So you want to set up your March Madness bracket pool and enjoy the fun of the NCAA tournament with office mates or friends. Let us help you do exactly that.
This is a standard way to run an NCAA tournament pool, with people getting points for predicting results correctly. There are plenty of other ways to set up a bracket (a Survivor pool, individual matchups, etc.), but this is the pretty standard way to run an office pool.
Hand out brackets or have everyone sign up online
There are plenty of online tools that help you set up and run an online NCAA tournament pool. You can set scoring,
CBS Sports has an online bracket tool game. So does Yahoo. So does ESPN. It all depends on what you like.
Feeling old school? Prefer filling out paper brackets? Totally fine.
And would you look at that? We here at For The Win have our very own printable bracket you can use.
Have participants fill out the brackets
Everyone gets predicting. People have different rules for the play-in games, and some online outlets let you pick the winners of the first four, but for the most part it starts with 64 teams playing 32 games, with participants picking the winners all the way to the end.
You can also collect money at this stage, but please adhere to any local laws regarding gambling and office pools, whatever those laws may be.
Identify scoring system
You can score it however you like. Here is the most popular way to set up scoring:
- First Round = 1 point
- Second Round = 2 Points
- Third Round = 3 Points
- Fourth Round =4 Points
- Fifth Round = 6 Points
- Sixth Round =10 Points
Count up points every round
Do it by hand or let the computer do it for you. Lots of people like to provide round-by-round updates to see who is winning as it progresses, but that’s up to you.
Declare your winner
At the end, you’ve got a winner. Hand them their prize, which we hope is some outlandish, ungainly trophy they will love but also feel sheepish about displaying in their home.
