[dropcap]A[/dropcap]nyone who knows me can tell you that I love a good sports wager.
I mean, I don’t always pay up—I still haven’t performed stand-up at an open mic night after the Red Sox’s disastrous 2015 season—but simply having a little extra skin in the game makes watching sports more enjoyable for a lot of people, myself included.
Which is why the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, which kicked off on March 16, is appointment viewing for so many sports fans. With the number of office pools and online brackets available to fill out, even people with no interest in college basketball have some reason to pay attention; namely, money.
But recently, I became involved in a March Madness pool that is, well, a little bit different.
In addition to taking part in our annual inter-office competition, not to mention the Review Championship Bracket which will be gracing the pages of our paper in the coming weeks, I have also been entered into an NCAA tourney challenge started by a friend of a friend known simply as The Mystery Prize Extravaganza.
The ultimate prize, as you may have guessed, isn’t cold, hard cash, but a mystery prize.
Here’s how it works: it costs $20 to enter, but instead of pooling the money and paying out to the top finishers, contestants are also asked to submit a potential gift in the amount of the final pot. The bracket winner then gets a randomly selected prize from the list.
Past payouts have included a personalized gold-plated razor, a vintage Street Fighter II arcade cabinet, an above-ground swimming pool and, my personal favorite, a “Point Break”–themed oil painting depicting the iconic characters played by Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze in said film.
With roughly 40 brackets entered as of press time, the budget is at $800 and still rising, meaning that the sky is truly the limit when it comes to picking the most insane, imaginative prizes. People have already thrown out ideas such as weekend getaways to Vermont, state-of-the art karaoke machines, and monthly meat deliveries from Kansas City Steaks.
I’m not sure I could use everything that has been proposed, or if some of the prizes would even fit in my apartment, but that’s just part of the allure of the whole competition.
So I, for one, am extremely pumped for this year’s tournament. Sure, I’m going to be rooting for my Villanova Wildcats to repeat as NCAA champs, but even if they get bounced in the Sweet 16, I know I’m going to have a reason to keep tuning in.
But if I win, I just hope I don’t get the above-ground pool. Otherwise, I’d better hope there’s enough cash left over for some swimming lessons.
