Warren Buffett Finally Gets a Winner: March Madness Tradition at BH Crowns Champion

For almost a decade, Warren Buffett wanted to give away $1M to one of his employees. Anyone. As long as they predict the perfect NCAA March Madness brackets. The odds of predicting all 67 games–with some basketball knowledge–is one to 120.2 billion. For context, the odds of getting hit by a meteorite is 1 in 1.6 million. You get the picture.

Buffett did, too. 

So, the sixth-wealthiest man lowered the bar in 2025. And, this time, Buffett, 94, has a winner who will take a $1M prize–0.00061% of his total wealth–home for the first time since the investment firm started this. Berkshire Hathaway, though, is one of many giants leveraging March Madness to drive employee engagement and brand awareness among Gen-Z. It has proven to be a winning strategy for everyone involved. 

The Berkshire Hathaway March Madness Playbook

Buffett started this content for his employees. Berkshire Hathaway and its five dozen subsidiaries currently employ 395,000 personnel–in 2016, two years after he hosted a similar contest open to the public. There was always a chance that no one would emerge victorious. So, Buffett put a $100K consolation prize as well for those who stayed perfect for the longest. 

For years, that served as the de facto first prize.

In 2016, two men split it by staying correct till 15 games, gaining $50,000 each. In 2018, it was split among eight employees who pocketed $12,500 each. This time, Buffett lowered the bar–anyone who predicts at least 30 of the 32 games correctly will earn $1M. They have a winner who predicted 31 games correctly.

What are the odds, you ask? Well, per an Investopedia analysis, it’s not very favorable for anyone who enters: 

Per the NCAA’s record, the highest a person could carry the perfect streak was 49 in 2019. So, given the low chances of winning, why do people still take part? While the prize pool dominates the conversation, there is a bigger game at play.

The Psychological Game Behind March Madness

For the fans, the appeal is quite predictable. They are already into college basketball; the March Madness and the associated frenzy just amplifies it. There is also the sweet charm of flexing your knowledge about the teams, your analytical skills, and so on.  

But what about the non-fans? Why do some people who rarely watch any college basketball games get very active during this period? That’s the most compelling case. 

The lure of money? Yes, but that’s not the primary reason. Not really. There is a psychological reason behind it: the thrill of competition. It’s hard-wired into our brains. Call it a residue of primitive humans or the ‘Endowed Progress Effect’ as psychologists call it–once someone is put into a challenge, they are more likely to stick to the end. 

Ever wonder why you love checking the Starbucks Rewards? The gamification compels you to compete – albeit subconsciously — against others. Notably, a 2023 study found that 57% of all US sales came from Starbucks Rewards members. It’s also why every fitness app now has leaderboards so that you can measure your progress against others.

Additionally, there is also a factor called the Underdog Effect. We secretly root for the underdogs to win because, let’s face it, most of us have been there at least once in our lives. So, everyone loves a Cinderella story, like the 2018 dream run of Loyola Chicago, and given a chance, they bet on it.

In light of that, the recent  Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey results among Americans are hardly surprising. They found that: 

• 25% of US adults fill out the men’s tournament bracket every year or some years.
• 16% of U.S. adults fill out a women’s tournament bracket either every year or some years. 
• 14% of US adults fill out both men’s and women’s tournament brackets some years. 

The survey also found that 7 in 10 who fill the brackets do it for the glory of winning – the innate competitive value rising to the fore. It’s also hardly surprising that the NCAA earns a huge chunk of its revenue from March Madness. The financial impact of March Madness is actually surprising when compared to other big events. 

March Madness is Bigger Than Super Bowl (In Some Areas)

The NCAA reported a record-breaking $1.38B revenue last year. Per some estimates, March Madness has a $900M share in that. Around the same amount ($873M) that the NCAA received as part of its new broadcast deal with Turner & CBS.

Moreover, the American Gaming Association has predicted that this year, $3.1B worth of bets will be placed throughout the month. To put that into perspective, during the Super Bowl, around $1.7B was placed in the wager.  It’s that time of the year when fans and non-fans come together, and the surge is noticeable even in our own internal data too.

Indeed, the 2016 Berkshire Hathaway contest had two polar opposite winners. One was a diehard fan of college basketball. He took leave from the office to get together with college friends and catch the games late into the night.

The other? He did some computer research, read betting analysis, and filled out the form. That was the first time he had watched college basketball matches in over 20 years. Brands know that this is the time to get their name out there. For example, a report in BAER Performance Marketing reveals that:

1. In 2023, within two days, March Madness-related content generated 1.5 billion impressions on X.
2. The Men’s Final garnered 14.69M eyeballs on ESPN, whereas the Women’s Final averaged 9.92M in 2023.
3. In 2022, FanDuel simply utilized the March Madness hashtag on X (formerly Twitter) to generate around 22.59 million impressions. 

Evidently, Berkshire Hathaway is not the only company to join the March Madness (or should we call it bracket madness?) bandwagon. There are a bunch of similar contests held across ESPN, USA Today, and Yahoo. 

How Other Brands Are Leveraging March Madness?

The perfect bracket still remains the best and most-used method of getting people engaged with March Madness. Take the ESPN example. The broadcast giant has created a three-tier bracket contest. 

• 20 prizes of $5,000 each for picking the national champion.
• 25 prizes of $1,000 for filling out 25 brackets. 
• $10,000 prize for those creating a group with 10 entrants.

USA Today also offers $1M to anyone with the perfect bracket and $25,000 for those with the best bracket. The NCAA itself has a bracket contest putting up two tickets to the Men’s Final Four. Yahoo Sports, on the other hand, has a $25K prize reserved for the person with the best bracket. 

Over the years, the March Madness contest has become an annual tradition for brands. It’s little wonder that companies, even one as big as and well-known as Berkshire Hathaway, want to be part of the conversation. 

The unpredictability of placing the wager–where there are so many permutations and combinations – makes it more interesting. Winning a contest is not always about picking the favorites. It’s about correctly guessing the underdogs as well. 

With a personal stake in the match, fans and non-fans are more likely to follow the games closely. The advent of AI and more precise betting tools offering deeper data insights has prompted more people to take part in March Madness contests. Brands that will be able to spot these trends early on and make tier moves will thrive in years to come.