March Madness

Current Season Bracket

## Seasons

2018 • 2019 • 2020 • 2021 • 2022 • 2023

**March Madness** is an annual NCAA style bracket tournament. Starting in 2018, the tournament has determined a fan-selected director #TheTwoFriends would cover. In 2020, a supplemental bracket was added on the Blank Check: Special Features Patreon to determine a franchise for special features commentaries.

## Summary

March Madness is an annually recurring event for the show, in which listeners get to vote on a subject for the show to cover in an upcoming miniseries.

Subjects of Blank Check miniseries' have long been a popular topic of speculation by fans of the show. Over the course of the podcast's history many potential blank check directors, film franchises, and even star actors have been bandied about. Mailbag episodes have often featured a number of questions about them, the Blankies subreddit often has message threads about them, and on the podcast itself #TheTwoFriends will themselves sometimes entertain various notions of who or what would be fun to discuss. March Madness is one way for listeners to make their voices heard in a collective action.

The March Madness event pits 32 different miniseries options against each other in head to head matchups until just one winner remains. Over a period of weeks during the month of March, each individual matchup is voted on by fans to determine the winners. Griffin and David also emphasize that every one of the 32 contenders is one that they would enjoy doing a miniseries on -- there are no Whammies in this bunch, no patsies, no fall guys, so vote freely wherever your own conscience leads you!

The winning miniseries is then slotted into the upcoming schedule.

### March Madness Rules

* Polls post on the Blank Check website blankcheckpod.com at or around the same time each day. Prior to 2022 the polls were posted on Twitter @blankcheckpod.
* Polls are open for 24 hours, new poll daily from 3/1 through 3/31
* Winner = covered at the next available opportunity!
* Loser ≠ they never cover them

## Tournament History

The tournaments began in 2018 and have grown steadily since then. Generally the winner of the tournament is covered in the fall of that year. After the launch of the Blank Check: Special Features, a corresponding franchise bracket has been part of the tournament available to Patreon subscribers.

### Special Features Tournament

*Main article: Special Features March Madness.*
Beginning in 2020 after the first full year of the Patreon, a corresponding tournament was launched to determine a franchise that would be covered as a commentary series. As with the main bracket, losing franchises still often get covered. Participation in tournament voting has increased over the years, but not at the same rate as with the main bracket. As of 2022, the tournament will remain on Patreon as it did not experience the same controversy as the twitter polls.

## March Madness Episodes

Recaps of the tournament have been appeared on the main feed and the patreon.

## Director Statistics

A trophy (🏆) indicates the bracket winner. A white/blue check mark (☑️) indicates they were included in that year's bracket. An 8 (8️⃣) indicates they advanced to the Elite Eight, a 4 (4️⃣) indicates a Final Four appearance, and a 2 (2️⃣) indicates they lost in the Finals. A gray square and a green check mark (✅) both indicate they were covered on the podcast and therefore ineligible for the bracket.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4  Fosse, Beatty and Brest were all said to be retired from March Madness after 2021 during the 2022 March Madness Update 1 Presented by The Chip Report. Keaton and 70's Altman were retired after they were eliminated in 2022 in the 2022 March Madness Update 2 Presented by The Chip Report.