When the storied college basketball tournament ‘March Madness’ returns for its 85th edition this month, millions of fans in the United States will tune in to watch the country’s top prospects do battle. But why exactly is university sport so beloved by Americans?
Nebraska Cornhuskers assistant coach Jordan Larson experienced plenty of pressure cooker atmospheres during her player career. As an Olympic gold medallist and world champion, high stakes games and big crowds became the norm. But last June, she witnessed something entirely different.
A record-breaking 92,003 people crammed inside Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska to watch the state’s beloved Cornhuskers take on local rivals, the Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks. Surpassing the 91,533 crowd who saw Barcelona beat Real Madrid at Camp Nou in 2022, it was the biggest ever attendance for a women’s sporting event.
It was also a college volleyball game.
America’s obsession with college sports is woven into the fabric of its society, passed down through generations like a cherished heirloom. It is a driver of unity, bringing communities together to celebrate sporting achievement and commiserate sporting failure.
And it is unique. For many around the world who have experienced inter-university competition, this is unfathomable. Last year in the UK, for example, the national university sports finals saw 1,500 athletes compete across a range of disciplines. It drew a crowd of 5,000.
In the United States, however, college sports are undeniably box office—exemplified by the landmark match in Nebraska last year.
“It just felt so powerful watching it,” Cornhuskers coach Larson recalls to Esquire Middle East. “As a small-town kid from Nebraska who grew up dreaming of playing volleyball for the Cornhuskers, to see such an important moment for women’s sports happen there was special.
“I felt like a 12-year-old again and it is great to know that all the girls that were in that stadium now have icons they can look up to. There is a huge momentum shift happening in women’s sports at every level.”
Attendances for college sports events in the United States regularly eclipse those of professional equivalents and in 2023, an average of 109,971 fans watched each of the University of Michigan’s football games at Michigan Stadium, aptly nicknamed ‘The Big House’. But what is it that compels people to fill arenas for college sports?
“Obviously it’s a community experience but I think really there’s just a genuine fascination with what it takes to be a college athlete, watching these young people figure it out,” Larson says.
“There is also a shorter season in college sports and I think that breeds good quality, high intensity competition and peak performances. But primarily, people are drawn to the story of amateurs trying to better themselves through hard work.”
Although volleyball’s profile has never been higher, it remains an outlier compared to the country’s premier college sports: American football and basketball. The former is a vital athletic artery, supplying new blood to the NFL each year through the college draft system. For the latter, the relationship between the NBA and its college conveyor belt is a little more complex.
The traditional route of high school, then college, then NBA is still an important part of elite basketball recruitment, but more alternatives exist than in football. These include going pro overseas, playing in the NBA’s feeder division—the G League—or even signing straight from high school, known as ‘prep-to-play’. The latter gave the world two of basketball’s biggest ever icons: LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.
Still, college remains the best hope that many young Americans have of reaching the NBA and arguably their biggest platform each year is March Madness. The annual tournament, organised by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), brings together the best teams and players from the highest level of college basketball, Division I.
Former Iowa Hawkeyes shooting guard Joe Wieskamp has experienced March Madness first-hand, playing in the college tournament on his way to a first NBA contract with the San Antonio Spurs. Now representing G League team Maine Celtics and plotting a route back to the NBA, the 24-year-old has nothing but positive memories of college basketball.
“To play the sport that you love and have loved your whole life with guys that are wanting to pursue the same things is special,” Wieskamp says of his time with the Hawkeyes. “You work all year long towards one goal, which is to win March Madness.
“It’s something that America has built—that as an athlete, you want to go and compete and play for a university that you’ve grown up watching.”
“COLLEGE SPORTS HAS A SHORTER SEASON, WHICH BREEDS GOOD QUALITY. BUT PRIMARILY PEOPLE ARE DRAWN TO THE STORY OF AMATEURS TRYING TO BETTER THEMSELVES”
Jordan Larson, Nebraska Cornhuskers assistant coach
March Madness is consumed voraciously by supporters in the United States and worldwide, with its straight knockout, high-jeopardy format making it an American sporting institution.
