Gray Lady Wins First-Ever Alt 101.7 Bar-ch Madness Bracket Challenge

If you weren't able to tune in to Tab's 8 p.m. on-air announcement of the winner of the first-ever Alt 101.7 Bar-ch Madness bracket challenge, we are happy to fill you in: downtown Tuscaloosa's The Gray Lady has been crowned champion of the inaugural contest.

Congratulations to the Best Bar in Tuscaloosa, but also to the Houndstooth Sports Bar, who fell just 14 votes short of their downtown rivals in the Championship round.

It's been a wild ride to get here. Listeners cast over 250,000 votes across all five rounds of the competition combined. Most fans were content to vote a dozen or two times for their favorite bar, but participation ran the gamut -- in one Final Four matchup, a single IP address cast 3,312 votes to help push their pick over the finish line.

We sure have had a good time conducting this contest and appreciate everyone who came along for the ride and stuck with us through the bumpy parts -- like accidentally including a bar that closed last fall in the first round of votes.

When we come back next year, we'll have the foundations laid for a bigger and better competition, and we'll see if anyone has what it takes to dethrone our first-ever champions -- The Gray Lady.

For now, we've got a big-ass trophy to get made. More on that later.

Thanks once again to you all for helping turn this whimsical, mini-Munch-Madness idea into a big, beautiful thing, and one final congratulations to the Gray Lady. Y'all go see them for a beer or two this weekend.