Transcript:
Loren Torres: The NCAA tournament is officially here — and while everyone is focused on the action, there’s another side to March Madness: the money.
According to WalletHub, the NCAA is slated to bring in $1.4 billion dollars in revenue for the 2024 college basketball season. And this season will end in San Antonio, where 100,000 visitors will make an estimated $400 million economic impact over the Final Four weekend.
An estimated $2.7 billion in legal bets will be placed during the tournament, but another $4 billion in illegal wagers will also be placed. All of that betting is sure to take people’s attention away from what they’re supposed to be doing, right?
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The average worker will spend 6 hours watching the tournament, which will factor into the $17 billion in corporate losses employers will suffer due to the dip in productivity.
And what kind of March Madness would it be without filling out a bracket or two… or 80 million. WalletHub says that’s how many people are projected to take part in a bracket pool.
And if you think you know enough ball to fill out a perfect bracket: you don’t. The odds of picking every single game correctly are 1 in 9.2 quintillion. One quintillion is equal to one billion billions. You have a better chance of winning back-to-back lotteries with only one ticket played each time.
That’ll do it for your daily briefing. From New York City, I’m Loren Torres with TheStreet.
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