I was at dinner with some co-workers and the tourney came up in a conversation and the talks of an office pool soon followed. I thought people could share their thoughts/ideas/experiences/etc. about a good, easy and time efficeint way to set up an office pool. You can also throw in your two cents about what type of point system to have, entry price, pay out structure and anything else I may be forgetting. Of course you can do classic paper but I didnt want to have to total all that up (since I will be spearheading the project). I know there are websites but i'm unfamiliar with those and their terms. I know some have made excel spreadsheets as well.
Easiest way is to run it through something like ESPN or yahoo sports. They have all the rules set up, the point structure, etc. And, when it gets going, that's the easiest way to keep track of your scores, others' scores, and follow each others' brackets and picks. Basically, one person in our pool usually keeps track of sending out emails, rules, updates, and other information to recruit people to join and give out contact information. Then, another person is in charge of keeping track of people paying the entry fee and sending out prize winnings. As far as fees go, we've found that it's best that we go with something around $15 or $20. If it's priced too high, you won't get any casual fans entering. And what fun is it if someone who doesn't know basketball doesn't win the entire pool? Seriously, it's good times, and we don't ever do winner take all. But the winnings are definitely weighted towards first place, 2nd and third. Sometimes we'll do something fun, too, for one person to get their money back. Like, worst bracket WITH at least one final four team, most correct first round upsets, stuff like that just to keep it interesting.
We do it winner take all. The last couple of years I was using a software from what if sports, but I don't think they have it there anymore. So I will probably just do it by hand and enter the results into excel. Typically we have about 50 entries at 5 bucks a pop. If anyone knows of free bracket software lemme know!
i figured $20 was a good number as well. Maybe $25. I didn't even consider winner take all, i was going to do top 3 or maybe even top 5 depending on how many people we get. I thought the website sounded the easiest too but I am just unfamilar so i need to review them. Espn or yahoo? pros/cons of each?
$20 is good, thats what we use at school. I was in 2 last year (I used the same bracket), but one was in Yahoo and one was ESPN. Yahoo is much better. ESPN is just harder to access. Yahoo is much more user friendly imo
Yahoo is probably easier to access, ESPN "looks" better, imo. Not a big difference- I just would encourage people to get their picks submitted before the morning the tourney starts. Always a clusterf--k trying to get online those last few hours before it all starts. I've been in a few pools the past few years with 50 to 70 people in them, so winner take all is a bit overboard. We'd prefer to share the wealth a little more since there are so many entries. Anyway, I still advise you to find a site. Just about all sports sites nowadays have a tourney pool option. Check them out when they are posted (Yahoo already has theirs ready to go) and decide on which you like best.
sweet. thanks guys. I will check out yahoo and probably go with them since espn does tend to complicate things a bit more with their registrations in general.
