Imagine jotting down 63 words on a single sheet of paper, with at least 32 words repeated once. And for that, collecting a 10-figure sum from one of the most famous billionaires in the world. Not too tough, right? Try one in 4,294,967,296 — or better yet, the odds to correctly select all 63 games of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament in March.
Last week, Warren Buffett, head honcho of Berkshire Hathaway, aka the Willy Wonka of multinational conglomerate firms, partnered with his company and Quicken Loans to offer a $1 billion prize to whoever fills out a flawless bracket. Unlike any golden ticket, this prize will likely go unfulfilled to the millions of contestants who participate.
So, by now you’re probably thinking, “Well, c’mon, the odds are essentially astronomical, but if I pour in all my basketball blood, sweat, tears and knowledge into a bracket versus just blindly picking and choosing, that $1 billion could help finance that underground water park I’ve always dreamed of.” The thing is, you would have just as much of a chance of winning as the aforementioned park existing.
For example, there have been seven upsets by No. 15-seeded teams ever during March Madness, and three have happened in the past two years. Oh, you picked Florida Gulf Coast to beat Georgetown last season?
The likelihood of correctly selecting an upset like that makes as much sense as if you filled out a bracket and mailed it to Buffett, who then redirected it to Sasquatch’s P.O. Box — only to later find the bigfoot has returned your bracket, adding a note that you two should meet for coffee sometime and talk about how ridiculous the “Hathaway Hoax” really is. And that whole premise makes entirely no sense whatsoever.
That’s what this whole promotion is: nonsensical. Last season, Fox Sports offered $1 million to the winner of a perfect bracket. Buffett and his cohorts are merely upping the ante to a contest that can’t be won. The contest is offering consolation prizes of $100,000 apiece to 20 of the most “imperfect” brackets sent to them, which may help entice some to participate in a quest for something so overwhelmingly intangible.
Come mid-April, those 63 words might as well not have be written in the first place.
@ColinHanner
ch115710@ohiou.edu
