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For a decade, Warren Buffett, the billionaire “Oracle of Omaha” and Creighton basketball fan, has held a men’s NCAA tournament contest for employees of his Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate. Berkshire has around 395,000 employees in total among all its 60+ subsidiaries, and the contest usually gets between 60,000 and 70,000 entrants.
The full prize: $1 million. But no one has ever won the jackpot—until now.
In the past, the prize was $1 million every year for life for anyone who perfectly predicts the Sweet 16; in the 10 years of the pool, it hasn’t happened. The consolation prize was $100,000 to the bracket that remained perfect the longest; someone earned that prize every year, or multiple people split it.
This year, Buffett tweaked the rules, effectively lowering the bar to earn the million bucks: He said he’ll give $1 million to anyone who correctly nails at least 30 of the first 32 games. Buffett told the Wall Street Journal he eased the rules because “I’m getting older … I want to give away a million dollars to somebody while I’m still around as chairman.” Buffett is 94.
According to the daily updates sent to all Berkshire pool participants from “Chester Q. Brackington,” obtained by Front Office Sports, after Michigan State beat Bryant late Friday night, this year’s contest had “multiple brackets that have one wrong—meaning 30 correct, so we will have The Prize awarded.” After Oregon beat Liberty in the final game of the first round, Brackington wrote, “We have our first ever confirmed award of The Prize.”
It surely helped that the first round of this year’s tournament had very few major upsets. No 13, 14, 15, or 16 seeds won in the first round—the first time that has happened since 2017.
Buffett’s tradition dates back to 2014, when Berkshire Hathaway insured a Quicken Loans promotion that was open to the public and offered $1 billion for a perfect bracket. (No one won.) That promotion inspired Buffett to start a contest for his employees in 2016.
[Update, March 24, 11:10 a.m. EST: Berkshire Hathaway confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that one individual won the $1 million prize by correctly calling 31 of the first 32 games and remaining perfect the longest; the other 11 contestants who correctly called 31 games got $100,000 each.]
