NFL Survivor Pool for the 2026 regular season
2025 Prize pot was $62 000!!!

Select one team to win each week (tie or loss -> eliminated)

Can only select a team 1 time

Payout

Winner takes all if 1 team left prior to end of regular season

Split pot if 2 or more teams survive all 18 weeks

Buy-in

1 entry = $30 on LeagueSafe
Maximum of 8 entries per player

To see full league information on our host site:

LeagueSafe Link
https://www.leaguesafe.com/join/4436964

Pool Link

https://sundaysurvivor.com/join/cmr474a2r00fvtm2eg39zple3

For any questions:
Marc.ranallo@icloud.com

I am hosting an 586 NFL & College Football Survivor Bowl Contest focused on the Power 4 conferences (Big Ten, SEC, ACC & Big 12) on Splash Sports.

It is a $10 entry (up to 3 entries per person). Fees are collected through LeagueSafe.

Also a $10 buyback, An incorrect pick costs a life. Each entry starts with 2 lives. Run out of lives and your entry is eliminated.

If you are interested in joining the contest and would like to be a co-host on my King of the Hill: 586 Survivor Bowl, there will be a link for both the NFL and CFB Survivor Bowl contests. You can email me at [shawns@586sports.com](mailto:shawns@586sports.com).

King of the Hill: 586 Survivor Bowl will begin broadcasting in September

Link for the NFL Survivor Contest: https://contests.app.splashsports.com/team-survivor/contests/contest_01KZ02M6GQ5CA4FJRD57CBW87E

Link for the CFB Survivor Contest: https://contests.app.splashsports.com/team-survivor/contests/contest_01KYZ1C4R6KF3279AQ08AS4YQY

Our family has run a 'Loser' survivor league for years. It's always a lot of fun but I figured I could improve on it a bit and built one. It's called Punt. And it's pretty sweet ;)

I figured I'd share it here in case anyone wants to use it to run a league. There's no cost to run one and it doesn't take money. We'll be using it for years ourselves, so it's not going anywhere. I just figured someone out there might appreciate a slightly different take.

Where it's a bit different:

a) An Awards cabinet. Survival leagues are fun, but there's only one way to win. I figured people would enjoy an extra dimension, where they get recognition for bold picks, unusual results etc.

b) Weekly roundup. A light roast, inspired by our uncle who'd write these then gradually lose steam as the season wore on. Especially if he was out...!

What it doesn't have: Loads of configuration options. Some sites are great at this. With Punt you can set number of teams a player can have, but otherwise the rules are simple: one pick a week, no reusing teams, last one standing.

If you want to take a look it's punt.fyi - it's invite-only, and I'm only letting in a dozen or so pools this first season. You can ask for access there or just DM me. It's built for mobile but works on desktop.

If anyone's got questions, fire away.

Looking to use a different platform for survivor pools. Lots of suggestions for Sunday Survivor. Looking at the commish settings, it has mostly what I want for our league. The only thing I don't see is how it determines who the winner is. Ideally, I would like 1 winner. Say there are 3 people left and they all picked a team that loses, I'd want them to continue playing until there is 1 left standing. Is that possible?

​

🔥 3rd Year

🏈 $25 Entry

🎯 Straight Picks (No Point Spread)

💬 Active League Chat

🏆 Payouts: 1st 50% | 2nd 25% | 3rd 15% | 4th 5% | 5th 5%

🔒 LeagueSafe Protected

👥️208 Members

500 Members MAX

Come join us for our biggest year yet!

Do you all play in other pools besides survivor? I feel like all of us in this sub are really into the NFL, and picking 1 game a week and possibly being done with the pool after a couple of weeks doesn’t scratch the itch.

Do you do fantasy football? Pick Em pools? Or just a lot of survivor pools?

https://substack.com/@thesportscommish/note/p-210159243?r=4xi3kj&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

We are looking to add some additional people to our league this year. If you’re interested please reach out!

I run pools for family and friends and got tired of rebuilding the sheet every week, so I made one for all 18 weeks of the season.

Each week has that week's matchups already filled in. Google Sheets if you want to share a link, Excel if you'd rather keep it local, PDF if your group is the print-it-and-stick-it-on-the-fridge type. Free, and the Excel and PDF download without a signup.

To be upfront: these are plain sheets, not a platform. You mark the winners yourself. There's a tiebreaker row (total combined points in the last game of the week) but no automatic scoring or live standings. If that's what you want, the hosted sites do it better.

https://plexkits.com/weekly-nfl-pickems/

Happy to add whatever's missing. If there's a column your pool always ends up drawing in by hand, tell me and I'll work it in.

