Five Benefits of Doing a Family Bracket Challenge

We’re only days away from the annual national obsession with college basketball that is March Madness® with over 64 teams vying to hoist the national champion’s trophy at the end of a grueling bracket of elimination games.

With the onset of the tournament comes the annual tradition in offices, churches, classrooms, dorms, and homes of bracket challenges. People who follow college basketball closely, as well as those who don’t even know who the teams are and how to play the game, fill out brackets guessing winners at every round of the tournament.

Have you considered putting together a family bracket challenge?

If not, here are 5 reasons we’d urge you to pull your family together, young and old, sports fans and non-fans alike, for your very own bracket contest:

1. It’s something that can create competitive, but accessible, fun.

Anyone can do it. The unpredictability of the tournament gives your 8-year-old as good a chance of winning as your 18-year-old or your 80-year-old grandfather.

2. It’s something that creates a family event out of the sports calendar.

Even if few or none of you are fans of college basketball, the contest makes the sport more interesting. If everyone in the family has a stake in the outcomes, you’ll discover that the tournament can become a fun, unifying moment for the family. For a few weeks, everyone will be interested in the sports highlights after every round is done.

3. It’s something that bonds the family.

Through the thrill of victory and agony of defeat, you’ll have teachable moments to help your kids learn how to be good winners and good losers. You can cheer each other when someone succeeds, and console each other when someone guesses wrong.

4. It extends some focused family fun for weeks.

Unlike some family events in the calendar year that come and go quickly, this tournament takes almost a full month from start to finish.

5. It creates a family tradition.

Have fun with it! Create a trophy that becomes part of your tradition, which can be carried on for years. Find ways to create contests within the contest to keep the family’s interest invested from round to round. Maybe add bonus points for guessing how many points are scored, fouls are committed, etc.

However you go about it, I hope you’ll give it a go this year with your family. Sports can be a great tool to pull your family into your interests, and create some fun and lasting memories for years to come!