March Madness: Upsets Wipe Out Millions

0:00From the Daily News Now Network, this is Durham News Today, a record 26.6 million people enter brackets in ESPN's March Madness Challenge this year, up 7% from last year. Across all major sites like the NCAA game, CBS and Yahoo, more than 36 million brackets got submitted. But the tournament kicked off on March 19th, with instant chaos, as early upsets started wiping out millions right away. The very first games on number 8 Ohio State fall to number 9 TCU, busting 60% of ESPN brackets, or nearly 16 million entries. Then number 13, Troy lost to number 4, Nebraska, taking out almost 2 million more. The biggest blow came when number 12 high point, upset number 5, Wisconsin, just four games in, destroying over 7 million brackets that had, the Badgers winning. Wisconsin fans in North Carolina supporters felt at heart, with UNC falling to number 11 BCU and knocking out more than 300,000 brackets.

1:03Other surprises included, Vanderbilt beating number 12, McNeese and Texas A&M, topping number 7 St. Mary's, each ruining over 100, thousand more. Six of the 16 first round games ended in upsets, including both number 9 and number 11 seeds. By days end, just 10,754 perfect ESPN brackets remained, or 0.04% of the total. Those survivors face a steep challenge ahead, chasing the all-time record of 49 straight correct picks set back in 2019. With so much unpredictability already, it sets up an exciting run through the rest of the tournament.