re: Sweet 16 and Elite 8 monikers are childish

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I’m not sure when the Elite 8 began being called that, but I don’t remember as a kid in the 70s that term was used. Maybe it was.

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LINK

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CBS commentators started using the phrase in the late 1980s, after the tournament field expanded from 53 to 64 teams. Unfortunately for the NCAA, the phrase (using both “16” and “Sixteen”) was trademarked by the Kentucky High School Athletic Association in 1988, as a handle for its annual championship tournament. Perhaps mindful of the March Madness precedent, however, the KHSAA chose to bargain with the NCAA rather than litigate.

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“Elite Eight” was originally coined by the Illinois High School Boys Basketball Championship, the single-elimination tournament run by the Illinois High School Association. In 1956, the field was reduced from 16 teams to eight, and the phrase “Elite Eight” was born.

The trademark rights are now held by the March Madness Athletic Association, a joint venture between the NCAA and IHSA formed in 1996.

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So OP isn't wrong. It's childish because it appears they literally are tenuously and now legally connected to high school