How to Run a Survivor Pool

A survivor pool (also called an eliminator, knockout, or last-man-standing pool) is the simplest football pool to explain and one of the most exciting to play: each member picks one NFL team to win each week, they can never pick the same team twice all season, and a loss eliminates them. The last member standing wins. This guide covers the standard rules, the decisions you need to make before week one, and how to keep the pool running smoothly through the season.

The standard rules

• One pick per week. Each member selects one NFL team they believe will win outright that week. Point spreads are not used.
• No repeats. Once a member uses a team, that team is off their board for the rest of the season. Picking the obvious favorite every week runs you out of good teams by November – that is the strategy of the game.
• Lose and you are out. If the picked team loses, the member is eliminated. In most pools a tie also eliminates (decide this up front – see below).
• Last one standing wins. If multiple members survive the whole season, they typically split the win, or the pool continues into the playoffs.

Decisions to make before week one

Most survivor pool disputes trace back to a rule that was never written down. Settle these five questions before the season and publish them where every member can see them:

1. Strikes: sudden death or two strikes? Sudden death (one loss eliminates) is traditional. Two-strike pools keep more members alive into the late season and are better for bigger, more casual groups.
2. What happens on a tie? Choose one: a tie counts as a loss (most common), a tie counts as a win, or a tie counts as a strike in multi-strike pools.
3. Missed picks. The standard rule is that no pick counts as a loss. Some commissioners auto-assign the biggest favorite instead. Auto-assignment keeps casual players alive but rewards inattention – pick one and stick to it.
4. What if everyone is eliminated in the same week? Decide whether the win is split among that week's casualties or whether everyone eliminated that week is revived and play continues.
5. Buy-backs. Some pools allow eliminated members to re-enter once, usually only in the first few weeks. Buy-backs keep people engaged, but cap them early (for example, weeks 1–3 only) so late-season survival still means something.

Setting up the pool, step by step

1. Write down your rules. Strikes, ties, missed picks, buy-backs, and the entry deadline. Two paragraphs is enough.
2. Pick a deadline convention. The two common options are one deadline for the whole week (usually Sunday's first kickoff, with Thursday game picks locked at Thursday kickoff) or per-game lock times. Per-game locking lets members wait on injury news for later games and is the fairer option if your host supports it.
3. Collect entries and picks. On paper this means a weekly email round-up and a spreadsheet; online it means members submit picks themselves and the deadline is enforced automatically.
4. Publish results weekly. Who survived, who was eliminated, which teams are used up. The Tuesday-morning survivor recap email is half the fun of the pool.
5. Keep picks secret until lock. Members should not be able to see each other's current-week picks before the deadline – otherwise late pickers can shadow the leaders. After lock, reveal everything.

Common commissioner mistakes

• No written tie rule. Ties are rare in the NFL, but one tie with no rule on the books can wreck a 200-person pool.
• Letting missed picks slide. The first time you quietly give someone a pass, you own every future dispute. Automate the deadline or enforce it without exceptions.
• Tracking used teams by hand. By week 10, verifying that 50 members have not reused a team is real work – and a reused team that slips through invalidates results. This is the single best reason to host survivor pools online, where reuse is simply impossible to submit.
• Starting too late. Survivor pools want a full season. Open sign-ups in August; most pools lock entries after week 1 or 2.

Survivor strategy (what your members will want to know)

Commissioners get asked for strategy advice constantly, so here is the short version to share. The core tension in survivor is resource management: the twelve to fourteen truly safe picks on the schedule are not evenly distributed, and everyone can see them coming. Three principles separate the survivors from the week-6 casualties:

• Save the elite teams for the weeks you will need them. Burning the best team in football on a week with three other comfortable favorites is the classic beginner mistake. Look two or three weeks ahead: if week 5 has no safe picks, the team you save now is the pick that survives it.
• Fade the crowd when the pool is large. In a big pool, surviving is not enough – you also want the field to shrink. When 40% of the pool is on one obvious favorite, a slightly riskier alternative pick means an upset devastates the field while you advance. Most platforms (including SimplySportsWare) publish pick-distribution reports after lock; strategic members read them religiously.
• Week 1 is the trap week. More survivor entries die in week 1 than any other, because preseason assumptions are at their least reliable. The boring pick is the right pick in September; save the creativity for when the used-team list forces it.

Winners

Most survivor pools award the entire win to the last survivor, with a split if multiple members survive the final week. SimplySportsWare charges only a hosting fee and never collects or distributes member entry fees.

Running it online

A survivor pool is exactly the kind of pool that benefits from automation: enforced deadlines, hidden picks until lock, automatic elimination tracking, and a used-teams grid every member can check. SimplySportsWare has hosted NFL survivor pools since 2005 – pools start at $9.95 for your first 10 members, options cover every rule variation in this guide (strikes, ties, missed-pick handling, buy-backs), and there is a free trial. Start your survivor pool.

Frequently Asked Questions