A wildly popular accoutrement to the main event is its pre-tournament ‘Bracket’, which tasks fans with guessing the winner of every game. The odds of a perfect 63-game bracket can be as high as 1 in 9.2 quintillion but that doesn’t deter people from participating and it has even spawned its own field of study, ‘Bracketology’.
On the court, the action is watched by millions watching at home, while tens of thousands are in attendance at arenas around the country.
Like most college players, Wieskamp never conquered March Madness, but insists that just being involved in the NCAA’s flagship tournament was an important personal sporting milestone.
“Although there are other options now, college is still the main stepping-stone towards the NBA for players here in the US. Division I level is where the best players are and that’s where the scouts are watching.”
The potential for progression to the big leagues is one thing but for Wieskamp, playing in March Madness for his hometown team represented the culmination of a dream he’d had since childhood.
“I grew up 30 minutes away from the university as an Iowa fan. My family would always go to football and basketball games,” Wieskamp recalls. “When I was deciding on college, I knew that I could have probably gone to a bigger school, but I wanted to be a Hawkeye so much that I didn’t seriously consider going anywhere else.
“I still remember pulling on the jersey for the first time—I had dreamed about that for so long. I wouldn’t change anything about my journey.”
“In the last year or so, the floodgates have opened and a lot of athletes are now doing well. I know that LSU and other institutions are trying hard to educate themselves about the rules in order provide athletes with the best possible advice and education.
That journey, for Wieskamp and other college athletes, is one that is lived out firmly in the public eye. While their peers can enjoy the formative experiences of higher education and pursue their academics in relative peace, those playing sports are under scrutiny from a very early age—watched live by thousands of supporters and followed by thousands more on social media.
Dr. Lori Martin, author of the 2019 book Pay to Play: Race and the Perils of the College Sports Industrial Complex, has been advocating for better support for student athletes for years.
In 2021 she was among those celebrating as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, for the first time, college athletes would be able to profit from their own name, image and likeness (known as NIL)—something the NCAA had previously prohibited.
It means that players who don’t make it to the pro leagues can cash-in while their college star burns brightly, while those tempted to leave education early in search of the substantial
riches of the NBA and NFL may now stick it out at university.
“It is encouraging that college athletes can now benefit financially to the extent that it might now be more profitable for them to remain in college than go pro early,” explains Dr. Martin, who is both Associate Dean of Humanities and Faculty Athletics Representative at Louisiana State University (LSU).
“The college landscape is now changing, and no-one knows yet exactly what is going to happen next.”
As an advocate for those competing in college sports, Dr. Martin is well acquainted with both the advantages and drawbacks of a U.S. system that binds sporting aspirations tightly with educational progress.
“Sports is not just purely entertainment,” she says. “It’s a multi-level, multi-dimensional social system. It’s a social institution in itself and all the -isms that affect society as a whole, like racism, sexism, classism—they are all there in sports.
“I get as excited as anyone else when there’s a game on, especially if LSU is playing, and there is no question that sports can be a unifying feature on and off campuses. But it can also be very divisive and sports in the past have played major roles in excluding people.”
For Nebraska Cornhuskers assistant Larson, now back in the college system with her alma mater after a glittering professional career, championing an inclusive environment has been important.
Her understanding of the stresses and strains of college sport and the steps required to make it pro, make her a relatable role model for the students she coaches.
“I’m always trying to remember how I felt as a college athlete,” Larson says. “The thing that always sticks is how mentally hard it was, wanting to be the best and needing to show up consistently every day.
“As a fanbase or coaches we expect so much of athletes but forget that these are just kids who some days are just trying to stay afloat. It was only when I went pro that I realised you can strive for perfection but one day you just need to accept it’s impossible to get there.”
Like a March Madness bracket prediction, there is no flawless formula for success in college sports, and the majority of NCAA athletes fall short of reaching the professional ranks. Nevertheless, college athletics is destined to remain an American cultural phenomenon, offering talented individuals and teams an ephemeral taste of sporting stardom.