How to run a football prediction league

Pick one competition

A league follows one competition: the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga, Ligue 1 or the Champions League. Choose the one your group already talks about. A Premier League league in a group of Serie A fans will be quiet by October.

If half the group follows one league and half another, run two. Each one is free and the same people can play in both. One account starts one league, so ask us for the second.

Settle the points before anyone predicts

Arguments about points are the most common way a league falls apart, and they almost always start when somebody changes the rules mid-season. So decide first, tell everyone, and leave it alone.

There are two common approaches:

• Simple: 3 points for the exact score, 1 for the right result, nothing otherwise. Easy to explain in one message, and nobody ever goes below zero.
• Bullseye scoring: big points for the exact score, more for a high-scoring game, and points taken off the further out you are. It rewards a brave call and punishes a lazy one, so the table moves more.

Both are explained with worked examples in how the points work. On PrediSportsHQ the points lock once the first match has been scored, because changing them after that would rewrite everybody's total.

Decide what happens when someone forgets

Somebody will forget a round. Either it costs them nothing, or it costs them a few points. A small penalty keeps people turning up, because a blank round no longer feels free. The phone reminder a couple of hours before kick-off helps more than any rule, though, so ask everyone to switch alerts on when they join.

People who join late start on zero. They are not penalised for matches played before they were let in.

Let every match lock on its own

Plenty of players wait for the team sheets and predict a few minutes before kick-off. If your league locks a whole round at the first match of the weekend, those players lose interest. Every match on PrediSportsHQ stays open until its own kick-off, which suits both kinds of player: the one who fills in the round on Friday and the one who waits for the line-ups.

A prediction stays hidden from everyone else until that match kicks off. Nobody can copy the leader.

Get people in where they already talk

The way in is a link posted in the group chat you already have. Send it with one line saying what it is and when the first deadline is. A link with a date on it gets more sign-ups than a link on its own.

You decide who plays. You can let people in, turn them away or remove them later, which matters for an office or a public group where you don't know everyone who might see the link.

Keep it going after week six

Most leagues lose players between the first international break and Christmas. What helps:

• Post something after each round. The share pictures in the admin screen show who called the score, the biggest movers and the title race, ready to drop into the group chat.
• Give the people at the bottom something to play for. Mini-leagues inside the league (a table for one office floor, one family, one five-a-side team) and the monthly table both help.
• Use the Golden Pick: each player doubles the points on one match a round. Someone who is 40 points behind can still close the gap with one brave call.
• Keep announcements short and rare. Three a day is the limit on PrediSportsHQ, and one a week is usually plenty.

Keep money out of it

PrediSportsHQ never takes entry fees or pays out prizes, and no league on it can collect a payment. If your group wants a prize, a sponsor paying for it (a local pub, a business, the boss) is the simplest way to keep it clean.