Here we are again. It’s hard to believe that it’s been a whole year since we began the bracket that crowned The Beatles as our champions. I had so much fun doing it last year that I figured we’d give it a go again this year. Our 2017 bracket will be to find our favorite sports movie.
The wife and I spent a good portion of this week picking movies and seeding them to the best of our abilities. Once again, many of our favorites are going up against each other and/or face certain demise in the first round. As usual, we tried to keep the personal biases as little as possible, but of course we made some decisions based on our personal likes and dislikes. Like last year, “scores” will be posted as the percentages from the polls. To help make some decisions as to which movies to include and to assist in seeding, we took an average of each movie’s Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, and Metacritic score or Ebert ratings if Metacritic hadn’t scored the movie.
I’ll set up polls in each round. To keep from completely swamping everyone’s Facebook and Twitter timelines, I’ll post the polls here and put a link up at the start of each new round on my Facebook and Twitter accounts. Give me a follow!
We could not find a way to include only 16 in each bracket so we had to have 2 “play-in” games per region. The Football Region saw Little Giants fall to Varsity Blues 54-46 and in the Adam Sandler play-in game, The Waterboy knocked off The Longest Yard (2005) by a score of 71-29. In the final play-in game, The Waterboy found its way into the tourney by way of a 55-45 victory over one of my favorite movies, Varsity Blues.
The Basketball Region started with a bloodbath when Semi-Pro came out victorious over Celtic Pride 89-11.In a much closer matchup, The 6th Man edged out The Air Up There 57-43. And continuing its winning ways, The 6th Man knocked out Semi-Pro 55-45 to get in.
The Baseball Region was the blowout region. The first play-in round was Angels in the Outfield over The Benchwarmers 92-8 and For the Love of the Game beating out The Babe in the closest game of the regional play-ins at 78-22. Angels in the Outfield found its way into the tourney via an 80-20 win over For the Love of the Game.
The Other Sports Region followed Baseball Region’s lead where The Mighty Ducks took out Kingpin 85-15 and Baseketball knocked off Stick It 71-29 in the closest game. And our final movie to make it into the tourney is The Mighty Ducks via a definitive 91-9 win over Baseketball.
So here is what you all came for — the final 2017 March Movie Madness bracket. Some big names didn’t make it and I know you may have issues with the seeding – please take it easy on me. The first round of voting will start Tuesday March 14 and voting will close Thursday at 5pm. The second round will begin on Friday. Starting with round 2, new rounds will begin on Mondays and Thursdays. This should be a lot of fun!
Links to the first round polls are under the bracket. Click on the match-ups and the poll should open.
FOOTBALL REGION
5 Friday Night Lights vs 12 Any Given Sunday
4 North Dallas Forty vs 13 Leatherheads
6 Remember the Titans vs 11 We Are Marshall
3 The Longest Yard (1974) vs 14 Necessary Roughness
7 The Blindside vs 10 The Program
2 Brian’s Song vs 15 The Replacements
BASKETBALL REGION
1 Hoop Dreams vs 16 The 6th Man
8 The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh vs 9 Above the Rim
5 Cornbread, Earl, and Me vs 12 Basketball Diaries
4 White Men Can’t Jump vs 13 Space Jam
6 Love & Basketball vs 11 Blue Chips
7 Coach Carter vs 10 Glory Road
BASEBALL REGION
1 Bull Durham vs 16 Angels in the Outfield
8 Fear Strikes Out vs 9 A League of Their Own
4 Bang the Drum Slowly vs 13 The Natural
6 Bad News Bears (1976) vs 11 Major League
3 Field of Dreams vs 14 Rookie of the Year
2 The Pride of the Yankees vs 15 Fever Pitch
OTHER SPORTS REGION
1 Rocky vs 16 The Mighty Ducks
8 Prefontaine: Without Limits vs 9 Cinderella Man
5 Caddyshack vs 12 Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
6 Invictus vs 11 Cool Runnings
3 Million Dollar Baby vs 14 Blades of Glory
The Clumsy Optimist 
Bad draw for the Mighty Ducks… they would have gone further against almost any other opponent but Rocky… also Moneyball vs The Sandlot is an early juggernaut match..
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Caddyshack vs Talladega Nights is killing me.
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