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Free March Madness Bracket Challenge!

For any true sports fan, March ushers in one of the most glorious times of the year.  Yes, the college basketball regular season has been rendered uninteresting as a result, but you can't have it both ways.  College Football has the most compelling regular season of any sport on any level, but the worst champion selection method on the planet.  College Basketball, on the other hand, has a mediocre regular season, but the best post season of any sport on any level.

March Madness, where anything can happen.  Where small town sensations become heroes in the blink of a buzzer beater.

March Madness, when hours upon hours of office time are spent breaking down one another's bracket.

March Madness, where you can enter free contest for real prizes!

Woohoo!  It's that last one that I'm excited about.  So, how many brackets have you filled out so far?  There are a number of sites that allow you to complete a bracket for free.  You'll be competing against thousands, or millions of other brackets, but if by some fluke you win, you can win some serious prizes.  Don't worry if you don't know anything about basketball.  How many times have you heard about Shirley from Accounting who won the office pool because she picked based on team colors?

Here are the sites that host free bracket challenges with links and the top prizes:

LAMoneyGuy's College Football Computer Ranking Week 14

Championship Saturday.  As far as the BCS goes, Ohio State, as you know, is in.  USC played itself into a position to go to Glendale with a win over cross town rival, UCLA.  13.5 points favorite.  Seven straight wins.  Most of them of the blow out variety.  No problem, right?  Think again.  The Trojans go down, and the only debate that remains is, Michigan or Florida.  For what it's worth, I think Florida deserves to go.  It's not even close.  Two reasons:

1.  Quality wins.  Top wins for Michigan are 11-1 Wisconsin, 10-2 Notre Dame and 8-4 Penn State.  Top wins for Florida are 10-2 LSU, 10-3 Arkansas, and 9-3 Tennessee.  But don't be fooled by Wisconsin.  They avoided the best team in their conference, Ohio State, and played Bowling Green, San Diego State and Buffalo out of conference.
2.  Conference championship.  Yes, wildcard teams in the NFL or MLB sometimes win the Super Bowl or World Series.  But this isn't the pros.  There is not a playoff system in college football.  If there was an eight team playoff, I would welcome Michigan or LSU.  If we are trying to pick only two teams based on 12 game schedules among 119 teams, conference runners up cannot be taken seriously.

LAMoneyGuy's College Football Computer Ranking Week 12

#1 vs. #2 proved to be a close, if not edge of your seat type of game.  Ohio State prevailed in a game that, outside of a brilliant opening drive by Michigan, they never truly seemed in danger of losing.  USC held up their end against a solid Cal team, setting up the most heated BCS debates since the last time USC had a regular season loss.  That year, USC lost to a huge underdog Cal team, which cost them a spot in the BCS championship game, even after Oklahoma got pounded by K-State in their conference championship game.

It's late November, which means that it's time to gorge on some turkey and debate the BCS.

My picks and results:

How much would you spend for tickets to the Big Game?

Ohio State and Michigan.  It's right up there with Yankees-Red Sox, Lakers-Celtics, USC-Notre Dame.  One of the oldest rivalries in sports, dating back to 1897.  Two of the most storied college football programs in the country.  When they meet this Saturday it will be the first ever meeting of #1 vs #2 in this series.  Winner goes to the BCS championship game for a shot at history.

So, it's no surprise that tickets are in serious demand.  But do you have any idea how much they are going for?  I found this one on Ebay going for about $900 per ticket.  Well, they must be 50 yard line seats, right?  Wrong.  They're somewhere around the 10 yard line, maybe closer to the endzone.

A buddy of mine had Rose Bowl tickets last year for the "game of the century" (as about two or three games every year are dubbed).  He sold them and took his girlfriend on a trip to Rome with the proceeds.  He's a USC fan, so he made the right choice.  But what if he was a die hard Longhorn fan?  Missing that classic would be a tough pill to swallow.

This question isn't for non-sports fans.  There's just no way non-sports fans can understand the value that hard core sports fans place on being at the biggest games.  Every year we see Super Bowl tickets going for thousands of dollars.  Same for the NBA finals.  Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl all fetch hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per ticket.

But it's a gamble.  You may spend a thousand bucks, travel halfway across the country, only to see your team blown out of the game before halftime.  Or you might just witness an epic finish like 2005 USC-Notre Dame, Kirk Gibson's home run in game 1 of the 1988 World Series or Stanford-Cal "The band is on the field!"

Those are moments and memories that will last a lifetime, and others will talk about forever.  Will we ever stop talking about Ali-Frazier, Miracle on Ice, Wilt Chamberlain's 100 point game?  If you knew that was about to happen, how much would you have paid to be there?  If you are a fan of Rutgers football and they make it to the championship game, this may literally be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

So, what is it worth to you?  How much would you pay to see your team in the big game?

Posts I liked this week

Seriously, you need to read these posts.

Steve at Adventure Money parodies CNNMoney's Millionaires in the Making with his story of Hundredaires in the Making.

Jim at Blueprint started a fun meme, My Best and Worst Money Moves Ever (so far)!  Eight other PF bloggers have joined in the fun, including myself.  They're all worth the read!

Frugal at My First Million at 33 shares his thoughts on the markets.  All of them, from equities to bonds to commodities to housing.  It's a very sound analysis.  I highly recommend giving it a read.

Frank has been doing some work on his net worth goals.  It started with some thoughts about how he can reach his goal of $4.5 million by 45.  He then delved into the assumed growth of his assets in two parts, the first about retirement accounts and the second about real estate.

That's all.  Now for my college football picks for the week.  Last week was a good week for me, going 7-3.  That puts me at 22-17-1 overall since I started picking against the spread.

