Monday, December 5, 2022

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Changes


It's almost contest time again! Let's discuss some potential changes. 
 
'Tis the season to make predictions of college football games that hardly anyone cares about for a chance at some free cards. Here are some changes I'm thinking of making for this year to make things a bit more streamlined. Please let me know what you think in the comments!
  • Change the scoring system from "confidence points" to "standard". This would stop the need to "rank" each game and switch to a pure point system weighting each game the same, which should save us a lot of time when making the picks. This would also allow me to consider opening the contest up to non-ESPN users.
  • Accept contest entries via comment/email/Twitter. This would only be available for people who can't/won't use the ESPN site. (See above.) I could theoretically add contest entries on the ESPN site manually for these users if there aren't too many, but I wouldn't allow making/changing picks on the fly (ESPN allows this if the game hasn't kicked off yet.)
  • Change the prize structure somehow. I don't have as many trade-worthy cards for team collectors at the moment, since the bulk of my trading has gone over to TCDB. I'll still have to figure something out here that makes everyone happy. First prize would still be a Topps Series One baseball blaster as usual.
  • Require contact information (email or Twitter name or what have you) prior to entering the contest. This one is probably the most important change (to me) but could potentially keep the number of participants down (no more automatic invites), unfortunately. I've had way too many winners ghost me after the contest is over (why?!), so I'd like to know up front that I can at least get ahold of you if you win something.
Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think!

7 comments :

  1. I'd prefer standard only because I hate the process of ranking everything. That's more a "me being lazy" thing than anything else but you asked :)

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  2. I don't care which way you go on any of these, just happy to participate.

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  3. I like the first idea because that was always something I did not like doing. Other than that, I am fine with what you decide since you are the one who runs the contest. If you do want an email before sign up, could you provide a current email for yourself? Plus I have moved since you last sent me anything.

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  4. I like standard as well. I remember usually only putting high confidence points on a few in the 30s, then the rest I wouldn't give much thought to.

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  5. I like the confidence rankings; it's what sets your pool apart from others...but I'm good with whatever you decide.

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    1. I agree with this. Enjoy the confidence points, but its your pool run it how you want

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  6. Confidence points definitely makes things more interesting... but since I don't know very much about college football... it doesn't really matter to me. I'm the guy who goes with my gut and hopes thing play out in a positive manner :D

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Comments are highly encouraged, but then again, so is eating your fruits and vegetables.