Omaha Mavericks

Warren Buffett offers employees $1M a year for life for correctly picking NCAA Sweet 16

Published Feb. 27, 2017 12:16 p.m. ET

Brett Smiley

Billionaire Warren Buffett announced on CNBC on Monday a nice perk for Berkshire Hathaway employees: one million dollars a year for life for correctly predicting the NCAA men's basketball tournament Sweet 16 teams.

Back in 2014, The Oracle of Omaha offered one billion dollars to anyone at all who predicted the entire bracket perfectly, which no one came close to accomplishing. Last year Buffett rewarded the Berkshire employees who predicted the most consecutive winners during the tournament (from the opening day) with a purse of $100,000.

"We also have a prize of $100,000 for whoever goes the furthest," Buffett said. "Last year, we had two fellows that tied. One of them knew a lot about basketball; the other didn't know anything about basketball, but they each got $50,000 out of it."

Getting even the Sweet 16 correct is awfully difficult. In 2014, only 14 entries out of 11.57 million ESPN bracket entries correctly pegged the Sweet 16 teams.

Buffett said he expects more than 100,000 contest entries this year from Berkshire employees (and its many subsidiaries), which would be an increase on last year's 85,000-plus.

To any Berkshire employees: just choose winners based on mascot or color and you'll be in as good as shape as anyone.

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