One of the most important sporting events in the world is considered to be the NCAA March Madness Tournament. This tournament is ranked third just behind the Super Bowl and the FIFA World Cup. It's incredible to think that college athletics is one of the most important sporting events in the world. There are other professional sports like basketball, baseball, hockey, and NASCAR, but their championships still don't compare to the NCAA championship. March Madness is so popular that global companies Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. estimate that companies stand to lose about $1.2 billion from every work hour that employees watch games instead of work (Koba, 2014). These employees will spend an average of 90 minutes a day at work watching basketball instead of doing their job. With more than 50 million Americans competing in a sort of March Madness pool, that doesn't seem out of the question. This shows how popular this tournament is. Some people even believe that this tournament costs businesses so much money that it is actually toxic to the American economy. March Madness coined its name in 1908 by a man named Henry V. Porter. Mr. Porter was secretary of the Illinois High School Association. He wrote an article called “March Madness” and they took that saying into the invitation where fans could use it for basketball games in March (Latrel, 2013). However, this Henry Porter-created March Madness did not begin with college athletics. It started as a small invitational tournament at a high school in Illinois. The Illinois High School Association sponsored this March Crazy event in which local high school boys teams would compete in the University of Illinois arena. This is a large area that would be filled with...paper...revenue, which is great for the small programs involved. With the CBS contact being $11 billion, these teams can get a lot of money. I think this March Madness tournament has nothing but good to come out of it.Works CitedAskMen. Np, and Web. March 8, 2014. .NBC News. Np, March 17, 2014. Web. March 8, 2014. http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/your-march-madness-pool-probably-illegal-n545211-800 Sports. Np, March 11, 2013. Web. March 8, 2014.. “NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship.” » Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. March 18, 2014. Web. March 18 2014.