🏀 The (Accidental) Perfect Bracket

Is it just me or does it feel like Major League Baseball is actively trying to limit its growth? I mean, they literally played their first game of the season at 6:30 AM CT.

I know they want to grow the game internationally and South Korea is a great baseball market…

But how about you don’t host Opening Day for two of your most popular teams (Dodgers-Padres) before the sun rises in the country where 99% of your fans live? 

Anyways, on to more pressing matters:

🗞 The Big Story: The Accidental Perfect Bracket

📉 Biggest Loser: Nike Is (Purposely) Ruining the NBA

🏆 Winner’s Circle: The Best Story in March Madness

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🗞 The Big Story

The greatest bracket in March Madness history was accidentally filled out by a guy who forgot he even made it.

Bracketology 101: Before 2019, the longest a bracket had been perfect was 39 games (they picked every first-round game and half of the second-round games correctly).

Now, the odds of picking each one of the 67 March Madness games correctly is about 1 and 120 billion.

But for one week, a random fan from Ohio came closer than anyone ever has before.

March 2019: On the first day of the 2019 tournament, 45-year-old Greg Nigl woke up feeling really sick. This wasn’t ideal because he and his family were set to travel to Vermont in two days for a ski trip.

So to recuperate, he called in sick from work and planned to lay on the couch and watch basketball all day, however, he was so sick that he never even turned on the TV.

Fast-forward two days later, and Greg felt well enough to make the 12-hour drive to Vermont during the Round of 32, however, he was completely unaware of the history he was making.

Dazed and Confused: Upon waking up on Sunday morning in his ski lodge, Greg had a message from a co-worker who said the NCAA was trying to get ahold of him.

Confused, Greg called them back on Monday and learned that he had accurately predicted the first 48 games of the tournament correctly.

That’s every game in the first two rounds, something the NCAA believes has never been done before.

But then they told him something he wasn’t expecting:

His bracket was in a group called “center road” and it was the only bracket in that group.

And what’s even crazier is that Greg has no recollection of even filling out the bracket they were referring to.

But as the NCAA representative kept talking, a dazed memory crept back to Greg. He vaguely recalled getting an alert an hour before the tournament tipped off on Thursday (when he called in sick from work).

He was out of it that morning but remembers filling out one final bracket just before tip-off.

And this was the bracket that ended up being perfect.

Luck or Skill: During the call, the NCAA offered to fly him and his son out to LA at the end of the week to watch his Michigan Wolverines play in the Sweet 16.

Greg agreed and embarked on a trip that included:

• A press tour

• $500 in spending money

• Rental car

• Hotel

• Tickets to the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 games

And that Thursday night, he hit his 49th straight pick with a Virginia win over Oregon, which meant he was 80% of the way to a perfect bracket.

Experts estimate that Greg had a better chance of winning the Powerball twice than picking the first 49 games correctly.

But then, as he settled into his seat to watch Michigan take on Texas Tech, he got a notification that Purdue had beaten Tennessee in overtime - ruining his perfect bracket.

Busted: Things only got worse from there, Greg missed on three of his eight Sweet 16 games and only one of his Final Four picks made it.

Not to mention that neither of the teams he had in his championship, Kentucky or Gonzaga, even made it to the Final Four.

The most ironic part is that by the time the tournament finished, Greg’s bracket probably would have finished in the middle of the pack in most bracket pools.

But at least he’s still the proud holder of a record that will probably never be broken.

📉 Biggest Loser

Nike is ruining the NBA (on purpose), and they’re paying $1 billion to do it.

Breaking the Bank: In 2017, Nike signed an 8-year contract with the NBA to make its jerseys, more than tripling the value of the league’s previous deal with Adidas:

• Adidas Deal (‘06-’17): $36.36 million annually

• Nike Deal (‘17-’25): $125 million annually

Companies, like Nike, justify paying leagues hundreds of millions of dollars per year because they know they can make that money back by selling replica jerseys to fans.

