Although the rules of corporate America (from remote work to fashion) have been changing over the last decade, one thing that has remained pretty steady is the old-school company March Madness bracket challenge. The college basketball tournament begins Thursday, March 20.
But if you work at $1.13 trillion conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, nobody has won the challenge for at least a decade, and Chairman Warren Buffett, 94, is getting antsy. So this year, he’s making it “easier than ever” for someone to take home the $1 million top prize.
“I’m getting older,” Buffett told The Wall Street Journal. “I want to give away a million dollars to somebody while I’m still around as chairman.”
In a typical March Madness betting setup, employees pay a small fee (off the books) to put in a pool and fill out a bracket with the hopes of predicting the teams that will advance. As the field dwindles from 68 all the way down to the Sweet 16, Elite 8, and Final Four, eventually naming one champion, the employee with the most correct picks takes home the pot.
However, the 400,000 or so workers at Berkshire’s range of companies, from Fruit of the Loom to Geico, don’t have to pay to enter, per CNBC. (Last year about 65,000 participated, per the WSJ.) And really, they only have to watch the first round.
The reason for the lack of a winner is Berkshire’s untraditional way of doing the challenge. In the past, employees needed a perfect first-round bracket. But this year, if an entrant picks at least 30 of the tournament’s 32 first-round game winners, they’ll get the cool million. There will only be one top winner, though, so if more than one bracket has 30-plus winners, there will be tiebreakers. Runners-up earn $100,000 each. The WSJ notes it has happened before. In 2017, five brackets predicted the winners of 31 of the 32 games. (But that year they needed a perfect score.)
If Buffett’s hopes are dashed and there is no $1 million winner again this year, a $250,000 “consolation prize” will go to whoever selects the most winners of the full tournament’s games.
“I hope it’s this year,” Buffett told the WSJ. “We made it easier this year than ever.”
Related: Warren Buffett Is Still Living Up to His ‘Oracle’ Nickname
