ESPN is reporting that for the third year in a row the ESPN Men’s Tournament Challenge, the most popular college basketball bracket game for the NCAA men’s basketball championship, has set a new all-time record with 24.4 million completed brackets before the start of the tournament on March 20. That was up 10% compared to last year’s record of 22.6 million.
At the peak period of entries shortly before the start of the first game on Thursday March 20, ESPN Tournament Challenge registered more than 709 brackets per second. Overall, more than 1.1 billion picks were made.
The most popular pick to win the men’s championship is Duke with 25% of all brackets picking the Blue Devils. Florida is the second most-picked to win the final with 21%. More fans chose Duke, Florida, Auburn, and Houston to reach the Final Four than any other combination of teams, ESPN reported.
ESPN Tournament Challenge allows fans to track in real-time the number of perfect brackets remaining in both men’s and women’s Tournament Challenge games with the Perfect Bracket Tracker. The tool also provides insight on the games that have had, and could potentially have, the most impact on perfect brackets.
The ESPN Women’s Tournament Challenge continued to accept brackets until just prior to tip-off of the first game on March 21 in the Round of 64 between No. 6 Michigan and the No. 11 play-in winner Iowa State in the Birmingham 3 Regional at 11:30 a.m. ET on ESPN2. ESPN is the exclusive home to the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship.
