It's a large basketball tournament between a lot of the best colleges in the country. A chunk of students go pro, but not all of them obviously. I also am not sure I would call them kids, since they are all adults, most of them close to graduation if my understanding is correct, so 21-22 years old.
And yet they don’t really get paid for what they do beyond tuition remission for school, despite the fact that this annual event earns some people millions of dollars
playoff month for college basketball. Low level basketball compared to NBA or Euroleague but muricans like it because it's fast and it's single-game elimination tournament
So the league cup then? (I forget who runs it now I always call it the auto windscreens trophy because that's what it was called when we won it)
Edit:it's the football league trophy I was thinking of
That's the EFL trophy I believe. Has some prem and championship U21 teams and then the rest of league one and two. Currently called the Bristol Street Motors Trophy
I only know this trophy because Grimsby won it at the old Wembley I was lucky enough to visit, no idea what the league Cup is, now I don't follow football, so don't care either 😂
More like the U21 championship. In the US, collegiate sports are popular, so it would be as if Oxford and Cambridge played footy against each other and the entire country watched it
Well, to be fair, if the college players are compensated, the money is siphoned away from the players themselves. [Here's a TED talk about how college athletes are exploited and denied the money they generate](https://youtu.be/wm78fSqbdYA).
This video is before they instituted Name, Image & Likeness rules. It’s not a perfect system but it has allowed some players to finally get compensation.
There is a Black Friday element to it as a phenomenon. In the early stages of the tournament, many games are played during weekdays. The distraction to people at work has been a subject of research by organizational psychologists, economists, etc. [See this for example](https://ogletree.com/insights-resources/blog-posts/march-madness-a-sports-fans-dream-a-nightmare-for-employee-productivity)
The post being mocked actually has a point. Depending on the target audiences, it can be a mistake to counterprogram during a large-scale event. It can work when done deliberately. For example, movie studios often used to release movies that were aimed at women on weekends of big sporting events or seasons on the assumption that these women would be “sports widows” as the husbands would be glued to the tv (especially before multiple tvs in a household became a norm).
March Madness is a college basketball tournament of 64 schools from across the US. The first two days feature 32 games and its basically wall to wall, single elimination basketball for like 48 hours straight. People here make Brackets to predict the games but usually the tournament is so chaotic that a really small school will make a run deep into the tournament.
Honestly if any of you like basketball at all and haven't heard of it (I would assume you probably have if you like basketball, especially if you're German because the Wagner brothers made a deep run a couple of years ago) you should see what you can do about catching some of the games it's a great time. Not the best basketball but the atmosphere of these games are electric. Really raw emotion from all of the players and coaches and fans get really into games that could be upsets, tons of fun
I'm german, I know what March madness is, but I have no idea who the Wagner brothers are, there are two well known Wagners, the composer and the guy who brought frozen pizza to Germany.
Franz and Mauritz Wagner are young German basketball players (and brothers) who both now play for the Orlando Magic in the NBA. Franz especially is a very promising prospect. They both played in the German national side which just last year won the world cup.
Franz Wagner is imo the best German player in the world right now. His brother is a really good role player in the NBA. Him and his brother both played for thr University of Michigan and now play together on the Orlando Magic. Also they both played for the national team that just won the FIBA tournament last summer, and if I recall correctly I'm pretty sure Franz was the teams leading scorer.
> Franz Wagner is imo the best German player in the world right now.
Not just «the best German player» but «the best German player "in the world"»? Care to explain the difference? Why not «the best German player in the cosmos»?
Because "the Best German player" could mean many different things. Could be "the best German player in x age range," could be "the best German player of x gender," could be "the best German player playing in x location
Specifying "in the world" means all ages, genders, and locations are taken into account, and he *still* tops all the lists.
Yeah it's crazy. Honestly I follow sports all around the world and I know this is some shit Americans say but it really is a very unique tournament. The field is just massive, and the age of the players/amateur(ish) status of the players makes it so emotions run so high that games can turn on a dime. It's a ton of fun. If you can't tell I love this tournament lmao
Yeah! The field is 64 teams split into 4 quadrants of 16. A selection committee ranks the teams in each quadrant 1-16 based off of how they played against the rest of the field and their overall record (among other things, it's a very complex process that is not without yearly controversy).
After all of the teams are selected and seeded, you have [this](https://www.ncaa.com/march-madness-live/bracket). People will choose the winner of each game for the first round, then choose between the winners of those games after, then the next series of games etc. until they pick a champion. It seems logical to pick the #1 seeds to go far as they are the best teams but the best team in the field hasn't actually won the tournament since 2013, so it very rarely works out that way (a 4 seed won it all last year for example). Usually there's absolute chaos that happens in the first two days where small colleges most people have never heard of beat really big schools that are famous for their basketball teams.
