As we approach the 2025 NCAA Tournament, millions of college basketball fans will be filling out their annual March Madness brackets in hopes of becoming the first person to ever fill out a perfect bracket. And in anticipation of this, X released their own Bracket Challenge with an unprecedented reward for anyone who is able to do the impossible and correctly pick every game.
In a video shared on X’s sports account, the platform announced in a teaser video on Tuesday that college basketball fans should “get ready for the ultimate college hoops experience” to “have a chance to go to Mars.”
it’s almost time… 🏀
❤️ this post to prepare for launch pic.twitter.com/WTMvESTFHv
— Sports (@Sports) March 11, 2025
In a post from X’s business account, the platform officially announced their bracket challenge, partnered with their sponsor Uber Eats, announcing that anyone with a perfect bracket would win a trip to Mars as a part of the SpaceX program.
Those who are at least 18 years old and submit their bracket on X between March 16, after the CBS Selection Show, and the first game of the Round of 64 on March 20 will be eligible for the prize.
— Business (@XBusiness) March 13, 2025
For those who don’t wish to travel to Mars, anyone who fills out a perfect bracket in the challenge could alternatively accept a prize of $250,000 and additional perks involved with the SpaceX program. This includes 1 year of free residential Starlink service, the chance to train like a SpaceX astronaut for a day, an opportunity to send a personal item of choice to space on a Falcon 9 launch, VIP viewing of a Starship launch.
If we don’t see the historic feat of a perfect bracket, there will still be a prize for the top runner-up, with the best non-perfect bracket receiving $100,000.
We have of course seen numerous other platforms offer bracket challenges. ESPN, the NCAA, and Yahoo Sports offer a challenge annually involving a significant cash prize.
However, this is far and away the most ground-breaking bracket challenge to date, considering travel to Mars has never been successfully completed by humans.
Considering the recent setback that Elon Musk’s Mars rocket program just had earlier this month, it’s perhaps a bit of an empty promise to offer a perfect bracket winner a trip to Mars anytime soon. Not to mention how it could quite clearly be a significant safety risk for anyone who does by chance win this challenge.
Creating a perfect bracket is a statistical anomaly that simply may never happen. And currently, human travel to Mars is similarly something that isn’t exactly nearing completion anytime soon.
So if there is somehow a perfect bracket for the 2025 NCAA Tournament, it will certainly be fascinating to see how long, if ever, it takes for the person behind the winning bracket to be properly compensated.
