The BIG Question In March '09: Who Owns The Copyright To "One And Done"?

A review of this blogger's '09 bracket reveals a host of teams that are "one and done." So much for the riches of the pool that contains my $5 investment. Perhaps this blog can be the source of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. "One and done" means that this blogger is owed a royalty payment from all of the poor souls who put forward the last of their discretionary income for '09. The slogan, "One and done" describes the vast majority of the teams in "March Madness." "One and done" and "One out of sixty-four": same sucker odds. If this is (fair & balanced) March Reality, so be it.

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Why Is It Called "March Madness"?
By Brendan I. Koerner

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annual article association athletic basketball called cbs cd-rom chay clash collegiate connection control court dance final form gte high-school hoosiers ihsa illinois keep license litigate lost madness mindful mite ncaa official origin phrase rather round school sides similar sixteen started struck sweet terms tournament tourney trademark used vague wrote year

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The NCAA men's basketball tournament, which tipped off today, is colloquially known as "March Madness." Other staples of the 65-team tourney's unique lingo include "Sweet 16," "Final Four," and the "Big Dance." How and when did these terms originate?

March Madness traces back to Illinois' statewide high-school basketball tournament, which began in 1908. In 1939, an official with the Illinois High School Association, Henry V. Porter, penned an article called "March Madness" for the organization's in-house magazine. "A little March madness may complement and contribute to sanity and help keep society on an even keel," he wrote. Three years later, he followed up with a poem, "Basketball Ides of March," which read in part: "A sharp-shooting mite is king tonight/ The Madness of March is running."

The phrase was confined to Illinois high-school ball until 1982, when CBS broadcaster (and ex-Chicago Daily News sportswriter) Brent Musburger used it during his network's NCAA tournament coverage. The IHSA, meanwhile, applied to trademark "March Madness" in 1989. The NCAA and IHSA clashed in 1996, when the IHSA sued to stop GTE, an NCAA corporate partner, from distributing a CD-ROM game bearing the March Madness title. The NCAA contended that it had a common-law trademark on the phrase and was thus allowed to license it at will. The 7th Circuit Court sided with the NCAA, but its ruling was vague enough to open the door for future litigation. Rather than endure more rounds in court, the two sides agreed to form the March Madness Athletic Association, a joint holding company. The IHSA controls the name on the high-school level, while the NCAA has a perpetual license to use the phrase in connection with its (much larger) collegiate tournament.

A similar clash occurred in the late 1990s over "Sweet 16," tourney slang for the third round. CBS commentators started using the phrase in the late 1980s, after the tournament field expanded from 53 to 64 teams. Unfortunately for the NCAA, the phrase (using both "16" and "Sixteen") was trademarked by the Kentucky High School Athletic Association in 1988, as a handle for its annual championship tournament. Perhaps mindful of the March Madness precedent, however, the KHSAA chose to bargain with the NCAA rather than litigate. The two sides struck a deal similar to the one between the IHSA and the NCAA, splitting control along scholastic-collegiate lines. (The NCAA also owns the trademark to "Elite Eight," though the exact origins of that phrase are unclear.)

There are some high-school basketball purists who insist that the phrase "Final Four" was first used in connection with Indiana's legendary annual tournament (which inspired the film "Hoosiers"). But the official NCAA story is that "Final Four" was coined by a Cleveland Plain Dealer sportswriter, Ed Chay. In a 1975 article for the Official Collegiate Basketball Guide, Chay wrote that Al McGuire's Marquette squad "was one of the final four" in the previous year's tournament. Something about the phrase struck a chord with the NCAA's marketing folks, and they started capitalizing it as "Final Four" in 1978. It is, of course, now trademarked. (College hockey is stuck with the nickname "Frozen Four" for its national semifinals.)

The origin of "Big Dance" is seemingly lost to history, at least in terms of who first used it as a synonym for March Madness. Nevertheless, the NCAA trademarked the phrase in 2000.

Next question? ♥

[Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor for Wired, a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate, and a fellow at the New America Foundation. His first book — Now the Hell Will Start — was published by The Penguin Press in 2008.]

Copyright © 2004 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co.

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