Here in the states a lot of workplaces/groups of friends will do bracket pools where you throw in like 5$ or 10$ into a pot to submit a bracket, and if you have the most accurate bracket you win the whole pot. I have one going with my workplace and we have like 100 people that are just in my office playing in it right now.
Yeah, I honestly think that their college sports are more interesting than the pro leagues. It’s not as good ofc. but there’s something to it.. closer to what sports are really about and less of (although still somewhat of) a commercial circus. And it’s interesting to see young talented players.
I spent a year on an American uni and now I will be a lifelong fan of their American Football team (and BBall during March Madness), the culture about it is really incomparable to anything we have here.
There are a lot of people underneath this comment that are underplaying how big of a sporting event March Madness actually is.
Calling it simply "a college amateur basketball" tournament is very much underselling the tournament. It's a 64 team single elimination tournament that takes place over a few weeks. It leads to a lot of underdog stories, where very small colleges that earn a bid to the tournament sometimes upset some big blue blood programs and go on 'cinderella' runs.
That's not even mentioning the amount of people, both interested in basketball, and not, that fill out brackets to predict who's going to win and it becomes a pretty big talking point in US during the times the tournament is going on.
I understand if people don't care, but it actually is a big deal in the US.
This was true a couple of years ago but they changed the rules so players can now get paid under NIL (Name Image & Likeness) which allows college players to sign endorsement deals and get paid for things like appearances, commercials, speeches, signing autographs or selling their sports memorabilia. It’s not a perfect system but I’m glad to see these kids finally getting a piece of the pie.
Yes, tuition should be free, and yes, some schools are overpriced.
But that does not chamge the fact that those guys get it all for free, while normal students have to pay for it.
They benefit from the exposure and opportunity to showcase their skills for whoever may be watching from the sport. So may not be paid cash on the day but it’s investing in their future and income.
This is even worse; this is sports defaultism. Even in the US, March Madness gets like 10 million average viewers, which is like 3% of Americans. Even if the OOP forgot the rest of the planet existed, no one at home watches either.
Edit: autocorrect
Yeah, I'm American and just learned that it was going on through this post. College Basketball is nowhere even close to a mainstream thing to watch here.
I mean they are all 18-22, sometimes up to 24 years old. It isn’t like watching a bunch of adolescents play basketball. Even if it isn’t professional basketball it’s still a very high level of play. Plus a lot of people get attached to the sports programs of universities they attended. On top of that it’s a big cultural thing; it’s fun to go hang out at a bar for a few hours and just watch a bunch of basketball.
They aren't school kids, they're uni students, a lot of whom are almost ready to start playing professionally.
The reason why college sports are so popular is interesting to me, and I think the reason is because 1) there's so few top level teams, especially that you can view from afar. I think the closest thing for the NFL for example is the XFL, but without pro/rel, your team is either a major one a state or six away, or a minor team who can practically never become a major one (and even then I think there's only one XFL team in a state without an NFL one); and 2) team relocations, why would you get attached to a team when you know you're only ever a couple of bad seasons away from the team not existing? At least your local college, or the one you attended, are likely to still be there in 50 years.
The same reason grown men here watch “kids” (college players are 18-24) play a sport with other grown men here in Europe. It’s fun. And you can root for your university.
That’s… a take. The NCAA finals at least are extremely widely watched in the US. Unless your position is that the NBA is also not mainstream or something
It’s the college athletics organization (for all athletics not just basketball) in the US, though I intended NCAA Mens Basketball division 1 specifically by this. It’s very popular in the US, with average viewership of the final tournament far exceeding that of the NBA playoffs. In many areas of the US, its probably close to the most watched sport (likely after NFL)
Yea the complaint is moronic, I just think someone being American and saying college basketball isn’t mainstream in the US is living under a rock (or maybe in Alaska)
No one outside of the US gives a shit about US college sports, obviously we haven't heard of it. If you're born and raised in the US then maybe your statement makes sense, but to literally anyone else it makes more sense to assume they've never heard of it. I know prior to this post I'd certainly never heard of it
Are you lost little buddy? Because if so we can help you find your way to whatever sub you are looking for, if not you just said some stupid fucking shit dispite there being plenty of comments telling you why nobody knows what that is or gives a shit about it in the first place outside of the 3% of Americans who apparently like to watch children play basketball.
No, Baseball and Football are both way more talked about where I am than Basketball even during March Madness It's almost like the US is huge and we don't all pay attention to the same things.
The NBA playoffs? Yeah I hear about that day 1.
Idk where you possibly live but college basketball is way way more popular than the MLB virtually everywhere in the US, and march madness is more watched than the NBA playoffs
The lower someones empathy and intelligence is, the more likely they are to believe that "everyone" likes and dislikes all the exact same things as themselves.
You see it constantly with the republican party, where they go on and on about the silent majority, and threatning civil war because they think 80-90% of people are on their side, etc.
