Boston Globe Writer Really Wants You To Know He Won't Be Watching March Madness

Given the always-consistent magic that appears during March Madness and the fact that us Americans are addicted to brackets, everyone watches the NCAA Tournament. Wait, sorry, almost everyone.

Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy will not be tuning into any of the action.

The award-winning 71-year-old, who has been with the Globe since 1981, has not exactly been subtle over recent years with his hatred toward the current state of college athletics, one that solely revolves around money and NIL.

Shaughnessy is so passionately out on the NCAA Tournament that he wrote a relatively lengthy column in the Globe letting the world know that he won't be watching a second of the action.

"I’ll be sitting this one out. I’m not sure I’d watch the Monday, April 7 men’s championship game if they played it in my driveway," Shaughnessy wrote.

"Seriously. The NCAA men’s basketball tournament used to be great, but I have a hard time understanding how folks invest dollars and emotions in today’s farce that has almost nothing to do with colleges and universities."

One Boston Globe columnist wants you to know he will not be watching the NCAA Tournament this time around. (Credit: Getty Images)

Shaughnessy is far from the only person who sees college athletics as professional sports these days, but he does manage to portray those thoughts on paper (or a screen) rather poetically.

"Today’s NCAA basketball is unregulated professional basketball. Frothy fans boost their favorite school, screaming their heads off for skilled professional players, most of whom have zero allegiance to said college, and some of whom maybe never set foot in a classroom or interacted with anyone on campus outside of the athletic department and compliance office," Shaughnessy continued.

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As any legendary writer would, Shaughnessy even delivered a history lesson to his readers with an homage to memorable teams of the past.

"I’m not expecting a return to Holy Cross winning the 1947 NCAA championship with freshman Bob Cousy and a roster of legitimate student-athletes (probably Classics majors) who had no home court and practiced in a surplus naval airplane hangar atop little Mount Saint James in Worcester. I’m not asking for "Big Daddy D" Lattin and four little-known Black teammates from Texas Western beating Adolph Rupp, Pat Riley, and Kentucky in 1966, or Brad Stevens having Butler running the picket fence against Duke in the 2010 final," he wrote.

"Clearly, cash and cheating long ago corrupted the sweet amateur status of college basketball and it’s been decades since most of the players on the court had real connection to the schools represented on their jerseys."

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, obviously, and Shaughnessy being all the way out on the NCAA Tournament is more than fine. His line about not even watching the title game if it was played in his own driveway is objectively hilarious.

On the flip side of that, he's essentially talking to a wall with his boycott of the tournament. Ratings will be massive, Thursday and Friday opening round games will be cinema as they always are, and March Madness will reign supreme for a couple of weeks just as it always does.