In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, American sports have pretty much halted. The closest thing to televised sporting events currently is the occasional matchup of two professional athletes playing Playstation or a rerun of the 2012 Olympic Women’s Artistic Gymnastics All Around Final. When pitching for our 50th issue began, the NCAA basketball tournament had just been cancelled, leaving March Madness fans clutching their empty brackets, unable to bet on Gonzaga to win it all (which, spoiler alert, they never do.)
Fear not, as the staff at Loco Mag–remotely, in our Slack channel–devised the perfect tournament for you. Now that we’re 50 issues deep, we thought it might be time for a debate, or a bracket, of sorts. Editor-in-Chief Kate put each of the 50 themes into a bracket generator (because trying to seed them all was too hard,) and out came our match-ups. Here’s what Round 1 looks like–and we are so sorry for Kate’s handwriting:
And so, the debate began.
And Cold Open grabs the very last spot in Round 2. Since there are a large number of “first round bye” themes, there will be a couple new names popping up in Round 2. Come back tomorrow for more digressions and more theme arguments.
While you’re waiting, check out all of our past issues if we mentioned anything you may have missed! For now, here’s a sneak peek at the match-ups for Round 2:
