It's that time of year again, folks! As the calendar flips from February to March, there is one thing on every sports fan's mind; March Madness. It's the time of year where people all over the country fill out their brackets to what they believe will happen throughout the chaos that is the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.
People of all different backgrounds partake in this national event. It doesn't matter if you follow college basketball or just print one out to get in on the fun, nearly everyone has filled out a bracket at least once in their life. There's plenty of strategies behind picking the winners, which range anywhere from breaking down the numbers to picking the teams based on colors and mascots. Some people will even flip a coin to pick their winning bracket.
Even with so many people filling out brackets each year, not one person can say they've picked every winner of every game. It has never been done. What are the odds of actually filling out a perfect bracket? I'm glad you asked. The odds of picking every game in the tournament right is 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808. For those of you who don't know how to say that number, it's 9.2 quintillion. Yeah, it's nearly impossible.
Some Duke professors actually came up with their own formula based on the fact that no 16 seed has ever won a game and the probability based on seeding and a bunch of other stuff that overanalyzes it more so than actually filling out the bracket. They say your odds are 1 in 2.4 trillion, but when can you actually say the number 9.2 quintillion?
This phenomenon has gotten so large that Warren Buffet is offering any of his employees one million dollars a year for the rest of their lives if they can pick the first two rounds with no losses. That is actually a completely plausible scenario and I think we may see someone coming out a winner. This is an easier version of his one billion dollar offer to anyone who could pick the entire tournament correct last year. But, as we've learned, you don't really stand a chance.
Some food for thought about March Madness, over 40 million people will fill out a bracket and about $9 million will be bet on the tournament. According to a Yahoo sports poll, roughly 14% of fans will take a sick day to watch the games, and MSN says that 56% will spend at least one hour at work watching the games. I still remember sitting in English class my junior year in high school hiding a phone under my desk so that I could watch a game with my buddy. March truly makes people mad.
Speaking of mad, the games are devastating. Most people will burn their bracket after the first round. Upsets are inevitable, and most people won't see them coming. This leads to frustration and plenty of heartbreak not just for the fans, but for random people who just picked that team to win.
Nonetheless, March is here and we are in for a treat. There have been more upsets throughout the year than any other year and there is no clear front-runner to take the title. With that being said, prepare for plenty of madness this March.
