Only 0.2% of brackets picked Notre Dame vs. Texas A&M in ESPN Women’s Tournament Challenge

ESPN Men’s Tournament Challenge

Brackets in ESPN.com’s Men’s Tournament Challenge presented by State Farm and Sprint revealed that, while only 881 brackets (0.01%) picked both Connecticut and Butler in the championship game, 279,308 brackets (4.7%) correctly picked the Huskies to win the title.  Connecticut was the fifth most popular pick to win it all at the start of the tournament, behind the four #1 seeds.

The winning bracket in Men’s Tournament Challenge wins $10,000*.  The runner up will be named in a random drawing for $5,000.  A full round-by-round breakdown of picks can be found under “Who Picked Whom” on ESPN.com, listing the percentage of participants who selected each team to win in each respective round.

The 5.9 million brackets in Men’s Tournament Challenge this year surpassed last year’s record of nearly 4.8 million brackets by 24 percent.  At the peak period, fans registered 5,180 brackets per minute (86 brackets per second) Among them was President Barack Obama, who finished in the 87.4th percentile with a rank of 746,086 in the Men’s Tournament.

ESPN Women’s Tournament Challenge

Only 0.2% of brackets in the ESPN.com’s Women’s Tournament Challenge chose a Notre Dame vs. Texas A&M championship game.  Of those brackets, more than 56% of them picked Notre Dame to win it all.  An analysis of all women’s brackets reveals:

• 1.23% of brackets predicted Notre Dame to win the Championship, the sixth most popular pick;
• 0.98% of brackets selected Texas A&M to win the title, the seventh most popular pick;
• On the contrary, 31.1% of all brackets predicted Connecticut vs. Stanford in the final;
• Through the Final Four, President Obama currently sits in the 77.3rd percentile.

For a full round-by-round breakdown of picks, visit the Women’s “Who Picked Whom” page on ESPN.com.  The Women’s Tournament Challenge winner will receive a $2,000 Best Buy Gift Card.

2011 NCAA College Basketball Tournament on ESPN.com and ESPN Mobile

Across ESPN.com, ScoreCenter & XL app, Bracket Bound app and the ESPN mobile Web site, ESPN saw an average minute audience of 7,766 people consuming college basketball content alone on one of ESPN’s digital platforms at any given minute of the day from  Saturday-Monday (through the Final Four and Championship).  A total of 10.3 million visits of college basketball content from Saturday-Monday were generated, up 20% compared to the same days in 2010.  Additionally:

• ESPN.com logged 4.9 million visits to the College Basketball section, up 12% compared to the same time period in 2010;
• Average visits to the Tournament Challenge section on ESPN.com was up 20%;
• 3.7 million visits to the College Basketball section on the ESPN mobile Web;
• Visits to the ESPN Bracket Bound app on iPhone device alone were up 156%.

ESPN Bracket Bound is a free app that allows fans to manage their brackets and follow all the action in real-time, including news, video and a premium layer of exclusive content. ESPN Mobile also carries complete coverage from writers and analysts, keeping fans up to date on the latest news and highlights on mobile devices via a special section on the ESPN mobile Web.  Additionally, fans can sign up for ESPN Alerts to receive real-time information on the game (scores, starts, etc.), breaking news, upsets and more.

* Pending review of his entry for eligibility and authentication.

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