What are some of the best ways to run a March madness office bracket pool? I don’t know that we will get many people to want to “buy in”, so it will need to be run as cheap as possible. Just looking for ways to make it fun and interesting. We might have a little prize or something for the winner, I dunno. Just need some ideas on how to make it interesting, rules, good online sites, resources, etc. thanks in advance. Been a while since I was so excited about March madness!


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I used to run an office one with cbs and still do a family league there. No money involved so it just keeps track of scoring/standings. Gives you a bunch of different options on how much each game is worth.

It might not be the best but it has worked well.

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I think CBSSports is the best website to run it through.

At most companies I work at, it seems the company will put up some money/prize for first, second, and third place. Might be worth asking.

I run our office bracket challenge. I tried to make it a pool but no one wanted to buy in. now it is a $10 prize of their choice, usually it is a drink of some kind, and a really crappy trophy that I made in 5 minutes out of scrap wood in my garage. I now have 30 people in the competition. The only "payment" is they have to let me use their name and make fun of them on the Monday writeup of positioning. Everyone seems to like the Monday recap. I use ESPN's site for keeping track of score.

the money pool I participate in, run by a former co-worker from eastern PA, goes through PoolTracker. He typically has 20-30 participants from across the country and runs 4 different pools over the year (NFL weekly, NFL Playoffs, NCAA Bowls and NCAA March Madness). I think it's free for the admin, I know it's free to the participants. He has a different scoring method than the typical websites like CBS, ESPN, Yahoo!, and PT allows him to format it his own way.

We manage our entry fees and winnings outside of the program.

My understanding is that it's technically illegal in the state of Utah to have a "buy-in" since that's considered gambling, so most of the companies I've worked for have just set up a free online bracket through CBS or ESPN and gifted the top three either cash, a gift card, extra PTO, things like that. Minimal cost to the company but a low enough barrier to entry (5 minutes of their time) and fun enough reward to garner participation. I think CBS does a good job on their brackets but find their overall site a little harder to navigate than ESPN or Yahoo. The NCAA has an official online one as well. All are free and pretty straightforward. No idea why, but my office this year is doing the old fashioned print off paper bracket.

One of my companies actually had someone in the office complain to the office manager about gambling when we tried to run a Super Bowl Squares for a $20 buy-in, so they ended that and started doing everything free.

Think I’m going with the CBS pool... it’s really easy so far. I’m surprised more people aren’t participating, but oh well. It’s kinda nice that it will pretty much manage itself and update every day. I’ll just have to find ways to keep it interesting. Updates or something?


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So what is your favorite way to fill out brackets? I have a guy that picks teams by hottest cheerleader, one guy that does "who would win if the mascots fought?" and there is one guy that goes by "whose coach has the prettier wife?" My 4 year old filled his bracket by whose name was longest, except for USU because he knows them so they win the championship in his bracket.

Its funny, two of the individuals in my office have completed brackets with absolutely no upsets. They selected teams based solely on seeding, so it'll be interesting to see how that turns out. I guess its funny because it just never occurred to me to fill out a bracket that way although I'm sure it isn't that uncommon. I wonder what the odds are of a "no upset" NCAA tournament.