led thousands of men and women in their March Against March Madness. “March Madness is madness,” they shouted in collective unison.
Besides the name change, Oop listed a number of reforms the NCAA will be implementing over the course of the next five years. To promote the re-brand, March Happiness will also be hosting a March Happiness festival, complete with bouncy houses, balloon animals, a massive group participation in the song “If You’re Happy And You Know It,” a mental health clinic with a support group for fans afflicted with “March Madness” — now a medically recognized disease, and a march for March Happiness which will replace the March Against March Madness.
“We’re really, really happy about the new changes,” President Oop stated. “And we think all fans of collegiate basketball will be really, really happy, too.”
Rachel Seo, Staff Writer
