The $1 million top prize offered by Warren Buffett as part of his annual March Madness bracket challenge went unclaimed in 2024. So they changed the rules up to increase the likelihood of winning, and that didn’t really pan out either. Not a single one of the ~40 participants got the perfect prediction required to win the grand prize. Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, loosened the rules of the challenge to generate participation and enthusiasm. No matter what he did, the ultimate jackpot remained just out of reach for players.
The anniversary competition began in 2016. Its intent was to incentivize anyone who could flawlessly forecast the Sweet Sixteen round of the NCAA college basketball tournament, popularly referred to as March Madness. During the course of the last few years, Buffett has made a number of these rule changes, starting by limiting the tournament to only 2 seeds. This most recent iteration let participants sign up for the prize competition itself. In order to qualify, they had to have picked winners of at least 30 of the 32 first-round tournament games. That’s exactly what 12 employees from Berkshire Hathaway managed to do this year—perfectly predicting the winner of all 31 games except one.
One anonymous employee emerged as the top participant by a long shot. This person is employed by FlightSafety International, a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary that provides a wide range of aviation training. This person went on to correctly predict 44 of the 45 games, an unprecedented showing that deleted the competition among their fellow contestants. While this extraordinary accomplishment should be more than enough to celebrate, the unnamed employee did not win the $1 million award.
Buffett chose to forgo the outcomes of eight games that included No. 1 seeds. He made this strategic move so the odds were better of awarding the prize. But even with this help, no contestant was able to accomplish the feat of a perfect bracket in 2024.
The challenge continues to spur creativity and innovation from thousands of Berkshire Hathaway employees. This increase is largely driven by the Oracle of Omaha’s commitment to ensuring the competition is as fun and fulfilling as possible. A year later, that $1 million jackpot remains unclaimed. That creates a great atmosphere in which to debut the work and anticipation and excitement for future editions!