July-August-? Madness

The graduate school I went to has a good basketball team, and to that effect I became a big fan of March Madness. The year before I got to Albany, the #16 seed Great Danes faced #1 seed UConn in the First Round. Never - ever - in the history of March Madness has a #1 seed lost in the First Round. We came pretty damn close to making history.

My first year here we won the America East Conference tourney (woot) and faced Virginia in the First Round of the NCAAs, this time as a #13 seed versus a #4. Unfortunately, it did not go very well.

However, attending a school with a good basketball team has solidified my love of brackets. I didn't know how much excitement and happiness a bracket could bestow on my life. These days, I even closely follow brackets to see who Obama and McCain are going to pick as VP. A fellow blogger did a worst band ever tournament March Madness style. Wouldn't it be nice if all disputes could be decided in such a neat and logical way. Now, in that spirit, I present to you:

"The Best Color Scheme Among Flag Carriers ... Tournament"

Here are the rules:

1. I will break the world up into regions as follows: South America, North America (including Caribbean and Central America), Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia, and Oceania. The US does not technically have a "Flag Carrier" so there will be a "primary" to see which US carrier gets to play. The winner of each region and the US primary winner will give us our Elite Eight.
2. Color schemes will be judged on creativity, symbolism, design, and "sexiness."
3. The flag carriers in each region will be placed in a bracket (bracket size and organization will vary depending on size of region) and will be faced off against each other until a winner is chosen.
4. The Elite Eight contestants will be randomly seeded and bracketed.
5. Only flag carriers can play. Just so everybody is on the same page, a flag carrier is a country's national airline. The flag carriers were selected based on the extensive web-based research (read: looking up "List of National Airlines" on Wikipedia).

I think that covers pretty much everything. If any situations arise which have not been covered by the rules, they will be settled as they come up.

South America will be up first...

...let the madness begin!