However, Nike was worried that they might have overpaid for their deal with the NBA so they had to get creative to ensure they could make their money back.

And what was the easiest way to do that? Create more jerseys for people to buy.

Mo Money, Mo Jerseys: According to a video from Baseball Doesn’t Exist, Nike has made 438 different jerseys in its first seven years working with the NBA.

That’s an average of 2 new jerseys per year per team.

For reference, Adidas made 150 fewer jerseys in their previous seven seasons with the league.

However, Nike’s plan worked, because between 2016 and 2022, NBA jersey sales increased by double-digit percentage points every year except one; completely outselling Adidas in that time frame.

But while doing that, they made one crucial mistake.

Jerseys ≠ Shoes: Nike thought that since their limited-edition shoes were so popular, they could do the same thing with limited-edition jerseys every year.

And since each City and Statement jersey would only be used for one season, it would drive up prices and demand.

But the company quickly realized that fans didn’t buy jerseys the same way they bought shoes, in fact by making so many jerseys fans started to complain about how far Nike was getting from each team’s original branding.

And what’s even worse, is that since Nike paid so much money for this jersey deal, the NBA let them put their logo on the front of each jersey (something Adidas was never allowed to do.)

So at least now when fans see the latest NBA jersey release, they know who’s responsible for these eye sores.

🏆 Winner’s Circle

This is the best story in all of March Madness and no one is talking about it.

Tragedy: In 2022, five-star recruit Aaliyah Gayles had just flown back to her home in Las Vegas after a successful showing at the Jordan Brand Classic in Chicago.

That’s when the 8th-ranked women’s player in the country went to a party with her girlfriend, Janaye Jackson.

However, the party quickly got out of hand when two men in ski masks entered and punched Janaye in the face. Aaliyah jumped in to protect her girlfriend when suddenly one of the men pulled a gun and opened fire on the party.

Janaye was shot once in the leg, but Aaliyah was hit too many times to count.

She recalls leaving the party in an ambulance thinking that she was about to take her last breath.

Aftermath: The trauma surgeon who operated on her said that the biggest challenge was finding all of the bullet holes in her body.

At the final count, there were 18; meaning Aailyah had been shot nine times.

Bullets ended up hitting each of her four limbs, even fracturing her left arm and severing an artery behind her left knee. In fact, her leg was so severely damaged that doctors considered amputating it.

Instead, Aaliyah underwent surgery to repair the blood vessels and insert rods to stabilize the fractures in both of her legs.

But still, in that moment, Aaliyah and her family thought her promising young basketball career was over.

Offer: However, one of the schools recruiting Aaliyah wasn’t willing to give up on her. And even though she had not yet officially committed to USC, head coach Lindsay Gottlieb rushed to Las Vegas to see Aaliyah in the hospital.

And when Aaliyah saw the head coach in her hospital room, she only had one request saying:

“Please. Get me to USC.”

And Gottlieb did just that, the school honored their offer to Aaliyah who underwent a rigorous rehabilitation program and returned to playing shape.

Recovery: Then, just 540 days after being shot by someone who is still unknown, Aaliyah made her college basketball debut on November 6, 2023.

USC is currently a No. 1 seed in the Women’s March Madness tournament, meanwhile, Aaliyah has played in seven games with the Trojans this year, averaging 6.3 minutes and 1.4 points as she works her way back to become one of the best players in the nation.

⏱ In Other News

• D.C. keeps basketball and hockey after all.

• The most revolutionary stadium in the country just opened.

• Lambeau Field almost had a dome, and this guy bought the plans at a garage sale for $5.

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👋 Happy Friday! I want to give a shoutout to Matt Throne. He’s been helping me dial in my YouTube strategy for the last 6 months, meanwhile, he’s been crushing it there himself.

He worked from midnight to 8 AM on Thursday on his latest video where he breaks down the Sweet 16. That’s dedication.