Warren Buffett's million-dollar March Madness contest returns, and his employees need Creighton to go deep
March Madness is back, and so is Warren Buffett’s (almost) annual giveaway for having a strong bracket. And that means someone has a change to win $1 million for the rest of their lives if they can correctly predict all of the Sweet 16 teams.
The 90-year-old billionaire’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, is bringing back its employee competition for the men’s NCAA tournament after it didn’t happen last year — along with the tournament itself — because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bloomberg reported.
And the potential prize money is broken into tiers.
First — in what seems like perhaps the “easiest” path to a win — Buffett’s company will give $100,000 to the employee who accurately picks the winner of the most games before an incorrect pick, per Bloomberg. To win here, they don’t have to be perfect with their picks; they just have to out-do their coworkers by one game.
Another way for employees to get a big bonus is by nailing the first-round games.
Berkshire will award an employee with $1 million for correctly picking each first-round matchup, and if someone correctly picks the winner of each of the first- and second-round games, they will get $1 million a year for the rest of their life.
But there’s more if Creighton — the No. 5 seed in the West Region from Buffett’s hometown of Omaha, Nebraska — wins big. Via Bloomberg:
Berkshire also brought out its hometown spirit, saying that the winner’s prize will be doubled if Creighton University, which is based in Buffett’s hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, makes it to the final four teams remaining in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s 2021 men’s basketball championship.
So if Creighton makes it to the Final Four, an employee’s winnings could end up being $200,000, $2 million or $2 million a year for life.
It’s not quite like the time Buffett put up $1 billion for anyone who ended up with a perfect March Madness bracket. But this still takes an office bracket pool to another level.