About a year ago, I approached Tim to see if he thought there would be any interest within L4SN to have a Pickem Contest for NCAA Football similar to Babyfan's NFL Pickem Contest and we came to the conclusion it was worth a try. The significant differences between this NCAA contest and BF's NFL contest is that in this one you're picking winners against the spread and the weekly and YTD results are based on your percent of winners picked. A third difference is the tie-breaker process. In a nutshell, when they sign up, participants will name 4 teams that will make the playoffs. Then, of those 4 teams, 2 that will advance to the Championship game and, finally, of those two, name the winner of the championship game. Points (wins) will be awarded 2pts for each correct team picked of the 4 that make the playoffs. 4 pts for each team picked that advances to the championship game and 8 pts if the team picked wins the championship game. To that end, I actually ran a pilot for this contest (via PM) last year with eight volunteer players that enabled me to develop a spreadsheet with which to accurately manage this contest on a timely basis. With the contest rules mapped out and a working spreadsheet in hand, we simply needed to wait for a good time to kick this off for the 2020 season. And then Covid-19 happened. The BIG 10 and PAC 10 have both recently announced conference only schedules and the ACC is expected to follow suit shortly. Some conferences have already cancelled fall sports and, at this moment, it's unknown what the SEC and Big 12's plans are for 2020. The critical elements of this contest are: The planned sign-up / tie breaker process. Each Monday's AP top 25 list used to develop the weekly pick list. The opening point spread for each game on the weekly pick list. All three of these elements require some degree of stability to manage this contest effectively. I can certainly see with a reasonable degree of confidence that none of these three elements will be stable throughout the season. At this moment, we don't know how (or if) the four playoff teams will be selected. There's no doubt in my mind that (probably on a weekly basis) teams scheduled to play on Saturday, will experience an uptick in positive Covid-19 test results resulting in that game being flexed to an open date. Even if a game isn't flexed, there's a high probability that key players are quarantined that would affect the point spread a day or two after it is published. The bottom line is this isn't the time to introduce a new contest on L4SN. I can envision more turmoil than enjoyment. So, assuming I'm still on the right side of the grass, we'll try again next year.
As much as I hate to admit it, I think your right. Baseball is falling apart and the NFL/NCAA can't do what the NBA is doing. (just too many people involved) Don't look good.