Read these Personal Finance Blog Posts!

Ahh... glorious November.  The leaves are changing colors, the air is crisp...  Well, okay, not here.  But somewhere it is, and I love the thought of it.  With Halloween candy in our bellies, the holiday season of glutony has officially begun!  Before you know it, you'll be washing down a turkey leg with some cranberry sauce and homemade stuffing!  Top it all off with some pumpkin pie... Oh man, get me to a treadmill!

Here are some Personal Finance Blog posts that you really should read.

The 100 by 30 project reminds us of the power that is compounding interest.

What is your time worth?  Can you calculate it by how much you make in your job?  How about when you are doing laundry?  Him and Her spend 54 hours per year doing laundry.  And spend $288 doing it.  They would save time, but it would cost them more money to send it off to a laundry service.

Cap drove to San Francisco, but should have flown.

Easy Change found a way to exercise regularly without the cost of a gym membership.

Amanda is back from what sounds like a fabulous trip!  She has some tips for the budget conscious traveler.

See below for my college football picks.  I had another sub .500 record last week, but am still in positive territory at 15-14-1 since I started picking against the spread.

Top 10 Most Affordable College Football Towns

Ah, I can see someone at CNN has been reading my blog!  Well, okay, maybe not.  But when an article, even loosely related to college football appears on CNNMoney.com, I can't help but feel a little warm and fuzzy inside.

They ranked the price of real estate in the towns for all 119 colleges with Division 1-A football programs.  In order to make an apples to apples comparison, they used the same paramaters for every town:  2,200 square foot, single family house, four bedrooms, two and a half baths, family room, two car garage in a "middle management type neighborhood."  I follow them right up until that last criterium.  Can't say I know what "middle management type neighborhood" means or how you measure it.

No big surprise in the results, the Pac-10 ranks as the most expensive.  Stanford, UCLA and USC are the top three, in that order.  Stanford and UCLA are to be expected.  USC is a bit surprising.  I guess that's where that whole, "middle management type neighborhood" part comes in.  Problem is, I don't know where that neighborhood would be.  Fellow California schools, San Jose State and Cal, round out the top five.  All five were in the seven figures.

At the bottom, Tulsa, Southern Miss and Ball State are the three cheapest at $151,238 and under.  The first traditional football power to make the cheapest list, is perhaps the biggest traditional power of them all, Notre Dame.  Turns out it only costs $181,066 for a four bedroom house with all the fixin's, in a middle management type neighborhood in South Bend Indiana.  Don't understand why Rudy needed to sleep in the facilities closet.

Heck, maybe I should pool some money with some college buddies and buy a house in South Bend.  We can rent it out on gamedays.  It would probably pay for itself in a few years if Notre Dame stays in the top 10.  Or maybe not.  Besides, I'd have to start rooting for Notre Dame.

LAMoneyGuy's College Football Computer Ranking Week 8

So, what are we calling last weekend?  Survival Saturday?  "Phew, that was close" Saturday?  Eight of the top ten BCS teams went into games last week (USC and Florida had bye weeks), heavily favored and five of them came away with closer than expected wins.  Not to mention Tennessee at #11 doing the same.  The monumental upsets didn't happen, but it became ever more clear that this year consists of Ohio State and everybody else.

As far as my picks are concerned, this week reminded me why I make predictions on paper (keyboard) and not in a Vegas sportsbook.  Here are my results and my updated rankings for the week:

Personal Finance Blog Roundup, and College Football Schedule

Another week of great reading from all of our friends in the Personal Finance Blogger community.  Here are some of the posts that I really enjoyed:

D from Divorce to Financial Freedom bought some life insurance for her kids at a young age.  Now she is wondering at what age should the kids take over responsibility for keeping the life insurance in force.

Congrats to CityGirl for her outstanding MCAT scores!  That is one smart cookie we got blogging over there.

2Million set a savings goal for his wedding budget.  It's exciting stuff, but I also feel his anxiety.  It sounds like he and I are very much in the same place right now.

Don't forget, the Bogleheads' October Project continues at All Financial Matters.  They have all been very good reviews, but I really want to point out Cap's witty and spot on review of Chapter 16, "Do You Need and Advisor?"

That's all, have a great weekend, and don't forget to see my college football picks.  Remember, if you bet based on my picks and make some money, send me some.  If you lose, don't blame me.  I'm not betting, you shouldn't either.

LAMoneyGuy's College Football Computer Ranking Week 7

Another #2 goes down in what appears to be the cursed poll position.  Here are my picks, and how I did against the spread.

(23)Iowa at (68)Indiana, line: Iowa -19.5.  "Take Gene Hackman's team (I know, I know, different Hoosiers) with the points."  Result: Indiana 31, Iowa 28.  Wow!  I wasn't expecting the upset, but the Hoosiers sure beat the spread.  My Record:  1-0.

(72)Minnesota at (22)Wisconsin, line:  Wisconsin -8.5.  "the red teams wins the battle of the rodents and covers the spread."  Result:  Badgers 48, Gophers, 12.  "Bring on the Beavers," say the Badgers in the big win over the Gophers.  Wisconsin easily covers the spread.  My Record 2-0.

(47)Florida State at (115)Duke, line:  FSU -23.  "Duke probably wouldn't beat my local community college, but FSU couldn't put up 23 points in Arena Ball.  Take Duke and the points."  Result:  My local community college 24, Arena Ball 51.  So, I was wrong.  FSU could probably compete with the Kansas City Brigade.  My Record 2-1.

(1)Ohio State at (50)Michigan State, line:  OSU -14.5.  "The Buckeyes will cover and then some."  Result: OSU 38, MSU 7.  Boy did they cover.  My Record: 3-1.