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The OTHER March Madness Tournaments
The NCAA basketball tournament starts today and lasts for the rest of the month. March Madness is not limited to basketball, however. All around the internet you'll find non-sports tournaments you can participate in yourself, filling out brackets, voting for your favorites, and following the process to determine the #1 something-or-other.
March Madness Drama Derby
Vulture's March Madness Drama Derby aims to determine the greatest television drama of the past 25 years. I was a little shocked to find out how many of my all-time favorites are too old to participate! The winners of each matchup are determined by a panel of TV bloggers and critics, but you can express your opinion and vote in the alternate universe of Facebook. The ultimate winner will be announced March 23rd.
Candy Madness
So Good has a different food tournament every year. This year it's Candy Madness. The field of 64 candies are led by #1 seeds M&M's, Hershey's Bar, Snickers, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Voting in the first round will begin Thursday at noon.
YA March Madness Tourney
Four literary blogs have teamed up to host the YA March Madness Tourney. You can vote to determine the best young adult book of the year! Take a look at the bracket, and go vote in the regions of Paranormal at GReads, Contemporary at ChickLovesLit, Fantasy/Mythology at The Book Cellar, and Sci-Fi/Dystopian at Bookalicious. The voting is scheduled to begin today. There's also a bracket-predicting contest to go along with the tournament. The tournament winner will be crowned April 2.
2012 Fandom Steel Cage Match
The 2012 Fandom Steel Cage Match March Madness pits television and movie characters against each other. Now in the sweet sixteen round, the four regions are comedy, teen, sci-fi, and drama. Voting is only open to Livejournal members, but everyone can follow the tournament.
Geek Tournament
The 2012 Geek Tournament from Transformer Generation Dad is already in the second round of voting. The tournament is to crown your favorite science fiction ...stuff. This year, there are actually four tournaments with four winners instead of regional play, because how can a captain compete with a universe? The four tournaments are for best captain, best crew, best ship, and best universe. The brackets are offered in a spreadsheet, of course.
Worst Company In America
Consumerist's 7th Annual Worst Company In America tournament has a bracket of 32 companies. This year, nine of the companies are telecoms, the ones we all complain about. The voting begins today with Bank of America vs. Chase, Charter Communications vs. CenturyLink (Qwest), and Target vs. Best Buy duking it out in the elimination round. Get the latest updates with this link.
Name of the Year
The Name of the Year Tournament is in constant tournament mode to decide the funniest name of a real person for each year. The Final Four in the 2011 Name of the Year tournament have just been decided. Courvoisier Winetavius Richardson, Delorean Blow, Taco B.M. Monster, and Neptune Pringle III made the cut, although the opponents they beat have some pretty strange names, too. You can vote in Richardson vs. Blow and Monster vs. Pringle now. Check out the previous years' winners, too.
MTV News Musical March Madness
MTV News Musical March Madness seeds 64 bands. Voting is now open in the first round: click your favorite bands on the interactive brackets to vote. The number one seeds are The Black Keys, Foo Fighters, Evanescence, and Mumford & Sons.
Middle-earth March Madness
TheOneRing.net presents The Middle-earth March Madness Tournament. The original 46 Tolkien characters have been whittled down to the 32 who made the bracket. As of yesterday, the brackets had been chosen but not yet revealed, so check back at the site for updates.
The Ladies' Tournament
Esquire magazine is holding The Ladies' Tournament to determine the hottest woman of 2012. The regions are Movies, where Charlize Theron is the #1 seed; Television, where Sofia Vergara holds the #1 seed; Models + Music, in which Kate Upton has the #1 seed; and Royals, seeding Kate Middleton at #1. See the entire bracket here. Round one voting is in progress now. Logo design by Ben Running.
The Ultimate Tournament Bracket Bracket
And now for the meta entry. The Bleacher Report took at look at all these other non-NCAA tournament brackets and decided to create a tournament that everyone can argue about: a bracket of online tournament ideas! There are 68 different bracket concepts fighting each other for supremacy. The regions are TV & Movies, Pop Culture (pictured), Food, and Sports. You can imagine this would lead to some very strange competitions, like "4. Simpsons Quotes vs. 13. Judd Apatow Projects" and "8. Things in a Can vs. 9. Best Non-Food Item Used as Food." After the first couple of rounds, they would get even sillier. I don't believe there will be any actual voting in this tournament; it's just food for thought. However, there is a downloadable bracket for your convenience.
There are also plenty of annual March Madness online tournaments that we told you about in previous years that are returning for more fun this year:
Fug Madness 2012 brackets are out; the play-in round is today and the first-round voting starts Thursday. Vote for the celebrity of the year!
Muppet Madness starts today! This year, participants are drawn heavily from the latest Muppet film.
The regions are divided into New Characters, Celebrities, Classics, and Old Favorites.
The Morning News Tournament of Books is open for first-round voting.
Hulu's Best in Show 2012 determines the best TV series of the year, first round voting is going on now.
A Beer in the Hand is preparing to run the 2012 Beer Tournament, and is asking your help in ranking beers for this year's brackets. Update: The beer bracket is ready!
The Romance Novel Tournament from dabwaha once again has a bracket of 64 novels ready for your voting, which begins Wednesday.