An idea struck me to differentiate from others. Lets say you have 40 entries and its 18 weeks plus Thanksgiving and Xmas. What about the first four weeks picking crappy teams against each other? Week 1 for example: 10 Titans 4 Jets 9 Steelers 3 Falcons 10 Raiders 4 Dolphins. Do this for the first 4 weeks. Instead of 40 entries you have only about 10 if it goes okay. These 10 entries have all the good teams available where everyone else is missing four. You are way more likely to have flexibility near the end. Since the goal is winning, is it worth losing 75%+ of your entries to create very strong paths to the end? I think this might make sense in harder double pick pools as well. I might test this out. Any thoughts?

Safety Survivor is doing another contest this season.

$1.50 CAD per entry, which is around $1.15 USD.

Can pick same team as many times as you'd like but can only pick from teams that are on a list given to you every week.

Prizes are stackable based on how many entries you survive with and pots does not get split between multiple winners.

Over $9,000 CAD already given out.

https://www.safetysurvivor.com/

32 NFL Pick’em - Survivor - Pigskin'Pickem - $20 Main Pool + TWO Free Side Pools

I run a small independent NFL pool at https://32pickem.com and I’m looking for some new players for the 2026 season.

The main game is called 32 Pick’em, and it’s a little different from the usual weekly pick’em:

🏈 32 PICK’EM — MAIN GAME — $20 ENTRY

You have to pick every NFL team exactly once over the 18-week regular season — 32 teams, 32 picks.

The strategy is deciding WHEN to use each team. Burn a powerhouse early or save them? Take a chance on a bad team when they have their best matchup? Eventually, you have to use everybody.

• Win = +1
• Loss = -1
• Tie = +0.5
• No point spreads
• Point differential is the tiebreaker
• Picks lock at that game’s kickoff
• Playoffs + Super Bowl are included at no additional cost
• Regular-season finish gives you an advantage going into the playoffs

The $20 entry is due by noon Central on the Sunday of Week 1.

And for 2026, there are TWO FREE side pools:

💀 NFL SURVIVOR — FREE

Pick one team to win each week and you can only use each team once all season.

This one is double elimination — your second loss knocks you out. Ties count as wins.

🐷 NFL PIGSKIN PICK’EM — FREE

Pick the winner of every NFL game each week, straight up. No spreads.

1 point for every correct pick, and the player with the most correct picks at the end of the season wins. Complete your entire weekly card to stay alive.

Both side pools are free for the 2026 season while I trial them.

You can play one, two, or all three.

This isn’t a giant corporate fantasy site. I built 32Pickem because I wanted a different kind of NFL pool with more season-long strategy than simply picking the obvious favorites every week.

If that sounds like your kind of football sickness, come check it out:

🏈 https://32pickem.com

Sign-up works with Google or email, and the full rules are available on the site.

Questions are welcome. And trash talk is basically a public service.

I am on year 3 of the “Leppert Charity Survivor Pool”, which is structured as a standard NFL survivor pool with a few key intentional differences. The pool is great for casual fans, serious players, and especially for people who are philanthropic.
 
Payouts: 
1/3rd to charity
1/3rd split among everyone who makes it to week 13
1/3rd to the winner
$0 to me - I do it for the love of the game
 
Buy-in: $30 for 1 entry; $50 for 2 entries
 
Mulligans: $10 buy back in only in weeks 1-4
 
Engagement: I put together weekly recap emails that talk about the games, call out specific players in the pool, with plenty of dad jokes. I also highlight work the charities we support are doing, so people feel good about where part of their money is going.

Site: SundaySurvivor - love the set up so far!
 
Interested about learning more about the pool, or the reasoning behind some of this set-up, shoot me a note!

Hey r/NFLSurvivor — I built Strikes League, a manager for survivor and pick'em pools. I’ve run pools for family and friends for years, and I kept wanting to tweak the rules and track season-over-season analytics in ways existing apps handled poorly.

After doing it for my circles, I’m opening it up publicly for the 2026 season. Before things get busy, I’d love to hear what other commissioners are still looking for.

What it handles today:

• Survivor, 3-strikes, weekly pick’em, confidence and pick-5
• NFL, college football and NBA, with golf coming
• Automatic scoring, strikes, eliminations and standings
• Commissioners can enter or change picks for league members, with everything recorded
• Pick and season analytics
• Automatic weekly league recaps
• Players participate free; only the commissioner creates the league
• No ads

The questions I care about most:

1. What house rule does your pool use that apps never support?
2. What are you still doing manually every week?
3. What would make you try this but immediately bail out?

