March Madness has definitely taken on a new meaning. Two of the most ratings-grabbing events have converged on television: war and college basketball.

The NCAA men’s college basketball tournament, also known as “March Madness,” is consistently one of the most popular sporting events in the U.S. It eclipses the Super Bowl in gambling revenues. Games run from noon until after midnight for the first couple of weekends.

So when the U.S. attacked Iraq late last Wednesday night, CBS, the network which carries the basketball tourney, was put into a bit of a bind:

  • air the popular sporting event complete with high-priced commercials, or,
  • air the war — costly because you can’t run commercials

Obviously the war won out. But, due to a lack of mass bombings the first day, CBS switched back to basketball for Thursday’s primetime.

As both a journalist and an avid gambler, I was pumped. War and basketball. Upsets, heartbreak and endless statistical comparisons. With day two of Operation Iraqi Freedom seeing the Americans putting a full-court press on Iraq and my channel surfing going back and forth, it became increasingly difficult to discern which event I was watching.To wit, an interview where the reporter asks his subject how he felt about going out there today. The interviewee responded by saying he felt real good, calling it “a great experience,” and saying he just didn’t want to “screw up.” But this wasn’t Michigan State’s starting point guard, it was an F-18 Hornet fighter pilot, returning from a “trip downtown” to Baghdad.

The fact is, I’ve never seen so many journalists excited about war. The Americans in particular have been practically grinning continuously since slipping into their camouflage, and the cheerleading is making their basketball colleagues look downright somber. Missiles raining down on Baghdad are getting the same frenzied reactions as Travis Diener’s raining down of three-pointers for Marquette. As Neil MacDonald of CBC noted, many American reporters, especially the “embedded” ones travelling with the soldiers, are getting Stockholm syndrome. “They’re starting to refer to the army as ‘us’,” said MacDonald.

While the sports journalists look back fondly at last year’s shocking upsets such as Hampton’s victory over Iowa State, the war media have been replaying their own “greatest hits” showing footage from the first Gulf War.

The “long bombs” and “Hail Mary” shots of basketball are quickly being replaced by terms such as “shock and awe” and “e-bomb.” JDAMs (war) are competing with IUPUI (basketball) for best new acronym, and despite the impressive play of Syracuse’s Carmelo Anthony, it’s the MOAB (Mother Of All Bombs) that really has people on the edge of their seats.

It’s probably no surprise how U.S. President Bush is handling the situation. He could barely contain his happiness when his 48-hour deadline passed, almost smirking as he read from the podium. Let’s face it: he wanted this war, and being a football fan, this time of year offers the least distractions.

Although the “highlights” of the bombings of Baghdad are impressive from a visual perspective, they also encourage us to forget that there are people in the middle of those fires.

Ted Koppel can gush all he wants about how amazing the U.S. tanks are, but the audience will demand more.The U.S. media need to leave the hyperbole and hero worship to the basketball announcers. And perhaps the news media should also take note: both the Hawks and the Crusaders lost this year. In basketball.