How many accounts would be required to garentee getting the title?
I tried to do the math and came up with either 13 or 17 billion
Number of outcomes in a group: 4! = 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 24
Number of outcomes for 2 groups = 24 x 24 = 576
Number of outcomes for 3 groups = 576 x 24 = 13,824
Number of outcomes for 4 groups = 13,824 x 24 = 331,776
Therefore, 331,776 accounts.
edit: the above is only for groups.
Assuming playoffs pickem works the same (pick 1st through 8th), then
331,776 x 8! = 13,377,208,320
So you need 13 over billion accounts in a simple pick 1st through 8th on playoffs.
However, in playoffs, 7th/8th, and 5th/6th are placed the same, so really it isn't 8! for playoff outcomes
it will be 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x (4 choose 2) = 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 6 = 10,080
so the actual number of accounts needed is 10,080 x 331,776 = 3,344,302,080
so in reality, you only need a little over 3.3 billion accounts