A Staten Island pub may be the birthplace of the billion-dollar college basketball bracket.

“The pool was so important for our neighborhood. It really brought the neighborhood together like no other. It was more popular than the St. Patrick’s Day Parade,” Terrence Haggerty, the owner of Jody’s Club Forest in West Brighton, said.

The popular pub that’s been in the Haggerty family for decades.

Haggerty says his parents, Mary and Jody, were the ones to come up with the original NCAA March Madness bracket — or pool, as they called it — in 1977.

It was $10 ahead to select the Final Four teams, the tournament champion and the total points.

But after gaining widespread popularity, the pool shut down in 2006 when the IRS came knocking.

“In that time, we went from $880 total prize to $1.6 million. So you think about it, it was 88 people to 160,000 people in the time of 30 years, ran by my mother and father,” Haggerty said.

But his claim isn’t unmatched.

According to The Associated Press, a man in Kentucky says his father created his own bracket for the 1978 NCAA Tournament.

Haggerty says he’s unfazed by the challenge.

“We are proud of what we accomplished back in the day but, go ahead, it doesn’t really matter to me,” Haggerty said.

Nearly 20 years after the pool went under, Haggerty says he isn’t ruling out a comeback.

“Never say never… I’m not ruling it out. No, I would never rule it out,” he said.

A survey by The Associated Press found that about 25% of Americans fill out a men’s March Madness bracket “every year” or “some years” — which is about 85 million people.