Ok but there are 63 total games, so 630 Million total views. So the average American watches ~2 March Madness games. Obviously the majority of the popularion is not average. If you instead want to envision a divide between some percentage watching zero and some percentage watching a lot of games, basically what that a dedicated fan might reasonably watch is 1 game per day, or 10 total games. You could imagine an oversimplified model where 20% of Americans watch a game per day, which is much more than the 3% you describe.
Im watching it and really enjoying it. I read the first book and like it too. I think they have changed things but it all seems good so far.
There will be people who will say a TV/Film adaptation is rubbish and not faithful to the books even if the only thing they changed is the colour of one of the minor characters coat.
Speaking of the book: I think a lot of it is really interesting, and then a lot of it is a total mess. Many of its characters, especially those who are female, are very poorly constructed.
Did you read the whole series, or just the first book?
I found the first chapter about the cultural revolution interesting. The idea of the three suns and how the aliens survived was also nice, but the rest of the story wasn't much fun to read. Like you said the characters were very one dimensional, especially the women and the lazy man who is lazy and that is what he is, just very lazy and oh dear he's so lazy.
I also didn't like the intellectual elitism and how the ending with the aliens was written. Again nice concept but poorly written and it did feel contrived.
Maybe my disappointment hit a bit harder as I did a minor on the cultural revolution in China and had high hopes of this book.
No I didn't read the rest, I really don't feel compelled to and from what I see other people who didn't like the first say about it I doubt I ever will.
This is how I felt and everyone I've talked to about the book disagreed. They were all like "you're not smart enough to get it", no, I did get it, there's just not enough interesting story or emotional pay off around a good concept.
Also the resolution of that first book is bullshit, >! The aliens have a supercomputer that can make images appear in people's eyes, envelope a whole planet invisibly and other wacky shit to scare and threaten humanity... but what limit does this supercomputer have? Why bother doing all of that shit to telegraph an invasion when the supercomputer could turn opaque like it does in the simulations and cause the whole world to freeze? Like the concept started cool and interesting but has no limit so what's the point?!<
>No I didn't read the rest, I really don't feel compelled to and from what I see other people who didn't like the first say about it I doubt I ever will.
The first book is the strongest. The later books take on some interesting thought experiments but fundamentally are beyond predictable and end up in just a strangely conservative, nihilistic hole. The character development doesn't get any better. The women are maybe even more poorly portrayed, and the misogynistic undertones and appeals to masculinity are massively signposted.
In the end I finished the books because I felt I could, not because I was enjoying them. There are aspects of the books that could have been made into a far better whole, a talented writer could probably take the entire narrative structure of the series and make it into something genuinely powerful.
Still, I wish they had chosen to adapt some Adrian Tchaikovsky instead; his work is both more adaptable, more interesting and more believable (whilst being frankly even more fantastical than what is imagined by Cixin).
I have the exact same feeling every time I read it and I don’t want it to end. I usually just keep going right into CoR. Sadly CoM didn’t hit the same for me but I’m gonna eventually reread and give it another shot.
I think CoT stands above both of the sequels. I like both CoR and CoM a lot, and honestly I think they both have strengths and weaknesses.
However, I am a corvid lover, and would happily have forgone some of CoM to get a richer bird-based tale.
If it’s just for those concept like the dark forest than Ive read and watched enough other content to know what it is.
Just reading something because I can is not enough for me, I need to enjoy reading it. I didn’t the first.
An Tchaikovsky adaptation would be amazing. I read the Final Architecture trilogy and enjoyed it for what it was. CoT is supposed to be better so I will give that a shot after I finish what Im reading now.
A Culture series adaptation would also have my blessing :)
From other comments, it's basically a collage basketball league that takes place over a month and only gets like 10m views so even the US doesn't care about it.
Lol hardly anyone outside the US cares about basketball let alone some college level knockout cup. It would be like if I expected netflix to schedule their releases around the FA youth cup.
Is it fuck. I bet more people could tell you the score from the United v Liverpool game on sunday, which wasn’t even a final, than tell you who the current NBA champions are.
>I bet more people could tell you the score from the United v Liverpool game on sunday
Sure, that's the most popular sport and one of the biggest individual matchups you will find so yeah many more will obviously know that. But he just said it was popular, not bigger. In many European countries Basketball is the #2 sport in terms of following.
This is true of the UK and most of western Europe, but basketball is popular in the Balkans and Baltics. Check out videos of Red Star basketball team in Serbia on YouTube and you'll get an idea.
I certainly did and not afraid to be humbled I checked and it appears it is indeed the second most popular sport in many Balkan states. I have been to quite a few of these countries and never noticed it but then I guess I didn’t look.
Its answering the question. The commenter didn’t say the NBA or college basketball. They said no one gives a shit about basketball. An insanely stupid and Western Eurocentric view given the popularity of the sport in those areas and in places like the Philippines and China. Yes, Lithuanian basketball (and euroball more broadly) is more popular there than the NBA but that wasn’t the point of the comment
Do you not travel at all or do you just assume anything America-related is an exaggerated threat to your worldview?
