March Madness is Coming! Help me make it awesome for everyone!
March 5, 2010 12:50 PM Subscribe
Anyone know of a flexible Excel spreadsheet for managing a pool for a NCAA March Madness tournament?
I'm trying to organize a pool for the tournament with about 80 people. My dream is to have a paper bracket for people to fill out. After they fill it out, they can drop it off with me and I will input all the games into a spreadsheet (with drop down choices).
At the end of each day, I want to be able to send out a score update listing: #1 Player A 80pts, #2 Player B 57 pts, etc....
I've seen a couple Excel spreadsheets online via a google search but they seem like they track the user's choices more than a whole 80 person pool.
I've also used something like ESPN's bracket online years ago but it only had one scoring system. Hence, I could easily change formulas in Excel to suit our needs.
I will be polling our participants in the next couple days on if they'd like to give more weight to upsets. If they decide to do that, I don't believe ESPN's free manager can handle this. Maybe I'm wrong? I'd appreciate any advice from other pool managers. I know Facebook had a pool last year too but I didn't end up using it, either.
Thanks for any help!
I'm trying to organize a pool for the tournament with about 80 people. My dream is to have a paper bracket for people to fill out. After they fill it out, they can drop it off with me and I will input all the games into a spreadsheet (with drop down choices).
At the end of each day, I want to be able to send out a score update listing: #1 Player A 80pts, #2 Player B 57 pts, etc....
I've seen a couple Excel spreadsheets online via a google search but they seem like they track the user's choices more than a whole 80 person pool.
I've also used something like ESPN's bracket online years ago but it only had one scoring system. Hence, I could easily change formulas in Excel to suit our needs.
I will be polling our participants in the next couple days on if they'd like to give more weight to upsets. If they decide to do that, I don't believe ESPN's free manager can handle this. Maybe I'm wrong? I'd appreciate any advice from other pool managers. I know Facebook had a pool last year too but I didn't end up using it, either.
Thanks for any help!
http://officefootballpool.com/ will let you customize the scoring pretty much anyway you want. However, it is not a free service. I think it costs $3 per user, but that would be easy enough to build into the pool fees.
posted by COD at 1:06 PM on March 5, 2010
posted by COD at 1:06 PM on March 5, 2010
Response by poster: re: Perplexity
lol.. never thought of being thought of as a scammer. I think I'll look into them again.
re:COD
$3 is too much. I think I'm going to set $10 as the fee since it'll be department wide so a 30% tax while others are offering their services free is not logical in my mind. Thank you though.
posted by InvestorMD at 1:12 PM on March 5, 2010
lol.. never thought of being thought of as a scammer. I think I'll look into them again.
re:COD
$3 is too much. I think I'm going to set $10 as the fee since it'll be department wide so a 30% tax while others are offering their services free is not logical in my mind. Thank you though.
posted by InvestorMD at 1:12 PM on March 5, 2010
Response by poster: I just checked out CBS Sportsline.. Man its cool! Way better than the early days!
Maybe a secondary question. Anyone know how to balance out the pool as best as possible. I often find that most conservative players tends to stay in the game the longest while the players who pick upsets can get slightly lucky but usually are out of the game by the end of the first/second round.
posted by InvestorMD at 1:25 PM on March 5, 2010
Maybe a secondary question. Anyone know how to balance out the pool as best as possible. I often find that most conservative players tends to stay in the game the longest while the players who pick upsets can get slightly lucky but usually are out of the game by the end of the first/second round.
posted by InvestorMD at 1:25 PM on March 5, 2010
I came in here to suggest CBS Sportsline for all your NCAA bracket and fantasy football needs, but it seems you've already discovered it.
My answer to your secondary question really depends on what it means by "balance" -- my family's way of dealing with it has been the standard point division that (I think) is what is CBS Sportsline's default... which means that, due to lucky guesses, my family members who are picking randomly end up high in the rankings in the earlier rounds but aren't really "ahead" because they have fewer picks
What's great about CBS Sportline is that its reports send out not only send out your total score automatically, but your "best possible" score based on the team's remaining on your bracket so it's pretty easy to tell just how sturdy a lead is.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:39 PM on March 5, 2010
My answer to your secondary question really depends on what it means by "balance" -- my family's way of dealing with it has been the standard point division that (I think) is what is CBS Sportsline's default... which means that, due to lucky guesses, my family members who are picking randomly end up high in the rankings in the earlier rounds but aren't really "ahead" because they have fewer picks
What's great about CBS Sportline is that its reports send out not only send out your total score automatically, but your "best possible" score based on the team's remaining on your bracket so it's pretty easy to tell just how sturdy a lead is.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:39 PM on March 5, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
I would find it really strange if somebody wanted to run one by hand (including in Excel) these days. It's much worse for the players (you can't see other people's brackets easily, the scoring isn't automatic and instant, there's no scenario generator, etc). It's much more work for the administrator. I would suspect the administrator was running some kind of scam or something.
posted by Perplexity at 1:01 PM on March 5, 2010