The whole world is shutting down because of the Coronavirus pandemic but losing the NCAA March Madness was more than Jackson Weimer and Josh Safran could bear. Weimer is a recent college graduate about to start a new job in the gaming industry and Safran is a sophomore media studies major at Temple University with a focus on sports journalism. As the two returned to their homes in Doylestown and mourned the loss of the NCAA tournament, an idea was born. What started as a joke quickly turned into a reality. They would take their xbox360 EA Sports NCAA Basketball 2010 game (the last year EA Sports made the NCAA video game) and create their own bracket with all the current players and teams and then play the tournament for the world to watch. They are operating under the Twitter handle @coronamadness and their broadcasts will air on Twitch at twitch.tv/ebaumsworld. Weimer’s new employer, Ebaum's World, a subsidiary of Literally Media, is hosting the broadcasts. Twitch is a live streaming platform for gamers operated by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon. Weimer and Safran explain, “The idea is that our streams replace March Madness for college basketball fans.”
Safran and Weimer got to work converting the Weimer family basement to an impromptu studio and recruiting their production team, Louis Weimer, Jackson’s brother home from the University of Pittsburgh, and friend Ryan Gunsiorowski home from Penn State University. The tournament will run Wednesday March 18th through Sunday March 22nd. Weimer and Safran plan to play most of the games themselves but will also invite experienced NCAA gamers to play some of the games as special guests. The selection show is today, Sunday March 15th, at 5pm. Those interested simply go to the web page twitch.tv/ebaumsworld and watch the selection show and all games.