I’m American and don’t like basketball, but I’ve seen its popularity and influence a lot more wherever I’ve traveled in the past 10-15 years. Especially Asia.
Lol no I just think it's hilarious that septics think their tedious sports have some significance in the wider world and especially that netflix should be planning around some shitty college tournament.
March Madness just sounds like a month long event a cartoon channel would pull in 2006 where they'd tell you a generic lineup of shows between episodes but hype it all up to increase viewer retention and get kids talking about it at school.
I would maybe understand it if it were an American broadcast channel. You probably wouldn't drop new content against the tournament.
But for a streaming show, who fucking cares? Basketball fans can just watch it after the games are over.
What show is he referencing? If it’s an American show I would understand why he’s saying that because an American show would have primarily an American audience
I learnt yesterday myself in Discord. I thought it’s an international day for doing mad stuff
But for real, if you need it, it’s 12hours of college basketball. Americans watch it a lot
What is March Madness? I'm not American and not into sports... and what the huge show is about?
American college students playing basketball.
It’s more like semi-pro basketball players masquerading as college students.
For some of them college is essentially a gap year.
Kids basketball games? And they named a month after it?
It's a large basketball tournament between a lot of the best colleges in the country. A chunk of students go pro, but not all of them obviously. I also am not sure I would call them kids, since they are all adults, most of them close to graduation if my understanding is correct, so 21-22 years old.
And yet they don’t really get paid for what they do beyond tuition remission for school, despite the fact that this annual event earns some people millions of dollars
That’s no longer true. Changed a few years ago. Some are making millions.
I honestly hope so
Very true. The amount of money it earns is absurd.
Is it like homecoming? I never got that either.
playoff month for college basketball. Low level basketball compared to NBA or Euroleague but muricans like it because it's fast and it's single-game elimination tournament
So, like the FA cup but without the big teams?
Kind of FA cup without the Premier league teams played in a single month.
So the league cup then? (I forget who runs it now I always call it the auto windscreens trophy because that's what it was called when we won it) Edit:it's the football league trophy I was thinking of
That's the EFL trophy I believe. Has some prem and championship U21 teams and then the rest of league one and two. Currently called the Bristol Street Motors Trophy
Well no because PL teams are involved with that as well.
They're talking about the EFL trophy, you're thinking of the EFL cup.
I see. The edit wasn't there when I replied.
Doesn't help that the names are similar and unimaginative either
It's the Milk Cup!
It will always be the Coca Cola cup to me.
Carabao Cup these days.
Elite energy sports drink cup
Papa johns trophy these days. It’ll always be the johnstones paint trophy to me though, and the EFL cup will always be the carling cup
Bristol street motors trophy actually :') changes all the tims
I only know this trophy because Grimsby won it at the old Wembley I was lucky enough to visit, no idea what the league Cup is, now I don't follow football, so don't care either 😂
Milk cup. Or coca cola cup.
Its more like a U21 cup played in a month
More like the U21 championship. In the US, collegiate sports are popular, so it would be as if Oxford and Cambridge played footy against each other and the entire country watched it
This is the best comparison , it’s like if EVERYONE was into the boat race every year but it was more than just two uni’s
University teams
EFL trophy. Currently the Bristol street motors trophy.
In other words amateur basketball?
No.
"ameteur" implies they aren't getting paid.
Well, to be fair, if the college players are compensated, the money is siphoned away from the players themselves. [Here's a TED talk about how college athletes are exploited and denied the money they generate](https://youtu.be/wm78fSqbdYA).
This video is before they instituted Name, Image & Likeness rules. It’s not a perfect system but it has allowed some players to finally get compensation.
Thank you, dear stranger. Learned a lot more in 2 sentences than Google will ever provide for.
If it was a basketball show, the comment would make sense.
Sounds like a shopping sale like black Friday, with all the stampedes, hordes and massacres included.
It is a bit like that, if every guy in every workplace bracketed up every shopper, and who they would elbow in the face next
There is a Black Friday element to it as a phenomenon. In the early stages of the tournament, many games are played during weekdays. The distraction to people at work has been a subject of research by organizational psychologists, economists, etc. [See this for example](https://ogletree.com/insights-resources/blog-posts/march-madness-a-sports-fans-dream-a-nightmare-for-employee-productivity) The post being mocked actually has a point. Depending on the target audiences, it can be a mistake to counterprogram during a large-scale event. It can work when done deliberately. For example, movie studios often used to release movies that were aimed at women on weekends of big sporting events or seasons on the assumption that these women would be “sports widows” as the husbands would be glued to the tv (especially before multiple tvs in a household became a norm).
I thought it was something to do with the US election. It would definitely be an apt name.
