The NCAA tournament is well under way, and by now everyone’s bracket is pretty much busted, and with the help of Warren Buffett, Quicken Loans has pulled off the greatest advertising campaign in history.
Through Yahoo Sports “Tourney Pick’em,” Warren Buffett offered one billion dollars to anyone who puts up a perfect bracket. A billion dollars to anyone who can predict the winner of a few games — with no entry fee. An awesome deal, if it was possible.
The NCAA tournament is the most unpredictable event in sports. A field of 64 teams, playing 63 games, to determine one champion. In the history of the bracket, there has been no officially recorded perfect brackets.
This year, after the first day competition a total of 16 games were played and only .17 percent of brackets were still perfect. Not seventeen percent, point seventeen percent, and after Memphis beat George Washington on the second day of play the last of the perfect bracket were well, no longer perfect.
The other thing to consider is Warren Buffett’s net worth. The man is worth over 58 billion dollars, and at eighty-three years old, he doesn’t have a whole lot of time to spend that money. So Buffett offering a billion dollars would be like the average man offering a hundred dollars.
While some may see this as a shady business practice. They did nothing wrong, the billion dollar offer was legit, and people were just naive enough to accept an offer that would never pay off. It’s no different than giving your email to be entered in a raffle to win a free car, but when people are able to control their own destiny — by filling out their own bracket — they are much more enticed to accept the offer.
So while everyone was thinking they’d been offered a chance of a lifetime, which they had, Quicken Loans gathered millions of emails, that will turn into millions of dollars in increased revenue. Plus, Buffett got his name in the news, something he hasn’t done much of recently.
Well played Mr. Buffett.
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