March Madness ideas for work
March Madness is the NCAA Division men’s single-elimination basketball tournament of 68 teams that compete in 7 for the national championship. And with the event right around the corner (it begins on March 19), your team may be thinking of ways to join in on the fun and festivities. We’ve compiled a few tips to get you started with a traditional tournament bracket and threw in a few March Madness ideas for work that are just for fun, so your entire team can get involved, whether they are sports fans or not!
Traditional March Madness bracket for work
- Determine who wants to participate and determine the prize for the winner. You could have the tournament be a $5 or $10 entry fee, or the reward could be company swag, an outlandish trophy, a gift certificate, an extra PTO day, or have the entry fees go to a charitable cause. Additionally, you could play for the glory of winning!
- Distribute brackets. Traditional March Madness brackets be printed out, or you can sign up online (NCAA offers an online bracket challenge).
- Now it’s time to start predicting! Have participants fill out their brackets by picking who they think the winner of each round will be all the way to the very last game.
- Next, identify a scoring system. This article offers a variety of ways to score your March Madness bracket.
- Select someone to be the keeper of the brackets. This person will determine who is in for the next round and who is booted out! If you are playing online, it will keep score for you.
- Lastly, celebrate the winner!
Additional March Madness ideas for work
Creating a non-sports bracket is a great way to get everyone involved, whether they are sports fans or not. You don’t need to restrict your bracket just to basketball! We created two blank March Madness brackets for work that you can use for a variety of different themes or ideas. This bracket is an excellent option for all general brackets, and this bracket is a good option if you want to break your bracket out into four themes or groups (best music from the 60s, 70s, 80s, & 90s, for example).
To get started:
- Select a theme (seriously, the sky is the limit). The theme could be relevant to your organization or just randomly selected. You could also survey your team with a few ideas and let your employees pick the bracket theme!
- Create a bracket with options based on your theme.
- Have your team fill out their brackets and decide on a schedule. You can run your rounds through a survey software like Typeform if you want to keep things more digital. Once each round is completed, have someone tally up the votes and fill out one bracket to inform the team of each round’s results.
- Celebrate the winning item from your bracket. For example, if you select Best Restaurants in Town as the bracket theme, take the team out for a celebratory lunch or dinner at the winning restaurant.
Here are a few additional bracket ideas to get you started:
Movies: Create a bracket with a list of popular movies and have your team vote on their favorites. You can categorize your movies into four groups by genre (comedy, drama, romance, action, etc.), decade (the 80s, 90s, etc.), or any other grouping you come up with.
Music: You won’t have any treble 🎼 coming up with ideas for this bracket theme! But here are a few to get you started: Set up a bracket consisting of movie soundtracks, sounds of the decades, different artists, or one-hit wonders. Or, run a bracket dedicated to one particular artist, like, the best songs of The Beatles, for example.
Food: You could take this theme in a lot of different directions! For example, run a bracket on which fast food chain is the best, types of candy or soda, the best sandwich toppings, types of potatoes, or the battle of the burgers. There is no shortage of brackets you can do for food!
TV Shows: Consider running a bracket for the best tv shows of all time! You could break this bracket down by genre (modern drama, classic drama, modern comedy, classic comedy), networks, streaming services, or awards (Emmy winners, Golden Globe winners, etc.). Additionally, you could have your tv show bracket determine the best fictional characters of all time.
Games: Run a bracket with your team for the best board games of all time. The winning game could be played at a virtual or in-person team-building game night! Additional game bracket ideas could include the best card games, console games, or classic arcade games.
Vacation Destinations: Who knows, maybe the winner of this bracket will be the next destination for your next company offsite! 😊 You could theme this bracket with the best beach destinations, top national parks, or road trip destinations.
Now that you have an idea for a bracket in mind, which one will be the champion?
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