🟧 Commissioner setup guide

Pick’Em Pool — Commissioner Setup Guide

Every Pick’Em setting explained — straight-up vs against-the-spread, confidence and power picks, picks-per-week and custom win/push points (SuperContest-style), tiebreakers, weekly/season/segment/perfect-week prizes, the prize pot and organizer cut, plus loading NFL/CFB/CBB/MLB schedules.

Pick’Em pool commissioners · 9 min read

A Pick’Em pool is the classic weekly game: players pick winners each week and climb the standings. ChooseASquare’s Pick’Em is deep enough to run everything from a casual office pool to a Westgate-style SuperContest — straight-up or against the spread, confidence points, power picks, picks-per-week limits, custom scoring, and layered prize pots.

This guide covers every setting a commissioner controls, grouped by where you set it. Create a pool with the wizard for sensible defaults, then open the Settings and Payouts tabs to dial in the rest.

Creating your pool

The wizard is Sport → Format → Setup → Details → Review. Everything is editable afterward.

Sport: NFL (auto-loads the schedule and grades winners), College Football or College Basketball (curated — pick the marquee games or import a conference by date), MLB (curated baseball formats — see below), or Custom (any sport/league you enter yourself).
Format (NFL): Pick a start week (joining mid-season is fine), then run to the end of the regular season, regular season + playoffs (through the Super Bowl), or a set number of weeks.
Format (MLB): Weekend Series (pick who wins each Fri–Sun series), Saturday Slate (that day’s full card — any day of the week you choose), a specific date, or Commissioner’s picks (you curate the games). Sweep bonus available on series.
Scoring flavor: Straight Pick’Em, Confidence (rank your picks 1…N), or Power Picks (flag a few picks each week for bonus points) — chosen from the create card that launched the wizard.
Setup — Standard vs Advanced: Standard applies popular defaults; Advanced drops you into the full Settings editor to configure scoring, points, tiebreakers and prizes before you share.

Pick type & scoring

Pick typePro: Straight-up winners, or against the spread (ATS) — players pick a team to cover the point spread.
If a pick pushes: On ATS, when a pick lands exactly on the spread: score it as a miss, half points, or a loss. (Points-per-push below overrides this when set.)
Confidence pointsPro: Players rank every pick by confidence (1…N, each value once). A correct pick banks its confidence value; a miss earns nothing — nailing your top pick is huge.
Power Picks: Players flag a set number of picks each week as “power picks” for a bonus if they hit. You set how many per week and the bonus size.
Picks per week: Cap how many games each entry picks (e.g. exactly 5 of the slate) — the core of a SuperContest-style pool. Blank/0 means pick every game.
Points per win / push: Set custom point values — e.g. SuperContest’s 2 points per win, 1 per push. (Confidence scoring uses the ranked value instead.)

Tiebreakers, entries & privacy

Tiebreaker: Total points in a featured tiebreaker game (closest without going over), reverse-week (whoever did better in the most recent week wins, working backward), or none (co-winners split).
Entries per personPro: One each, a set number, or unlimited.
Hide picks until lock: Keep picks private until each week’s deadline so nobody copies.
Pick deadline: Lock all picks at the first game of the week, or lock each pick at its own kickoff.

Prizes & payouts

Configure the pot on the Payouts tab — mix any of these. Amounts can be a flat $ or a % of the pot.

Season standings: Pay the top finishers on the season-long leaderboard (1st, 2nd, 3rd…).
Weekly winnersPro: Pay each scored week’s top scorer on top of the season prizes.
Mini-contests (week ranges)Pro: Best record over a stretch of weeks — e.g. the SuperContest’s Weeks 1–6 / 7–12 / 13–18 sub-prizes. Each range pays its own winner.
Perfect-week potPro: A pot for going N-0 in a week. “Shares” splits it across every perfect week; “Skins” is a golf-style carryover where only a lone perfect week wins and ties roll forward.
Squares BonusPro: Tie a 10×10 grid to a feature game — each entry gets a square for bonus points, blending a squares pool into your Pick’Em.
SuperContest preset: One click on the Payouts tab sets 1st/2nd overall plus the three Weeks 1–6 / 7–12 / 13–18 mini-contests — ready to tweak.

Entry fee, pot & organizer cut

Entry fee: What each entry pays. The prize pot is entries × fee, minus your organizer cut.
Allow “pay later”: Let players join now and confirm payment later, or require confirmation to join.
Organizer cut: What your program keeps before payouts — a percentage of the pool, a flat total, or a flat amount per entry (e.g. $2/entry on a $102 buy-in leaves a $100 pot). Set on Settings; the pot is always shown net of it. No fundraising add-on required.
Prize pot basis / floorPro: Let the pot scale with entries, fix a guaranteed amount, or set a minimum floor.

Schedule & scoring

Load the schedule: One click builds your weeks and fills the games from the live library — NFL, college, or the full MLB season (date-range imported). Custom sports: add games per week from the console.
Import by category / date: For college, pull a whole conference (SEC, ACC…) for a date range in one step, then trim — or use “Any category” to grab every game in the range for the pool’s sport.
Auto-scoringPro: Finals sync from the live scoreboard and grade picks (and against-the-spread results) automatically — or score any week by hand.
Finalize & pay winners: Finalizing ranks the standings (honoring your tiebreaker), computes season, weekly, mini-contest and perfect-week awards, and each winner’s cut. Winners appear in Payout Assist with one-tap pay links.

FAQ

Can I run a SuperContest-style pool?

Yes. Set picks-per-week (e.g. 5), points per win/push (2/1/0), the reverse-week tiebreaker, and add the three Weeks 1–6 / 7–12 / 13–18 mini-contests plus an optional perfect-week pot — there’s even a one-click SuperContest payout preset.

What’s the difference between confidence and power picks?

Confidence makes players rank every pick 1…N, so your surest games are worth the most. Power picks let players flag just a few picks each week for a flat bonus if they hit. Confidence is more strategic; power picks are lighter-weight.

Does it auto-score, and for which sports?

NFL, college football, college basketball, and MLB finals sync from the live scoreboard and grade picks (including against-the-spread) automatically on Pro. Custom sports are scored by hand from the console.

How do payouts and the organizer cut work?

The pot is entries × fee minus your organizer cut (a %, a flat total, or a flat per-entry amount). You allocate it across season places, weekly winners, week-range mini-contests, and a perfect-week pot — each as a flat $ or a % of the pot. Winners show up in Payout Assist to pay out.

Can players pick against the spread?

Yes, on Pro. Set the pick type to “against the spread,” and choose how a push (landing exactly on the number) scores — miss, half, loss, or your own push-point value.

Ready to run yours?

Set it up in a few minutes — every option here is right there in the wizard.

Start a Pick’Em pool →