The NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments are fully underway and have been providing us with an ample dose of March Madness. As per usual, there have been plenty of upsets and buzzer beaters, and, true to form, my bracket was hosed by the end of the first round.
There has been plenty of excitement, but something feels like it’s been missing. I wasn’t quite sure what that was until I saw the above bracket provided by Empire Avenue, a “social media exchange” that allows you to buy and sell virtual shares in any social media profile out there. Finally, we can turn off our TVs and put away our lucky rabbit’s foot, because we now know who the true National Champion is — the National Champion of Twitter.
Yes, Empire Avenue has provided us with a full bracket that tells us what team would become the NCAA National Champion were the tournament to be decided by Twitter account activity. Finally! Like a Klout Score, Empire Avenue’s metrics take into account how much activity the school’s Twitter account has, along with the number of followers, replies, retweets, and so on. The metrics prioritize the basketball team’s Twitter account, but in the event the team did not have a Twitter account, they used the school’s Twitter account.
As you can see in the image above, thanks to some late-stage heroics, the University of North Carolina defeats the University of Wisconsin in a thriller to be crowned the National Champion of Twitter. At this point, in comparing the Twitter bracket with the tournament’s actual results, it looks like the Twitter version wouldn’t have been overly helpful in making your bracket picks, but, then again, both UNC and Wisconsin are still alive.
With Paul the Octopus sadly no longer with us, and President Obama’s picks disappointing us yet again, perhaps the Twitter model will become our go-to basis for future picks. Or not.
After all, if my maths are correct, the chance of scoring a perfect bracket is 1 in approximately 9 quintillion. (Mathletes, please check me.) Give or take a bazillion. This means you have a better chance of being struck by lightning, or of Google putting your answer in its first page of results. Hey-o! So we need all the help we can get.
For Empire Avenue’s full bracket, click here.