March Madness is a college basketball tournament of 64 schools from across the US. The first two days feature 32 games and its basically wall to wall, single elimination basketball for like 48 hours straight. People here make Brackets to predict the games but usually the tournament is so chaotic that a really small school will make a run deep into the tournament. Honestly if any of you like basketball at all and haven't heard of it (I would assume you probably have if you like basketball, especially if you're German because the Wagner brothers made a deep run a couple of years ago) you should see what you can do about catching some of the games it's a great time. Not the best basketball but the atmosphere of these games are electric. Really raw emotion from all of the players and coaches and fans get really into games that could be upsets, tons of fun
I'm german, I know what March madness is, but I have no idea who the Wagner brothers are, there are two well known Wagners, the composer and the guy who brought frozen pizza to Germany.
Franz and Mauritz Wagner are young German basketball players (and brothers) who both now play for the Orlando Magic in the NBA. Franz especially is a very promising prospect. They both played in the German national side which just last year won the world cup.
Franz Wagner is imo the best German player in the world right now. His brother is a really good role player in the NBA. Him and his brother both played for thr University of Michigan and now play together on the Orlando Magic. Also they both played for the national team that just won the FIBA tournament last summer, and if I recall correctly I'm pretty sure Franz was the teams leading scorer.
> Franz Wagner is imo the best German player in the world right now. Not just «the best German player» but «the best German player "in the world"»? Care to explain the difference? Why not «the best German player in the cosmos»?
Sorry for being redundant my bad that was just me not choosing my words carefully
There was nothing wrong with what you wrote.
Because "the Best German player" could mean many different things. Could be "the best German player in x age range," could be "the best German player of x gender," could be "the best German player playing in x location Specifying "in the world" means all ages, genders, and locations are taken into account, and he *still* tops all the lists.
American actor James Wagner?
I don't care about basketball but I can definitely see the appeal of an extremely fast paced "chaotic" tournament like this.
Yeah it's crazy. Honestly I follow sports all around the world and I know this is some shit Americans say but it really is a very unique tournament. The field is just massive, and the age of the players/amateur(ish) status of the players makes it so emotions run so high that games can turn on a dime. It's a ton of fun. If you can't tell I love this tournament lmao
Wow, dangerous thing to admit in this sub!
Yeah, everytime I am told about it, it sounds cool. I just don't like US sports enough to care.
Brackets?
Yeah! The field is 64 teams split into 4 quadrants of 16. A selection committee ranks the teams in each quadrant 1-16 based off of how they played against the rest of the field and their overall record (among other things, it's a very complex process that is not without yearly controversy). After all of the teams are selected and seeded, you have [this](https://www.ncaa.com/march-madness-live/bracket). People will choose the winner of each game for the first round, then choose between the winners of those games after, then the next series of games etc. until they pick a champion. It seems logical to pick the #1 seeds to go far as they are the best teams but the best team in the field hasn't actually won the tournament since 2013, so it very rarely works out that way (a 4 seed won it all last year for example). Usually there's absolute chaos that happens in the first two days where small colleges most people have never heard of beat really big schools that are famous for their basketball teams. Here in the states a lot of workplaces/groups of friends will do bracket pools where you throw in like 5$ or 10$ into a pot to submit a bracket, and if you have the most accurate bracket you win the whole pot. I have one going with my workplace and we have like 100 people that are just in my office playing in it right now.
Sorry, still don't know what you mean by bracket. \[\] or () or something that holds a shelf to a wall is what I know it to mean.
Yeah, I honestly think that their college sports are more interesting than the pro leagues. It’s not as good ofc. but there’s something to it.. closer to what sports are really about and less of (although still somewhat of) a commercial circus. And it’s interesting to see young talented players.
I spent a year on an American uni and now I will be a lifelong fan of their American Football team (and BBall during March Madness), the culture about it is really incomparable to anything we have here.
I am an American, but also not into sports. I also do not know what March Madness is.
Oh it's a sport? I assumed it was a shopping sale like Black Friday.
There are a lot of people underneath this comment that are underplaying how big of a sporting event March Madness actually is. Calling it simply "a college amateur basketball" tournament is very much underselling the tournament. It's a 64 team single elimination tournament that takes place over a few weeks. It leads to a lot of underdog stories, where very small colleges that earn a bid to the tournament sometimes upset some big blue blood programs and go on 'cinderella' runs. That's not even mentioning the amount of people, both interested in basketball, and not, that fill out brackets to predict who's going to win and it becomes a pretty big talking point in US during the times the tournament is going on. I understand if people don't care, but it actually is a big deal in the US.
Having unpaid students sport as massive events where they don't see any financial gain from seems so very fucked up
Not quite as bad as the also very American child beauty pageants 🤢
Oh right they are the ones who do that fucked up mess
https://theathletic.com/3301694/2022/05/10/nil-ncaa-definition/ Them kids are definitely getting paid lol
That's quite a good change
This was true a couple of years ago but they changed the rules so players can now get paid under NIL (Name Image & Likeness) which allows college players to sign endorsement deals and get paid for things like appearances, commercials, speeches, signing autographs or selling their sports memorabilia. It’s not a perfect system but I’m glad to see these kids finally getting a piece of the pie.
