I'd like to propose doing a tournament auction next year. Live, In-Person.

Here's how it goes:

We start with 16 seeds and auction teams off from 16-1.
There is no minimum or maximum. Each team goes for what people are willing to pay for them.
After all teams are auctioned off, we divide the total $ pool by the total number of games.
Each game winner wins that share of money for each game.

Example:
Let's say total prize pool amounts to $5,000 for the 64 teams. (This is a hypothetical. I saw Kentucky go for $5000 back in the early Cal years).
Total Games: 63
Each win = $79 (rounding)

Let's say Purdue goes for $500 and the 16 seed they play goes for $1. Whoever wins gets $79 for the first round, so if 16 wins you're in the green, but Purdue will have to go to the championship before they're in the green.

The more people that want to participate the better it gets.
What you do with your teams after you win is up to you (should you want to sell shares to recoup money, etc).
There is no limit on the number of teams you buy.

We could host at a local restaurant in College Station and rent out an area. We could potentially get Hop and TexAgs on board and host at TexAgs and turn it into a huge event, and we could even take 10% and gift it to NIL or some charity of choice.

I've seen these pools get to be outrageous which is why the shares in teams thing came about because the next day there are inarguably people regretting how much they spent on a team. The NIL or charity donation can become substantial.

It's a ton of fun just to show up and watch, and maybe take a gamble on some under the radar teams. I bought Marquette one year for like $100, maybe less. When Kentucky went for $5000 and Marquette made the sweet 16 or Elite 8 (can't remember). That was like $1500 or more if I remember correctly.

Interesting concept. Organizing something in person would be really tough, as it would almost have to be that Sunday or Monday evening. There are websites that can handle this sort of thing.

I did a similar calcutta pool a few years back and paid $400 for Auburn when they made the final four. SCUM refs cost me a big payday with the missed travel call against Virginia in the national semifinal. I still doubled my money, but making the championship game would have net me a lot more.

Need to also pay out for largest losses (top 5 largest losses or something like that). For example, if you pick a 16 seed and they lose by 40, then you win money. Makes the pot larger and makes the 16 and 15 seeds go for quite a bit.

I'm in!

the 16 seeds you pick up for $1 are just a lotto ticket. Why not?

But when you have 30 people thinking they'll just pick up the 16 seeds for $1ish, those seeds start to go for more.

What becomes real fun is when you get to like 10 seeds and evreyone has already spent more than they want and some of the lower seeds start going for less than the higher seeds did bc the newness wore off and now people are already ahving buyers regret.

It is a blast. and In person is the only way to do it.

If we could get TexAgs to sponsor it, it would be a heck of a party. They could hold the monies. They could figure out the NIL stuff or even create a NIL thing for a basketball player/s.

It definitely takes place on Monday/Tuesday after selection sunday. I live in Missouri, and would definitely drive down and spend a night or two to take part.

edit: all of that wasn't directed at you, just additional comments. we can figure out the details after we get buy-in by a lot of people.