Little Caesars offering free lunch combos for UMBC’s win

Thanks to UMBC’s historic upset win over Virginia, Little Caesars is giving out free lunch combos following the NCAA Tournament’s opening weekend.

The 2018 NCAA Tournament will officially go down in the history books as the first time a 16-seed has ever beaten a 1-seed. It’s not even that UMBC beat Virginia, it’s that they routed them thoroughly.

As the first overall seed, Virginia was the most popular national champions pick in brackets, but after getting sent home in the first round, everyone can pretty much put their bracket in the shredder. But there is a silver lining — and it’s that Little Caesars is giving away free lunch combos because of UMBC’s history-making win.

If you read the promotion itself, everything had to have lined up perfectly:

Not only did they bank on the fact that a 16-seed had to beat a 1-seed, but it had to happen on this particular day. You could forgive Little Caesars for taking their chances with that promotion, as well as this fan:

Instead, they’ll have to prepare for plenty of crazed college basketball fans who will give a new meaning to the term afternoon rush. Their Maryland locations might even resemble something out of The Walking Dead.

We’ve often seen fast food chains do these types of promotions during big sporting events to attract more customers. Taco Bell offers free tacos during the World Series and NBA Finals when a team steals a base or a road win, respectively. But those aren’t Earth-shattering events that have never happened before. UMBC’s win is, and with all due respect, Little Caesars’ pizza is much better than Taco Bell’s tacos.

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You can’t cash in on this promotion until Monday, when the second round of the NCAA Tournament is over. That means that, if UMBC moves on to the Sweet 16, you can celebrate with free pizza. And if they get eliminated, you can commiserate with free pizza. Either way, Little Caesars wins.