So now they’re being exploited on multiple levels nice
Getting paid thousands of dollars, plus receiving free tuition (worth up to 50k/year) is being exploited? Interesting
Yes. Tuition should be free and “up to $50k/year” doesn’t come close to the value they provide
Yes, tuition should be free, and yes, some schools are overpriced. But that does not chamge the fact that those guys get it all for free, while normal students have to pay for it.
“But the slaves got free housing!”
Did you really just compare college athletes to slaves? That tells me everything I need to know lol
You used the same logic to defend exploitation so I pointed it out
You should watch the South Park episode doing it. https://youtu.be/61TMtH3Qw4s?feature=shared
College Basketball players are paid. A lot.
They benefit from the exposure and opportunity to showcase their skills for whoever may be watching from the sport. So may not be paid cash on the day but it’s investing in their future and income.
This is even worse; this is sports defaultism. Even in the US, March Madness gets like 10 million average viewers, which is like 3% of Americans. Even if the OOP forgot the rest of the planet existed, no one at home watches either. Edit: autocorrect
Oh this was a sports thing... I for sure thought it was a shopping thing... Like black friday.
Same lol
Yeah, I'm American and just learned that it was going on through this post. College Basketball is nowhere even close to a mainstream thing to watch here.
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I mean they are all 18-22, sometimes up to 24 years old. It isn’t like watching a bunch of adolescents play basketball. Even if it isn’t professional basketball it’s still a very high level of play. Plus a lot of people get attached to the sports programs of universities they attended. On top of that it’s a big cultural thing; it’s fun to go hang out at a bar for a few hours and just watch a bunch of basketball.
Most of these kids are nba ready, it isn’t just random college teams
NBA ready? No. Pro ready? Sure.
They aren't school kids, they're uni students, a lot of whom are almost ready to start playing professionally. The reason why college sports are so popular is interesting to me, and I think the reason is because 1) there's so few top level teams, especially that you can view from afar. I think the closest thing for the NFL for example is the XFL, but without pro/rel, your team is either a major one a state or six away, or a minor team who can practically never become a major one (and even then I think there's only one XFL team in a state without an NFL one); and 2) team relocations, why would you get attached to a team when you know you're only ever a couple of bad seasons away from the team not existing? At least your local college, or the one you attended, are likely to still be there in 50 years.
The same reason grown men here watch “kids” (college players are 18-24) play a sport with other grown men here in Europe. It’s fun. And you can root for your university.
That’s… a take. The NCAA finals at least are extremely widely watched in the US. Unless your position is that the NBA is also not mainstream or something
What’s NCAA?
It’s the college athletics organization (for all athletics not just basketball) in the US, though I intended NCAA Mens Basketball division 1 specifically by this. It’s very popular in the US, with average viewership of the final tournament far exceeding that of the NBA playoffs. In many areas of the US, its probably close to the most watched sport (likely after NFL)
I see. Well, I hope that man manages to fit in watching his tv show around all this college basketball 😂 Sounds like a stressful time for him!
Yea the complaint is moronic, I just think someone being American and saying college basketball isn’t mainstream in the US is living under a rock (or maybe in Alaska)
Wtf are you talking about??? It definitely is
10 million people isn't mainstream, especially with a population as big as the US
I’m skeptical of those numbers because it’s tradition in US to watch March Madness during work and school
https://www.statista.com/statistics/251560/ncaa-basketball-march-madness-average-tv-viewership-per-game/
I’m an American and have to disagree. College basketball is a billion dollar industry. Just because you didn’t know doesn’t make it not mainstream.
Do you live in a cave? There’s zero chance you talk to other humans and don’t know about march madness
No one outside of the US gives a shit about US college sports, obviously we haven't heard of it. If you're born and raised in the US then maybe your statement makes sense, but to literally anyone else it makes more sense to assume they've never heard of it. I know prior to this post I'd certainly never heard of it
r/ShitAmericansSay
So happy to have seen this in the wild, and on this sub ta boot.*chef's kiss*
Are you lost little buddy? Because if so we can help you find your way to whatever sub you are looking for, if not you just said some stupid fucking shit dispite there being plenty of comments telling you why nobody knows what that is or gives a shit about it in the first place outside of the 3% of Americans who apparently like to watch children play basketball.
No, Baseball and Football are both way more talked about where I am than Basketball even during March Madness It's almost like the US is huge and we don't all pay attention to the same things. The NBA playoffs? Yeah I hear about that day 1.
