Will President Donald Trump fill out a March Madness bracket?
What you NEED TO KNOW about President Trump and his March Madness bracket in 2017
This year, it looks as though we’ll be deprived of March’s second biggest bracket reveal — the presidential bracket. A new tradition, started by former president Barack Obama when he first took office, will meet its end at the hands of President Trump. This time, it’ll just be a bracket.
ESPN did reach out to the White House in an attempt to keep it going, as the reveal was typically televised by the network. According to an ESPN spokesman in a Washington Post article, the White House “respectfully declined” to participate in the Presidential bracket reveal. An official statement from a White House spokesman expressed excitement for other “opportunities down the road.”
The bracket reveal come about as a tradition due to President Obama’s passion for the sport of college basketball. The annual tradition of televising his picks, for both the men’s and women’s brackets, had become a feature of the week leading up to the first tournament games. Though the President’s bracket often featured heavy chalk, it was a good opportunity to engage with the nation on a level that’s not politics. So many of us are temporarily obsessed with the art of Bracketology in the days following Selection Sunday — seeing that it could be true for the President as well was an interesting annual tradition.
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While it’s certainly possible that President Trump changes his mind in the next few days, all indications for now indicate the Presidential reveal will fall out of the American vernacular for now. It could be resurrected down the road by either this administration or the next, as someone will soon surely realize what matters most to Americans – sports. For now, you will have to rely simply on your own picks to guide your bracket.