How To Run A March Madness Bracket
Why March Madness Games in the Workplace are Good for Morale
After months of winter, optimism around the office is bound to be a little dwindled. Grey skies, cold winds thrusting tiny icy daggers into our skin, and snow on top of snow (and ice) can really take a toll on anyone’s morale.
Luckily, March Madness games are upon us! It’s a perfect distraction from the gloomy weather, and it gives basketball fans and non-fans alike something to have fun with. And where better to improve mood than the office?
Each March Madness tournament is comprised of five main rounds: Round One (round of 64), Round Two (round of 32), the Sweet 16 (round of 16), the Elite 8 (semi-finals), the Final Four (finals). Spacing out your brackets can be difficult by eye alone. Use your ruler to divide the paper evenly and to draw lines for each slot. Use the drop-down menu on the right to change your state, or the menu on the left to flip through various odds boards. To actually bet on any March Madness game, click on the odds and you’ll jump to the in-state sportsbook to claim your bonus and open a new account. Here is how you can fill out a NCAA bracket and get involved in one of the best fan traditions in all of sports. Welcome to the official Bracket Challenge Game of March Madness. The easiest way to run your Bracket Pool for the NCAA Tournament! Simplify your life this year by letting RunYourPool.com manage your March Madness Bracket Pool for you. We take care of accumulating your members' picks for the field of 64 teams, updating the games, calculating the results, and generating easy-to-understand reports for your members.
Why Run a March Madness Pool in the Office?
You will find a lot of debate about whether March Madness office pools are a good idea or not. Many studies have shown that US companies have lost money in productivity because of distracted employees streaming games and checking their brackets.
However, according to various studies, it’s believed that workplace games related to March Madness – office pools, viewing parties – help improve employee bonds, and have a ripple effect: better collaboration and engagement, which ultimately leads to better productivity in the long run. The same can be said for any event that coworkers can enjoy together such as the World Cup.
What are some March Madness Workplace Games?
Workplace comradery is right around the corner, but here are some ways you can take the bonding effect of the bracket to the next level:
Viewing Parties: It goes without saying, but setting up viewing parties gets participants more into the spirit of the game and makes the tournament a more engaging and exciting experience. You can enhance it even further with a large HD LED-LCD TV for the break room or whichever location is most convenient in your office!
Extend the Party: Not only can you have a viewing party, but you can even hold an office tailgate party. This can be done in the office as a potluck (with/without the drinks depending on your office policy) or at a local place (ideally during a happy hour). Lucky for you, you can use our office tailgate party ideas to make sure you have everything covered.
Google March Madness Bracket
Create a Festive Atmosphere: Decorating and setting up the office will help employees get into the spirit. There are many ways to accomplish this including putting up team banners around the walls, setting up after-hour intramural games, or even make the office its own faux basketball court with over the door basketball hoops.
Provide more Prizes: There will be a big gift for the winner, but to keep enthusiasm up during the games, you can offer smaller prizes throughout. For everyone who chooses the right team each game you could give a prize such as a small gift card to a coffee shop or a free “leave work early” card. There can also be prizes set up for the 2nd and 3rd place runner ups after the final tally.
How do you actually Run a March Madness Office Pool?
There is a difference between deciding to run a bracket, planning all the workplace games associated with it, and actually running a bracket – they can be a lot of work if you underestimate them. However, it can be quite simple if you follow some of our ideas we’ve compiled for you and your office:
- Send out a company-wide email to encourage participation; more participants means a better pool and less cost per bracket. To inspire more participants, you can even have the company provide an additional bonus prize – an additional PTO day, a gift certificate to Amazon, or perhaps even a company match of the total pool.
- Print out a March Madness Bracket for every person who said they will participate; each person will completely fill out the bracket with the team they think will win each game – everyone should also write their estimation for how many points will be scored in the championship game in case there needs to be a tie breaker. It’s important to collect everyone’s bracket before the games begin.
- Alternatively, you can run your office tournament online. There are many game portals that you can sign up for (com and CBSSports.com, to name a couple) to create your office league, invite those who want to participate, and then follow through the same process as if it’s printed, but with less trees diminished from the world.
- Create a scoring system that assigns a number of points for each round. A simple system gives 1 point for the first round, 2 for the second, and so on – the participant with the most points at the end wins!
There you have it: everything you need to run a successful March Madness Pool in your office. There are many ways you can make this a fun experience that improves office morale, bonds coworkers, and in the long run will make your company more productive. What are some ways you’ve celebrated March Madness in your office? Tell us in the comments!
How to Run a March Madness Pool
What is a March Madness Office Pool?
The March Madness Tournament Bracket Office Pool is by far the most popular pool there is. This pool is ran during the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. The steps below explain how to run this pool. If you're looking for another office pool to run during the tournament view our complete list of Office Pools for College Basketball Tourney, we highly recommend trying our College Basketball Block Pool which is similar to the Super Bowl Squares, except you use the final score from every game of the tournament.
Before filling out your bracket be sure to checkout NCAA Tournament wins by Seed, and Final Four Appearances by Seed, where we have calculated the odds of each seed winning the tournament and making it to the final four based on all of the past tournaments.
Best March Madness Online Brackets
Printing the Bracket
Print out this March Madness Bracket, estimate the total number of people you think will be interested in entering the pool and print/copy that many brackets.
Distribute the Bracket
Pass the printed brackets out to friends, family, and co-workers. Each person is to completely fill in the bracket with the team they think will win each game. For a tie breaker have each person write down what they think the total number of points scored in the championship game will be. View our Tiebreaker Rules for March Madness Pool.
Collect the Brackets
Be sure to have each participant turn in their completed bracket before the tournament begins. If you want to to do a little extra for the participants, print every person in the pool a copy of every other person's bracket. This is a lot of printing, but ensures to all people that the pool is being run fairly, and also allows them to see how well they are doing in the pool.
Scoring the Bracket
Each round is worth a set number of points, you can determine this on your own, but be sure to let all of the entries know before the tournament begins what the scoring system will be(you should write the point values under each round at the top of the bracket). We have set up a Fillable March Madness Bracket that allows you to type in the points per round, that way there are no handwritten instructions on the bracket. There is no standard for the point's system, everyone does it differently. View our NCAA Bracket Scoring Systems article for an overview of possible scoring systems. We have also wrote an article about whether or not you should Count the Play-In Games when Scoring your Bracket.
We prefer doing it as follows:
How To March Madness Bracket
First Round= 1 point
Second Round= 2 Points
Third Round= 3 Points
Fourth Round=4 Points
Fifth Round= 6 Points
Sixth Round=10 Points
Declaring a Winner
Multiply the total number of correctly picked games in each round by the points assigned to that particular round. Tally all rounds together and the person with the highest point total wins!