The Carbon Footprint of March Madness

It may seem as though March is a fairly random month to focus on the environmental, consumer and carbon footprint of sports, but there’s a very good reason for it. In addition to baseball spring training, college basketball’s annual championship tournament happens in March. In case you don’t follow the sports world, the tournament is often referred to as March Madness. It also happens to be the favorite sporting event of our Postconsumers content manager, which is why she selected this month to talk about sports. But unfortunately her love (and the love of many) is waning as the tournament takes on a decidedly more consumer tone. And that tone comes with a big carbon footprint. We don’t want to ruin your enjoyment of college basketball, but we thought we’d take some time to take a look at the (massive) carbon footprint of March Madness.

The Travel: It’s Neither Eco Nor Friendly

March Madness is a tournament that takes place at over sixteen different venues spread out over the United States and involving (at this count) sixty-six teams from universities all over the country. There’s also a predisposition to not ever have a team play at their “home” court. That means that for every round of the tournament the players, coaches, training staff and anybody else associated with the team has to travel to the venue. In a few cases, this involves buses. But for the majority of teams everybody is getting on a plane. And because the “student athletes” need to get to the tournament and then back for class quickly, it’s often a private chartered plane. And this doesn’t include the hotel carbon footprint for everybody who travels with the team.

But it’s not just teams and their staff that travels. Fans travel all over the country for a chance to get to see their alma mater’s team chase the dream of a national championship. That means more plane flights, more car road trips, more hotel carbon footprints and more general travel waste than even the NFL playoffs, which involve fewer games, venues and teams.

Pro Tip: If you are a fan traveling for March Madness, use these tips to reduce your carbon footprint.

Consumerism Creates Carbon Footprints – Even With Sports

Naturally, we at Postconsumers are most interested in the merging point between consumerism and environmental impact. And March Madness almost always comes with rampant, rampant consumerism. In addition to the official March Madness merchandise that most fans feel they need to buy for their collections, almost every single team involved in the tournament will also release their own team-specific merchandise related to the tournament. From t-shirts to commemorative balls to jerseys and uniforms that are only used for the tournament (and of course also sold to fans), the merchandising behind this sports event rivals even the biggest global sporting events – largely because of the massive number of teams involved and the general sense of rabid loyalty of their alumni fans. Whenever there’s large scale consumerism in the mix, the carbon footprint of manufacturing, packaging and simply the over-creation of “stuff” isn’t far behind. March Madness is more guilty of this than most sporting events.

And Of Course, the Impact of an Arena Event

Just pause for a moment and think about the carbon footprint of any event that happens in an arena. There’s the obvious scenario of all of the energy required to run the basics of the arena. There’s the water waste. There’s the travel footprint of every individual car that drove to the arena and then parked at the arena. There’s the massive carbon footprint of the arena snacks and food – all of which require energy to cook and individualized take-out food packaging. Then add into the mix the other big energy sucks like a jumbotron, individualized televisions in luxury boxes and even motorized carts to get around the inside of the arena. Now, multiply this times every day of the tournament (there are twelve days and many of those days feature an entire day’s worth of games). Once again, you’re looking at a carbon footprint that rivals any sporting event.

Look Inside … The Average Fan’s Home

But it’s not just the mass gatherings at arenas that cause the carbon footprint of March Madness. In fact, it may well be the individual fans who, en masse, contribute the most to the overall carbon footprint of the event (this is certainly true of the Super Bowl, for example). Think of the carbon footprint created by a single person sitting in their living room, running a large screen TV, eating takeout and probably drinking a canned beverage. Then multiply that by a couple because there are likely other people over to watch the game. Then multiply that by the number of games played in the tournament that year (it can vary slightly based on the number of play-in games). Then multiple that by the millions and millions of people doing the exact same thing in homes across the nation. You’ll see how the carbon footprint of individual fans can add up more quickly than the carbon footprint associated with the event itself – no matter how grandiose the event itself is.

We still love March Madness (even though there are an increasing number of reasons not to), but the carbon footprint can’t be denied. Our pro tip? Consider watching the games in a sports bar or other group location where people can centralize and decrease the per-capita carbon footprint. Or, skip watching the game and go outside and shoot some hoops yourself!

Did we miss a factor in the carbon footprint of March Madness that you want to share with us? If so, just tell us about it on one of the social media channels below.