U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris offered a “history lesson” Thursday to explain the recent resurgence of popularity in women’s college basketball.
The only problem? Her “history” is very, very wrong.
In a conversation with Spectrum News’ Tim Boyum, Harris stridently and confidently claimed that women’s basketball was gaining popularity because, in the past, the women’s tournament didn’t have brackets.
Do you know? Okay, a bit of a history lesson. Do you know that women were not. The women’s teams were not allowed to have brackets until 2022. Think about that. And what? That. Talk about progress. You know better late than never, but progress and what that has done. Because of course, when, you know, I had a bracket and it’s not broken completely, but I won’t talk about my bracket. But you know, just how we love we love March Madness. And even just now allowing the women to have brackets and what that does to encourage people to talk more about the women’s teams, to watch them now they’re being covered, you know, and and this is the reality people used to say are women’s sports. Who’s interested? Well, if you can’t see it, you won’t be. But when you see it, you realize, oh.
Sports Fan Kamala Harris claims the NCAA women's basketball tournament was "not allowed to have brackets until 2022."
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 5, 2024
As usual, she is wrong. pic.twitter.com/QaRSsngSxP
Oh? It’s more like, oof. Not only is Harris historically wrong in claiming that women’s college basketball just began using brackets in 2022, she filled out a women’s college basketball bracket in 2021.
So you went with #1 seeds. I thought you were a fan of #2s! https://t.co/lYGnY4lT9B
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) March 18, 2021
The real “history” here is that the NCAA women’s college basketball tournament has used brackets for quite some time. What is new is the adoption of the March Madness copyright, which started last year.
As Mediaite reports, “Mediaite reached out to the Vice President’s office for clarification and was told that Harris did, in fact, misspeak and that she meant to say that the use of the “March Madness” copyright was only made available to the women’s tournament last year.”
Of course, that’s not what she said! She said brackets, not March Madness. Nonetheless, at least now we know she didn’t fill out her bracket in 2021.
