Competition guide
NCAA March Madness
March Madness is the most travel-friendly tournament in American sport, because the sites are published years in advance even though the teams are not. A first-weekend session gives you four games in one building in a day, which is more live basketball than any other ticket in the country, and you do not need to care who is playing to enjoy it.
How the format works
Sixty-eight teams are selected on Selection Sunday and seeded into a single-elimination bracket. Four play-in games, the First Four, reduce the field to 64. First and second rounds are played across eight host sites over a Thursday-to-Sunday weekend, then regional rounds, then the Final Four and championship game at a single site.
Run by NCAA. FanForged has no affiliation with them.
A short history
The NCAA basketball championship has been played since 1939 and expanded repeatedly through the twentieth century, reaching 64 teams in 1985 and the current 68 with the addition of the First Four. Its cultural weight comes from the bracket: a single-elimination structure that guarantees upsets and makes the early rounds unpredictable by design.
Why fans travel for it
The first weekend is the best value ticket in American sport. A single session ticket typically covers multiple games, the crowds are made up of several fanbases at once, and the upsets that define the tournament almost all happen in those first two rounds.
How the calendar shapes a trip
Host cities for the first and second rounds, the regionals and the Final Four are announced years ahead, so you can book a city before you know who plays there. Teams are assigned on Selection Sunday, roughly four days before the first games, which is when hotel and flight prices in the host cities move sharply.
Planning around the NCAA March Madness
What catches people out
- ›Book the city, not the team. Sites are known years ahead; matchups are known days ahead.
- ›First-weekend tickets are usually sold as session passes covering multiple games rather than as single-game seats.
- ›Hotel inventory in smaller host cities is thin. Reserve refundable rooms before Selection Sunday and cancel what you do not need.
- ›The Final Four is played in a large stadium rather than a basketball arena, so sightlines and the atmosphere differ from the earlier rounds.
- ›Neutral-site crowds mean multiple fanbases in the same building. Bar districts near the arena get busy from mid-morning on game days.
- ›The women’s tournament runs on its own calendar with its own host cities and is frequently the better value ticket.
Traditions worth knowing
- ›Selection Sunday, when the bracket is revealed and the country fills one in
- ›Session tickets covering several games in a single day
- ›Upsets in the first weekend that reset the whole bracket
- ›A Final Four staged in a football stadium rather than an arena
Cities to build the trip around
Where this competition is worth travelling for, with transit and neighbourhood notes.
Los Angeles
California, United States
Los Angeles hosts more major sport than any other American city and is about to host the Olympics for a third time. The catch is geography: venues are scattered across roughly 50 miles of county, and the difference between a good trip and a bad one is almost always where you chose to sleep.
- Major venues
- SoFi Stadium, Inglewood · Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Exposition Park
- Best hotel areas
- Downtown LA · Santa Monica
- Airports
- LAX is the main gateway and sits close to Inglewood venues but far from Downtown and Pasadena
New York / New Jersey
New York & New Jersey, United States
The deepest sports market in the world, with two NFL teams, two baseball teams, two hockey teams, two basketball teams, a Grand Slam tennis event, and a marathon that shuts down five boroughs. Getting around is genuinely easy here, which is rarer than it sounds in American sports travel.
- Major venues
- MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford NJ · Madison Square Garden, Midtown Manhattan
- Best hotel areas
- Midtown Manhattan · Long Island City, Queens
- Airports
- JFK connects via AirTrain to the E, J, Z, and LIRR
Dallas
Texas, United States
The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex holds one of the densest concentrations of professional sport in America, but almost none of it is in Dallas proper. The football stadium and the baseball park are both in Arlington, roughly halfway to Fort Worth, and the basketball and hockey arena is downtown. Picking the wrong base here costs an hour a day in the car.
- Major venues
- AT&T Stadium, Arlington · Globe Life Field, Arlington
- Best hotel areas
- Arlington entertainment district · Downtown Fort Worth
- Airports
- DFW International is the main gateway and sits between Dallas and Fort Worth, close to Arlington
First-time fan questions
How do I plan a trip before the bracket exists?
Pick a host city you would enjoy regardless of who is sent there. Sites are confirmed years ahead. Book refundable accommodation early, then decide after Selection Sunday whether to keep it.
Which round is the best to attend?
The first weekend. You get multiple games on one ticket, several fanbases in the building, and the upsets that define the tournament. The Final Four is the bigger occasion but a worse basketball-watching experience because of the stadium setting.
Do I need to follow college basketball to enjoy it?
No. Neutral-site sessions with four teams and no strong allegiance are one of the easiest live sports experiences to walk into cold.
Part of the Basketball hub
Basketball suits bar viewing well, with a dense schedule that means there is almost always a game on. Playoff and Finals nights are the ones that fill rooms, and in cities without a home team the away-fan bar scene is often stronger than the local one.
Open the Basketball travel hubWhere to go next
Last updated August 18, 2026
Sources and verification
- NCAA: March Madness selections 101 Selection process, seeding and bracket structure.
- NCAA: what March Madness is, explained
Competition formats, fixture calendars, ticketing rules and session times change between seasons. Confirm with the organiser before booking travel.
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