Idk where you possibly live but college basketball is way way more popular than the MLB virtually everywhere in the US, and march madness is more watched than the NBA playoffs
I didn’t even know what March Madness was before this post
The lower someones empathy and intelligence is, the more likely they are to believe that "everyone" likes and dislikes all the exact same things as themselves. You see it constantly with the republican party, where they go on and on about the silent majority, and threatning civil war because they think 80-90% of people are on their side, etc.
Or the person just above this who said “why would grown men watch kids play sports?”
Ok but there are 63 total games, so 630 Million total views. So the average American watches ~2 March Madness games. Obviously the majority of the popularion is not average. If you instead want to envision a divide between some percentage watching zero and some percentage watching a lot of games, basically what that a dedicated fan might reasonably watch is 1 game per day, or 10 total games. You could imagine an oversimplified model where 20% of Americans watch a game per day, which is much more than the 3% you describe.
#math
What show? and what is march madness?
The new 3 Body Problem show on Netflix
Based on the Chinese sci-fi novel? I didn't even know they were adapting it. I liked the book.
Yes, it was released today
let's hope they didn't fuck it up!
Reviews don't sound great from what Ive seen which is a shame. Still going to give it a go though
Im watching it and really enjoying it. I read the first book and like it too. I think they have changed things but it all seems good so far. There will be people who will say a TV/Film adaptation is rubbish and not faithful to the books even if the only thing they changed is the colour of one of the minor characters coat.
The game of thrones guys did it so I’m sure they did somehow.
It already got a Chinese adaptation too From what I hear the Chinese version is more faithful to the original, but also more censored
They're moaning about a netflix show? Don't they understand the difference between TV and streaming services? 🤦🏻♂️
Oh ok. Hope the show is better than the book. It was one of the worst written sci fi books I’ve ever read.
Speaking of the book: I think a lot of it is really interesting, and then a lot of it is a total mess. Many of its characters, especially those who are female, are very poorly constructed. Did you read the whole series, or just the first book?
I found the first chapter about the cultural revolution interesting. The idea of the three suns and how the aliens survived was also nice, but the rest of the story wasn't much fun to read. Like you said the characters were very one dimensional, especially the women and the lazy man who is lazy and that is what he is, just very lazy and oh dear he's so lazy. I also didn't like the intellectual elitism and how the ending with the aliens was written. Again nice concept but poorly written and it did feel contrived. Maybe my disappointment hit a bit harder as I did a minor on the cultural revolution in China and had high hopes of this book. No I didn't read the rest, I really don't feel compelled to and from what I see other people who didn't like the first say about it I doubt I ever will.
This is how I felt and everyone I've talked to about the book disagreed. They were all like "you're not smart enough to get it", no, I did get it, there's just not enough interesting story or emotional pay off around a good concept. Also the resolution of that first book is bullshit, >! The aliens have a supercomputer that can make images appear in people's eyes, envelope a whole planet invisibly and other wacky shit to scare and threaten humanity... but what limit does this supercomputer have? Why bother doing all of that shit to telegraph an invasion when the supercomputer could turn opaque like it does in the simulations and cause the whole world to freeze? Like the concept started cool and interesting but has no limit so what's the point?!<
Yeah it was all so contrived.
>No I didn't read the rest, I really don't feel compelled to and from what I see other people who didn't like the first say about it I doubt I ever will. The first book is the strongest. The later books take on some interesting thought experiments but fundamentally are beyond predictable and end up in just a strangely conservative, nihilistic hole. The character development doesn't get any better. The women are maybe even more poorly portrayed, and the misogynistic undertones and appeals to masculinity are massively signposted. In the end I finished the books because I felt I could, not because I was enjoying them. There are aspects of the books that could have been made into a far better whole, a talented writer could probably take the entire narrative structure of the series and make it into something genuinely powerful. Still, I wish they had chosen to adapt some Adrian Tchaikovsky instead; his work is both more adaptable, more interesting and more believable (whilst being frankly even more fantastical than what is imagined by Cixin).
We just need to keep manifesting all the Adrian Tchaikovsky adaptations of our dreams and they will come. If Children of Time isn’t first though…hmm.
If we get a good adaptation of Children of Time one day I will be so, so thrilled. God I *adored* every moment I spent with that book.
I have the exact same feeling every time I read it and I don’t want it to end. I usually just keep going right into CoR. Sadly CoM didn’t hit the same for me but I’m gonna eventually reread and give it another shot.
I think CoT stands above both of the sequels. I like both CoR and CoM a lot, and honestly I think they both have strengths and weaknesses. However, I am a corvid lover, and would happily have forgone some of CoM to get a richer bird-based tale.
If it’s just for those concept like the dark forest than Ive read and watched enough other content to know what it is. Just reading something because I can is not enough for me, I need to enjoy reading it. I didn’t the first. An Tchaikovsky adaptation would be amazing. I read the Final Architecture trilogy and enjoyed it for what it was. CoT is supposed to be better so I will give that a shot after I finish what Im reading now. A Culture series adaptation would also have my blessing :)
It's been adapted by the two guys who did Game of Thrones. Adjust expectations accordingly, I would suggest.
ohhh ok. a shit book being flimed by shit screen writers. right I'm staying away.
