It’s that time of the year again. Spring breakers are infiltrating the Price is Right and MTV, the California sun is starting to shine a little brighter and something that has gone on for months finally becomes important. No not your taxes, college basketball.

Let’s be real, most of us don’t actually care about the basketball. We don’t want to know about packline defenses, hedging screens or nail cuts. We want to know about who is seeded where, will a 16 finally beat a 1 and what 12 will upset a 5. If you haven’t figured it out by now I’m taking about filling out your bracket, March Madness!

Why do we love brackets? Throughout the year we barely talk about college basketball. A few stories do percolate into the discussion like Kentucky and their NBA team, a coach getting suspended (Shocker) or some local nonsense. However that is the small majority. The common fan is more likely to know the Eagles can’t decide what to do at running back, than the starting 5 of #2 ranked Villanova. Well at least until the brackets came out. Now everyone is an expert. You can’t take 5 steps without hearing someone talking about their bracket. Why is that?

The very first reason everyone goes mad for bracket season, is that they are easy. Anyone can fill out a bracket. The team with the lower number next to their name is probably better, and that’s all the information most people need. Why would Kentucky have a 1 next to their name if they weren’t best? Hey, this season even Vegas agrees with that logic.

You don’t need to find out who is playing, the names are right there. You don’t need to know when the games are, it’s all right there. Where is a team playing if they advance, right there again. Any piece of general information you’d need to know is all right on the bracket. Physically filling it out couldn’t be easier.

Not only is it easy to figure out who the good teams are, there are no repercussions for being wrong. No one has a perfect bracket. I mean maybe this year if you don’t pick Kentucky as your champion you are wasting your time, but usually if you pick any of the top ranked teams you should feel ok about your choice, and there is no need to feel embarrassed when you fail. Even the “experts” make lousy picks.

Easy to do and hard to look bad doing it are pretty good reasons to try anything, but those can’t be the only reasons why filling out a bracket cripples office productivity for a week in March. What else could make everyone from your mom to the president participate.

It’s gambling. It’s always gambling. Everyone loves to gamble. People say they don’t like to gamble, but what they really mean is they are too scared to lose money. Filling out a bracket is only a $5 to $10 dollar bet. Most people have no problem throwing that into a hat. Such a low risk that can offer a high reward. Who says no?

Once a person has some skin in the game they can’t turn away. They are invested. Every game matters. Every story matters. That first Thursday digesting all 16 games, scratching out losers, penciling in winners and calculating endless scenarios is an obsession. The joy of watching the Cinderella team you picked keep winning is real. It’s almost impossible to stop thinking about how you will spend your winnings.

America loves gambling, ask Las Vegas, and this is the most socially acceptable and sanctioned form of gambling around. So pay your buy in, fill out your bracket, and pick Kentucky. How can you not love that.