It's here! The most highly anticipated college sporting month of the year kicks off soon. With so many about to tune in, the team here at PWA thought we would provide some fun facts and stats to help you master that perfect bracket, win the office pool, or just to make you the life of the watch party.
We are entering the most unpredictable and chaotic few weeks in all of sports. How chaotic you might ask? Well take a look at a few of these stats showing just how unpredictable the big dance is.
- The odds of correctly picking the winner of all 64 games are 1 in 9.2 quintillion (that's a 9 with 18 zeros behind it)
- You would have better odds of winning both the Powerball and the Mega Millions jackpots in the same week.
- Warren Buffet is so confident nobody can do it; he offered a $1 billion reward for the perfect bracket.
- WalletHub estimates adults filled out over 149 million brackets in 2020, and we are still waiting on the first perfect bracket.
Let's look at some matchup specific stats to keep in mind for your bracket!
- A 1 seed had never lost to a 16 seed in the history of the tournament, until 2018 when UMBC defeated Virginia by 20 points. They are still the only team to ever do it!
- 2 seeds have defeated their 15 seed foes all but 9 times in the tournament's history, giving you a 94% chance of being right if picking a 2 seed to beat a 15.
- The most common upset predictions are the 12 seed beating the 5 seed and the 11 seed beating the 6 seed. Be sure to keep that in mind when filling out your bracket.
Here are some random fun facts to help you win march madness trivia night.
- The University of Connecticut is the only school to win the men's and women's national championships in the same year... And they did it twice! (2004, 2014)
- No 5 seed has ever won the championship.
- An estimated $10 billion was wagered on last year's tournament - that's 30% more than the amount wagered on the Super Bowl.
- Even with record turnout in the 2020 presidential election, the number of ballots cast for president (156 million) just barely ousted the number of brackets filled out that same year (149 million)
- Each March, America sees an increase in pizza and beer consumption, with pizza orders rising 19% and beer production jumping 3.5 million cases!
March Madness is one of the most thrilling games of prediction of the year. Whether you choose to fill out a bracket to win the office pool, for family bragging rights, or just want to have some fun facts in your back pocket, the team here at PWA wishes you the best of luck this March!