As the NCAA men's basketball tournament draws near, Warren Buffett, Dan Gilbert and Quicken Loans have made March Madness more interesting for college basketball fans.
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But the real winner in connection with Quicken Loans' Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge doesn't even need the tournament to conclude - it's Quicken Loans.
According to the Chicago Business Journal, Quicken Loans has just picked up 15 million emails and cell phone numbers to put in its data base by offering $1 billion to anyone that fills out a perfect NCAA Tournament bracket - meaning that all 63 games (excluding the first-round or play-in games) must be predicted correctly at the before the event starts.
Dave Vener, an executive with the merging Smith & Jones/Burst Marketing firm in Troy, N.Y., told the Chicago Business Journal that the contest is a marketing gold mine for the mortgage company.
Entrants in the contest must create an email account on Yahoo.com, give a cell phone number and answer some questions about their current mortgage situation. The contest will accept 15 million brackets before it closes.
"That's a humongous amount of data, and in the marketing world, data is king," Vener told the Chicago Business Journal.
He added that Quicken could sell the data to another company for a profit or simply keep the data and expand its own customer base.
Meanwhile, those who fill out the bracket, of course, must fill out the entire bracket before the games are even played, according to the contest rules. That means if the top-ranked Florida Gators beat the Albany Great Danes in the round of 64 on Thursday but has all their starters break their legs in the win, a contestant can't go back and select the winner between the Pittsburgh Panthers and Colorado Buffaloes to beat the Gators.
The Chicago Business Journal reported that the odds of selecting a coin flip correctly 63 times in a row are 9.2 quintillion to 1 (or 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 1). It does say that because games are not always a 50-50 proposition, the odds of getting the bracket correct probably are better than that.
For example, the top four seeds have never lost their opening games, which means that assuming form holds true, the odds are reduced to 1 in 576 quadrillion - which means you have the same chance of winning the lottery ... twice.
The Chicago Business Journal found a DePaul University math professor who calculated the odds at 1 in 128 billion, based on favorites and a fan's prospective knowledge about the teams and the tournament.
What is guaranteed is that 20 $100,000 prizes will be award to those brackets that have the highest percentage of correct games. That money, however, must be used for buying, refinancing or remodeling a home.
But even then, the Chicago Business Journal reports, at least 25 percent of that money must go to pay off taxes on the winnings.
Can the perfect bracket be created? Tell us @SportsWN.
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