📈 Commissioner setup guide

Power Points (Margin Pool) — Commissioner Setup Guide

Every Power Points setting explained — margin-of-victory scoring, against-the-spread, missed-week penalty, mid-season start window, no team reuse, entry fee and the organizer cut, and running/finalizing.

Power Points pool commissioners · 6 min read

Power Points (a “margin pool”) is a season-long NFL game with a simple, addictive twist: each week you pick one game and one team. If that team wins, you bank its margin of victory; if it loses, you lose that margin. You can’t reuse a team all season, and the highest cumulative margin wins.

It rewards conviction over volume — one great call can swing your season, and a blowout pick can bury you. This guide covers every setting the commissioner controls.

Creating your pool

Power Points is NFL-only, so the wizard is Format → Scoring → Details → Review.

Start week: Which NFL week the pool begins — Week 1 for a full season, or later to run a mid-season pool. The schedule auto-loads for your window.
How far it runs: To the end of the regular season (Weeks start–18), or a set number of weeks from your start week.
Name, entry fee & payment: Name the pool and set the buy-in. Players pay you through the app’s payment step at join; you never route money through us.

Scoring

Margin type: Straight margin (bank the raw margin of victory, or −margin on a loss) or against the spread (adjust each margin by the point spread — rewards backing underdogs who cover).
If a player misses a week: Choose the penalty for skipping a week: take the week’s worst losing margin (keeps people from coasting) or score zero.
No team reuse: Each team can be picked once all season — a core rule that forces you to spend your best matchups wisely. Highest cumulative margin at the end wins.
Hide picks until lock: Keep everyone’s weekly game + team pick private until the deadline.

Entry fee, pot & organizer cut

Entry fee: What each entry pays. The prize pot is entries × fee, minus your organizer cut.
Organizer cut: What your program keeps before payouts — a percentage of the pool, a flat total, or a flat amount per entry. Set on the Settings tab; 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.
Prizes: Configure the payout on the Payouts tab — winner-take-all or top-N by final cumulative margin, each as a flat $ or a % of the pot.

Running the pool

Load the NFL season: One click builds your weeks and fills the games from the live schedule for your window.
Results & auto-scoringPro: Finals sync from the live scoreboard and update each entry’s cumulative margin automatically, or enter results by hand — each entry re-scores instantly.
Finalize & pay winners: Finalizing ranks entries by cumulative margin, applies your payout rules, and computes each winner’s cut. Winners appear in Payout Assist with one-tap pay links.

FAQ

How does a margin / Power Points pool work?

Each week you pick one game and one team. If the team wins you add its margin of victory to your total; if it loses you subtract that margin. You can’t reuse a team all season, and the highest cumulative margin at the end wins.

What happens if I forget to pick a week?

That’s the “missed week” setting: by default you take the week’s worst losing margin (so skipping hurts), or the commissioner can set it to simply score zero for the week.

Can I play it against the spread?

Yes — set the margin type to “against the spread,” and each pick’s margin is adjusted by the point spread, rewarding underdog picks that cover.

How are payouts and the organizer cut handled?

The pot is entries × fee minus your organizer cut (a %, a flat total, or a flat per-entry amount). You allocate it as winner-take-all or top-N on the Payouts tab, and pay winners through Payout Assist.

Ready to run yours?

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

Start a Power Points pool →