NCAA Squares

[swab]

Please let me know if not allowed, but I thought I would check. I run an NCAA squares pool each year. $105 entry and $4K top prize. If it's allowed, I will share more details to see if there is interest. This is my 10th year running it and I have two 100-square grids this year.

[pitchleague]

Just curious . . . why a $105 entry fee? Is that because you use the $100 for the prizes and you skim the extra $5 as a service fee for running the pool? I'm not judging, I'm just asking.

 

As for the rules on such a thing, I know that we've had a Brewerfan.net bracket contest in the past but we haven't in a quite a while, and I don't remember if it was just for fun or if we paid into it. My initial feeling on it would be that it couldn't be an officially sanctioned thing on the site. But if people wanted to PM you about it and enter that way, there's probably no problem.

 

Other mods like to chime in?

[swab]

Great question. A few years back, I was considering canceling the pool just due to the time I put into it. Anyway, my friend suggested adding a dollar to the fee - mainly for time, but also for the people who needed me to snail-mail their winnings. $101 seemed dumb, so we went to $105 and I send the $4 from each entry goes to charity. It's kind of a win-win that way. I actually thought a bunch of folks would cancel when I added the $5, but now I have even more interest. So much, that I have two pools this year (200 total squares between them), the first is filled and I have about 50 left on the second.

 

I am totally fine having people PM me if interested. It really is a lot of fun. To summarize, you get a winning team number and a losing team number for each square. You win if you match - so if you had 8 and 5, you would win any game that matches that number (78-75, 68-55), but not the other way around (75-68). I pay out on every game other than the play-in games with the payout getting higher with each round. I pay everything out for the pools outside of the administrative/charity portion, so 10K comes gets paid with 4K being the top prize (not bad for a $105 investment).

 

Thank you for responding. I appreciate it. I really want to be respectful of rules here. Typically I just read what everyone writes, but occasionally will have something to say. Go the Brewers (as I like to say on Twitter)!

[swab]

A few folks have signed up - thanks! I am under 40 squares remaining if anyone else is interested in giving it a try.

[swab]

Thanks again to those of you who have signed up thus far! Down to 8 slots remaining if anyone is still interested.