The Unlikeliest March Madness Sponsor

With the recent turmoil on Wall Street, the phrase March Madness ain’t just about college basketball anymore.

And as irony would have it, the financial crisis and the NCAA tournament happened to collide on WCBS New York’s "Bracket Challenge" Website, where the sponsor of a contest to win a flat-screen TV was none other than fallen financial giant Bear Stearns.

A Bear Stearns banner ad—with the tagline "A great deal depends on working with the right people"—still appeared on the hoops site last week days after the firm was scooped up in a $2-a-share fire sale by JPMorgan. But by midweek, any hint of Bear signage had disappeared.

WCBS declined to comment, other than to say that Bear had asked the station to take down its advertisements until further notice.

But an ad that appeared on the site later in the week carried a bitter irony of its own for beleaguered Bear employees—a Monster.com banner asking: "Are you getting the perks you deserve?" and, better still, "Where is your career headed?"