Competition Preview: March Mania Comes To Fratello!

Last year we brought you the Speedmaster World Cup; this year, we’re ratcheting things up a gear with Fratello’s March Mania…

Here at Fratello, we love a good competition. Why? Well, we simply love the sweet smell of victory. No, I’m kidding, as much as watching my fellow editors crash and burn at my feet would amuse me, the closest I got to sniffing the title last year was a Semi-Final flattening at the hands of our eventual Speedmaster World Cup champion, Balazs. As such, the smell of victory is unknown to all but one of our team. And while the sharp saltiness of last year’s tears has sustained the rest of us into 2021, we’re sick of swallowing defeat. It’s time to go back to war. How about you come along for the ride?

March Mania

Beyond watchmaking, some of us at Fratello have other hobbies. While Fratello Racing (check out the dedicated Instagram account here) occupies about 30% of our teammates’ free time, Balazs, Mike, and I have more than a passing interest in sports. On a particularly productive team zoom in January, Mikey boy hit another buzzer-beater (following the success of his Oxblood Oris idea) and tossed up the idea of a March-long voting extravaganza.

Needless to say, I was up for it.

While my keenness to bring this notion to life was clear from the get-go, exactly how to simulate the crazy, mad-dash for the title we’re used to seeing play out in the realms of professional and pre-professional sports. I took a long walk down by the river and pondered a format that resembling a well-known 68-team bracket. The result turned out to be…shall we say…ambitious.

How will Fratello March Mania work?

To begin with, eight of our intrepid editors will compete in the preliminary rounds to fix the final bracket and the seeding thereof. Competitors this year include Jorg, Balazs, Gerard, RJ, Mike, Tomas, Ben, and Bert. Each competitor will select 12 watches we reviewed on Fratello last year and bring them to battle. That means there will be a total of 96 watches vying for the title of March Mania Masterpiece.

Preliminaries

In the preliminary round (March 1st–March 8th) you will need to vote for your favorite of 12 pieces in every post. The bottom four pieces from every group will be eliminated. The top eight pieces will advance, with their seedings determined by the number of votes they garnered in the preliminary round.

First-round proper

With the field reduced to 64 watches, each writer will present four head-to-head contests every day for eight days. Between March 9th and March 16th, the field of competition will be halved again, leaving just 32 watches in play (four from every writer) and reaching a point when a substitution is in order…

Second round and the “Sweet Sixteen” stages

In place of the original eight editors, Karina, Dave, Andreas, and I will step in to cover the action between the second round (last 32) and the quarter-final stage. We will unbiasedly represent the pieces placed in our charge until just one representative from each writer remains.

The quarters, the last four, and the Grand Final

Jorg’s champion will square off against the winner of Balazs’s bracket. Gerard and RJ will tussle in a match-up full of experience. Mike and Tomas will clash for your votes, while Ben and Bert will enter into a sure-to-be civil-but-serious slam-down. Following those quarter-finals, we will have our last four.

Fireworks, commence

The grand final will see the top two watches from a field of 96 go at it hammer and tongs. We need voters. We need commenters. Most of all we need passion! This is a crazy, non-stop sprint to the finish line. These watches have a fleeting moment in the sun.

We want you to get involved. Sign up for a Fratello account and leave your thoughts/predictions/preferences on every post. At the end of the tournament, we’ll pick the top four commenters and send them a nice new watch strap from LIC Leather (in Belgium — review coming Monday) for your collections. And for one person, there’s a watch at stake! Details soon! To enter, though, you’ve got to have a Fratello profile, so sign-up now.

I’ll be popping back in with a short preview of the preliminaries on Saturday before the contest kicks-off on March 1st. Stay tuned and stay active. This one’s gonna be one for the ages…