Football Survivor Pool — Knockout Pool Hosting
Survivor Pool — Knockout Pool Hosting
A survivor pool strips the game down to one decision a week: pick a single team to win. Get it right and you advance. Get it wrong and you are out. You can never use the same team twice, so every easy win you spend is one you can’t spend later. Last player standing takes the pot — and it runs on any league with a weekly schedule.
How a survivor pool works
Each week you pick one team you believe will win. If they win, you live to pick again. If they lose, your season is over. The catch that makes it a strategy game rather than a coin flip is the no-reuse rule: once you have spent a team, they are gone from your board for the rest of the season. Burning the best team on the card in Week 1 feels safe until Week 12, when you are staring at a slate of teams you don’t trust and no good options left.
Survivor pools are fast to explain and unusually gripping to watch, because eliminations are public and permanent. A twenty-person pool is often down to three or four players by mid-season, and the group chat gets louder every week. Our walkthrough on how to set up a survivor pool covers the rule choices worth deciding before Week 1.
Reverse-survivor and other twists
Reverse survivor flips the objective: instead of picking a winner, you pick a team you expect to lose. You survive by being right about the loser, and you still can’t reuse a team. It plays completely differently — the bad teams become the valuable resource — and it is a good way to run a second pool for the same group without repeating yourself.
Commissioners also vary the pool with multiple entries per player, so someone can hedge across two or three lines rather than going home in Week 2, and with rules about what happens when everyone is eliminated in the same week. Deciding those up front saves an argument later.
Best on leagues with a weekly card
Survivor is built around one pick per week, so it fits leagues that play a weekly schedule most naturally — pro and college football, and the soccer leagues, where each club plays roughly once a week. It can be run on any league we support; just be aware that the daily-schedule sports move much faster.
Why hosting a survivor pool online matters
Eliminations apply themselves. When results come in, losing picks are graded and the survivor list updates. No one has to arbitrate who is still alive.
Used teams are tracked. The no-reuse rule enforces itself, so nobody accidentally picks a team they already spent and nobody has to audit it.
Picks lock at game time. No late entries, no “I texted you my pick” disputes, no commissioner holding a paper list.
Everyone sees the same board. A live leaderboard showing who is still in is half the entertainment of a survivor pool.
What it costs
Setting one up takes a few minutes: name the pool, choose your league, pick survivor or reverse survivor, decide how many entries each player may hold, and send the invite link.
It is free for up to 4 players, then roughly $3 per additional player over the free 4, $2 per player (30–99) and $1 (100+), billed annually — full detail on the pricing page. Note that extra entries count as extra seats, since billing is per unique person. If elimination is too harsh for your crowd, a pick’em pool keeps everyone playing all season, and the office pool overview compares the formats.
Start your survivor pool before Week 1
Survivor pools have to start with the season — set yours up now and send the link.
Start your pool free →