I grew up in Kentucky, where if my parents were allowed to arrange my marriage, my spouse would be chosen not based on political party, religious background, or level of income, but rather on basketball team affiliation. I would be completely disowned if I were to marry a Louisville fan instead of a UK fan. While fans across the country might not be quite as extreme in their dedication as my fellow Wildcats, everyone is just as dedicated to their basketball teams winning it all during March Madness.
To celebrate this great time of year, Rock the Vote sponsored our own March Madness tournament to offer our mobile subscribers the chance to predict the winner of the NCAA tournament, with one correct texter winning an awesome Rock the Vote prize pack.
In total, 291 people voted for a team, with votes clearly divided between logical guesses and pure school spirit.
People were cheering for 30 different schools to take the number one spot, with the most votes going to Ohio State (71), Kansas (45), Duke (41), and Texas (18). Like many presidential campaigns, early front runners quickly lost pace, and each of these teams lost before making it to the championship game.
A few voters managed to select one of the Final Four teams to win it all, but those votes were by far a minority. Nobody chose VCU, 3 chose Butler, 7 chose Kentucky, and 7 chose the ultimate victor, Connecticut. Of the much larger 5.8 million brackets submitted on ESPN, there were only two people to correctly select these top four teams, but zero to have a completely accurate bracket.
Jake Diliegro, from Denton, Texas, was our lucky winner. His reasoning behind choosing UConn was that “they’ve always been one of my favorite teams and I just had a feeling they would go all the way this year.” Maybe next year I’ll ask him for some advice on who to choose for my number one pick, but I can tell you now that if it’s not Kentucky, I will probably ignore his sage wisdom.
If you want to be a part of future mobile contests and election reminders, text VOTE to RTVOTE (788683).
