While Dave is no stranger to sports, being the man behind one of the biggest sports media companies in recent years, this was still a relatively risky bet.

Dave Portnoy, the Founder and President of Barstool Sports, had more reason than most to celebrate at the end of the 2024 March Madness tournament.

On March 20, the sports icon placed a $600,000 wager on UConn to be the 2024 NCAA Tournament Winner with odds of +360.

Not only would this require UConn to win for a second year in a row, this would be the first time this was done since Florida did it back in 2007!

While UConn were the favorites to win, Purdue weren’t too far behind as the third favorites at +700 - meaning that is was a close match going into the final.

Even though Purdue managed to get 37 points and several rebounds from National Player of the Year, Zach Edey, it wasn’t enough as the Huskies won the Championship 75 - 60 against them on Monday night in the Glendale arena.

After revealing the winning bet on Twitter, alongside his total payout of $2,760,000, Portnoy said that this was “the greatest bet of my life.”

“Thank you #uconn Destroyed everybody and everything in their path." Portnoy said. "They'd win the tournament 100 out of 100 times. The biggest win of my life by a mile.”

Ahead of the game, the NCAA released a board of statistics on both UConn and Purdue.

According to this, Purdue was ahead before the final.

Purdue had scored 82.9 points each game, when compared to the 81.6 from UConn. Not only that, but Zach Edey was leading the scores with 24.9 per game - almost double the amount from UConn leader Tristen Newton with 14.9!