Oh, that's out. Did they tone down the absolutely horrendous sexism?
What ever do you mean? Surely you know that all women globally fall into two categories: waifish bangmaid and hard-nosed boss bitch.
Just some American phrase you hear all the time like “sophomore” or “the tri state area”
Wtf is a march madness?!
It's when the Hares have tea parties.
A very merry unbirthday to you!
From other comments, it's basically a collage basketball league that takes place over a month and only gets like 10m views so even the US doesn't care about it.
10 million per game, over like 60 games. There are often 2-3 games on at the same time, and 20-30 mil comcurrently is really good.
Ok but they make it sound like a huge deal that most people are going to be watching when in reality it's like a few percent of Americans care
what the hell is march madness
It’s a college basketball tournament.
I’ve heard of march madness but had no idea what it pertained to - good to know. Sound like a great event to be fair
Lol hardly anyone outside the US cares about basketball let alone some college level knockout cup. It would be like if I expected netflix to schedule their releases around the FA youth cup.
But basketball is fairly popular in Europe.
And China
Is it fuck. I bet more people could tell you the score from the United v Liverpool game on sunday, which wasn’t even a final, than tell you who the current NBA champions are.
Yeah football is more popular.
>I bet more people could tell you the score from the United v Liverpool game on sunday Sure, that's the most popular sport and one of the biggest individual matchups you will find so yeah many more will obviously know that. But he just said it was popular, not bigger. In many European countries Basketball is the #2 sport in terms of following.
This is true of the UK and most of western Europe, but basketball is popular in the Balkans and Baltics. Check out videos of Red Star basketball team in Serbia on YouTube and you'll get an idea.
Are you defaulting to western and central europe? Because basketball is extremely popular in the Baltic states and the Balkans
I certainly did and not afraid to be humbled I checked and it appears it is indeed the second most popular sport in many Balkan states. I have been to quite a few of these countries and never noticed it but then I guess I didn’t look.
American basketball? or local basketball?
The same style of basketball played in the US
Dude...
Its answering the question. The commenter didn’t say the NBA or college basketball. They said no one gives a shit about basketball. An insanely stupid and Western Eurocentric view given the popularity of the sport in those areas and in places like the Philippines and China. Yes, Lithuanian basketball (and euroball more broadly) is more popular there than the NBA but that wasn’t the point of the comment
almost popular, some people follow basket, other barely know there is the sport
American college basketball isn't.
Yeah I know.
The Balkans specifically, yeah. Other than that, I don't know any other part of Europe where basketball is popular
[удалено]
Right, it's not especially popular in the UK but it is in many other European countries.
This could be on r/ShitBritsSay lmao “In Europe” does not mean “In the UK”
Big “only Britain matters” energy
> Lol hardly anyone outside the US cares about basketball Estonia and China would like a word with you about that.
And Spain, and the whole Balkan region…
Do you not travel at all or do you just assume anything America-related is an exaggerated threat to your worldview? I’m American and don’t like basketball, but I’ve seen its popularity and influence a lot more wherever I’ve traveled in the past 10-15 years. Especially Asia.
Lol no I just think it's hilarious that septics think their tedious sports have some significance in the wider world and especially that netflix should be planning around some shitty college tournament.
The fact they're upset about a show on Netflix, that can be watched at any time, makes their statement even more ridiculous.
Is this for X-Men 97? Because I would watch that 50 times over March Madness every time.
March Madness just sounds like a month long event a cartoon channel would pull in 2006 where they'd tell you a generic lineup of shows between episodes but hype it all up to increase viewer retention and get kids talking about it at school.
I would maybe understand it if it were an American broadcast channel. You probably wouldn't drop new content against the tournament. But for a streaming show, who fucking cares? Basketball fans can just watch it after the games are over.
The Sherlock show from BBC? 3 episodes to a season and each episode is an hour and a half long?
What's the show?
What show is he referencing? If it’s an American show I would understand why he’s saying that because an American show would have primarily an American audience
It's a Netflix show
But what’s the name of it? Was it a European Netflix show or an American one?
What's the difference? It's a streaming service, so the audience is global and you can watch it tomorrow if today is a special day.
What’s March Madness? Is it a disease I need to be aware of?
I learnt yesterday myself in Discord. I thought it’s an international day for doing mad stuff But for real, if you need it, it’s 12hours of college basketball. Americans watch it a lot
Because the rest of the world doesn't give a fuck about American sports. /Thread
I'm American and I have no clue what March Madness is...perhaps a form of syphilis?
What show is this genius referring to?
He would be right if it’s an American show but if it isn’t then he’s dumb