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Immediately following the Selection Sunday March Madness positioning, everybody and their grandmothers will be searching high and low for the most important Men's NCAA Tournament tool, the March Madness 2009 Printable Bracket. You will be able to obtain one via ESPN.com or CBS Online.
"It is the single most requested item out there," claims Payton O'Brien, Matriarch of the Gambling911.com website, which was anticipating a Biblical surge in traffic come Sunday, especially following the selections. "The March Madness 2009 Printable Bracket will also serve as the quintessential tool for all those office pools."
Not to be outdone, websites the likes of BetUS.com are offering million dollar March Madness bracket contests. Over 3 million people participated in online tournament contests, a study found.
"Given the levels of unremitting stress, is it any wonder that thousands of Americans experience degrees of mental dysfunction during and long after the three-week event?" asked Dr. Frederick Geisel, a renowned industrial psychologist. "Effects can range from minor and temporary emotional imbalance to more prolonged periods of melancholy -- or, its opposite, bouts of seemingly unprovoked rage -- to longer-term effects, such as acute clinical depression."
By the way, if you feel guilty printing 2009 March Madness brackets with your thought process being that you are somehow promoting deviant behavior in the office, here is something to keep in mind:
Nearly half of U.S. workers have participated in office pools and nearly one-quarter have watched or followed sports events on their computers at work, according to a recent survey by Spherion Corp.
The other 50 percent of workers probably either work alone or work in offices that are run by dictators.
"The main frenzy, especially for sports bettors, occurs the days and hours immediately following the Selection Sunday show right up to the first tip off that following Thursday," O'Brien said.
Last year, Gambling911.com registered record traffic for that period.
The official start of March Madness 2008 comes at the end of Selection Sunday March 15 and that process begins on CBS at 5:00 pm EST.
Don Shapiro, Gambling911.com
