idea of the week

16 North Carolina State Expenses $13456789 Revenue $26456789

For the 2013 edition of March Madness, The New Yorker proposes a new predictive theory: pick the schools that spend the most money on men’s basketball. This infographic shows the financial data (expenses and revenue) for each team, expressed as bubbles—the bigger the bubble, the bigger the dollar figure. The buttons on the left change how you can view the data (as a bracket, list, or map), while the ones in the center allow you to switch between expenses and revenue. The buttons on the right show our money prediction (in which the biggest spender always wins), along with a bracket of this year’s actual results, where shaded circles represent our correct picks. Check in throughout the tournament for updates.