No one in your office is a college basketball expert
The prediction grift is old as time
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Dear Shaun,
I felt pressured to join my company’s NCAA March Madness Pool. We are a small company with less than 25 employees and we are for the most part a pretty close knit group. No one steals lunches, people get each other’s backs when someone may be going through a crisis, but with this pool there is a lot of pressure to be a part of it. I know very little about basketball, and even less about college basketball. Should I have to essentially throw $20 away to my coworkers and just pick teams at random just to keep the peace at work? Or can I politely deny?
-March Madness Muller
Dear March Madness Muller,
I want to let you in on a little secret. This honestly goes with almost all things in life, but especially with making predictions in sports, and even more especially predicting the March Madness Tournament. No one really knows what they are talking about. Our society has us believing that when someone has a microphone in front of them they have a good understanding of the topic at hand. This is untrue. The same can be said for people who wear a team hat or jersey or run an NCAA March Madness Pool.
The prediction grift is old as time. Our whole media world is grifting us. Steve Kornacki looking stressed about his predictions make it endearing, but he still doesn’t know for sure who will be president (that’s mainly because he doesn’t go to the Lizard People meetings). Baseball general managers can’t predict who is going to make it as a big league player, which is why each team carries five or six minor league teams to let them play and see. And college basketball talking heads will tell you who is going to win, yet no one ever has a perfectly predicted bracket.
This will be published after you’re allowed to fill out a bracket, however I will say that I hope you filled one out and gave your coworkers $20. Even more than a scratch ticket, even more than The Numbers Game, even more than Keno, you have just as much a chance to win that Tournament Pool. No one in your office is a college basketball expert. They are not fans, they are not even aware of most of the teams involved. Even though you stated in your missive that you “know very little about basketball” I can assure you that you know almost as much as most people. Sure, they may know the rules and you don’t. But truly, that may be the only difference. You are essentially on the same playing field.
Any dude in an office who says they know what they are talking about doesn’t. They are posturing. If they were a college basketball expert they wouldn’t be working in your office. They would have a job at ESPN, Fox Sports, or at a school’s athletic department to help with development. Jeremy in Accounts doesn’t know ball. I played competitive basketball for 25 years and I barely know ball. I averaged 20 points my senior year in high school and I have never won or sometimes even come close to winning my bracket. I coached junior varsity and varsity basketball for five years and still don’t know enough ball to make a prediction.
There is a reason they invite 68 teams to play in this tournament: ad revenue. After that, it is to see who has the chance to win it all. They give all 68 teams a chance. They have to play the games. They don’t just hand the trophy to a team, they make them earn it. You got to play the game to win. And the odds are pretty good. Just play!
Maybe just maybe you’ll get really into it and be one of those idiots who call sports talk radio. You know just as much as the other callers and the hosts!
NEWS
I’ve got a fun week of shows! Thursday I am at Charlie’s Kitchen, tickets are $15 and the burgers are amazing. Friday we have Hot Dog! Bryan O’Donnell, Eric Yankus-Franco and I made a pretty cool promo video for it. That show is always free and starts at 8PM. Then Saturday I am on a Teacher-themed show at the Hotel Vernon. Tickets for that are here.
And of course I got to plug The Sort of Late Show on March 28th at Off the Rails. We’ll have musical guest Melo Green, comedian Rob Pierce, and our very special guest hardcore punk legend Patrick Flynn. Pat is the front man of Have Heart, a wildly successful hardcore band out of Boston. He currently also fronts Fiddlehead, a commercial and critical success. Pat is known for heart-on-his-sleeve lyrics that are honest and intelligent. This interview is one you’re not going to want to miss. Get tickets here.
Send any and all questions to woocomedyweek@gmail.com with the subject line "Bad Advice."