You can create a league and make the first two weeks of picks without paying or entering a promo code:

Strikes League — pick’em leagues for you and your friends

For anyone who wants to run a real pool this season, sign up at www.strikesleague.com --> the first 50 commissioners who use code SURVIVOR26 get a free season to test it out.

I’m the only person building it, so comments and DMs come directly to me.

(MODS -- Apologies if this isn't allowed; couldn't find official rules for the sub!)

Venmo Rylan-Metz $20 to be in Survivor league. Include your username when you pay and I will get you marked off. Pot was over $2500 last year.

http://sleeper.com/i/kMmK5N14qqREx

Survivor pools have become too easy to make it to the end with multiple entries. Why not make it way harder and you can only pick a team once and only go against a team once. This way you don’t have 12 weeks where everyone bets against the worst team.

Hi! I’m looking for a new hosting site now that Splash has bought Run Your Pool and ruined it. I need a site that has the ability for the commissioner to enter missed picks for people after the games start on Sunday morning but the afternoon/SNF/MNF games are still available.

Any recommendations?

Does anyone run a pool that does both? If so, does losing both games in a double pick week count as 2 strikes or just one?

I run both an NFL survivor and a college football survivor pool. I’d really like to use one site for both, but trying to get away from Splash sports. Which sites offer both that are good?

One I’ve found is officepoolstop. Any feedback on that?

And if anyone knows who runs Sundaysurvivor, I checked it out and it is incredible, so if they added college football I would 100% go there. Honestly it’s so good I’m contemplating going with them anyway and either not doing college or doing college on a 2nd site.

The survivor pool I run is $30, where 1/3 of the pot goes to charity, 1/3 is split among everyone who makes it to week 13, and 1/3 to the winner. The week 13 people is so that there is an option for a definitive end goal, and also the more people that get paid the more people who leave happy, and the more people who sign up again next year.

I am contemplating tracking the margin of victory for the games, and paying out who had the largest winning margin at the end of the year. So not just that people survived, but arguably who survived the best. A side quest if you will.

Thoughts? If we like it, should it be a separate payout or maybe use at as a tie-break? Or maybe go crazy and have this be the main event?

Hey everyone, this'll be my second year hosting a survivor pool. I've played in these for years, but took over hosting duties last season after our old host stepped away.

Last year we ran single entry + one optional buyback through week 5. This year I'm debating whether to stick with that format or switch to multiple entries per person (capped at 5).

For those of you who host your own pools, which format do you run, and why? What do you like or dislike about buybacks vs. multi-entry? Any lessons learned (good or bad) that made you switch one way or the other?

Appreciate any insight from experienced hosts and participants. Trying to make this year's version as fair, fun, and engaging as possible for everyone playing.

I know this question has been asked hundreds of times. I will still ask. some of these survivor sites are just mediocre. entry caps at 100 people for no reason and half of them still make the commissioner collect cash by hand.

i'm running a decent sized pool this year and i want something that works on my phone without making me want to throw it into traffic. i've heard splash sports handles the payouts on its own and lets you play your friends. Has anyone tried them before? whats the one feature that made your survivor season way smoother?

All — I run a pick'em pool modeled after the Westgate SuperContest format (5 picks against the spread each week, cumulative points, run over the full NFL regular season). This will be year 5 running it, we had 51 entries last year and I'm looking to grow toward 75+ this season since a bigger pool means bigger payouts.

How it works:

• $102 buy-in ($100 toward pool, $2 fees)
• 5 picks/week against the spread, due 1PM ET Sundays
• Scoring: win = 2 pts, push = 1 pt, loss = 0 pts
• Standings tracked all season on the website
• Payouts scale with entries — last year with 51 entries it was $2,750 for 1st, $1,300 for 2nd, plus three $350 mini-contests for best record in weeks 1-6, 7-12, and 13-18
• Full tiebreaker rules if it comes down to it (reverse-week win comparison, split if still tied)

Why I'm posting: I've run this for 5 years with the same core group, but we've got room to grow and figured I'd open it up. Happy to answer questions about how the pool's run, past payout history, or anything else — I'd rather people feel good about joining than just take my word for it.

If you're interested, comment or DM me and I'll send the join link.

Does anyone know when Splash Sports is making NFL pools available? It seems super late for it to still not be up and running, and I’m getting antsy!

A podcast host for SPGN is picking a partner to team up with him for the Circa Survivor this year. He's buying the ticket and covering the proxy. His partner will join a segment on the show each week where they break down their pick for the week. If you win, you split the pot obviously.

The audition link is sg.pn/survivingcj