Early upsets wreak havoc on NFL survivor pools

Every year, millions of Americans enter NFL "survivor" contests, the simple but difficult to master pick 'em format that has contestants pick one team per week to win a game, with the caveat that the team then cannot be picked again that season. Many pools among friends or colleagues use the contests as a way to wager casually with one another, while some companies use them to engage fans; ESPN's free-to-enter Eliminator Challenge attracted 942,806 entries this year.

But what's usually a fun diversion for casual and hardcore bettors alike has been a nightmare to start the 2024 season. Favorites of six or more points this season, generally the most reliable teams to pick in survivor pools, have posted an astoundingly bad 5-7 outright record through three weeks. Underdogs in general have 15 outright wins over the past two weeks. This trend has wreaked havoc on survivor pools.

The most-selected team in Eliminator Challenge has lost every week so far, and in Week 3, four of the top five most-selected teams lost. It resulted in 77.2% of remaining entries going down last week to bring the total elimination rate to a whopping 94.5% to start the year, leaving only 52,049 entries (5.5%) remaining. For context, since 2020, the previous low for survivors through three weeks was 60,690 out of 503,963 entries (12%) in 2022.

The carnage hasn't been any easier on high-stakes players, either. The Circa Survivor contest, a Las Vegas-based $1,000 buy-in contest that attracted a record 14,266 entries for the winner(s)-take-all $14,266,000 prize pool this year, has only 642 entries left for a 95.5% elimination rate, easily the highest in the five-year history of the contest.

"I've been playing various types of these pools for probably 30 years, and I've never seen anything like this," Circa Sports owner and CEO Derek Stevens told ESPN. "It always looks easier than what it is, but this is uniquely different. No one would've ever expected the Cincinnati Bengals to be 0-3. No one would've expected the Carolina Panthers to have an upset on the road if they've already pulled their franchise quarterback by Week 3."

Since the Circa Survivor contest began in the 2020 season, the competition has gone the distance and has had multiple winners every year. It came closest to a single champion in 2022 when two entries made it through Week 18. In 2021 and 2023, it took the contest until after Week 10 to get below 642 entries, where it currently sits.

It has been a difficult pill to swallow for the thousands at Circa and the millions around the country who are no longer playing.

"I've probably talked to 20 contestants over the course of the last 48 hours. You could say Monday was a Black Monday and Tuesday was a Black Tuesday," Stevens said. "When you play something like this with such a big payout and you get knocked out, that feeling you get, that empty feeling, that pit in your stomach ... it is a lousy feeling."

Stevens chalks up much of the decimation to increased parity in the NFL and dubious perceptions of teams, pointing out there was not a single double-digit point-spread favorite through three weeks. He says he believes there is still time for the survivor format to normalize and produce results in line with what it has seen in previous years.

"These 642 people have good teams left because they've obviously avoided some of the good teams early that got upset," he said. "Every year for the last four years of Circa Survivor, there have been at least seven weeks where 4% or less of the contestants get knocked out. I don't see that necessarily changing because you have some teams that are really showing the fact that they're not good. You've got some teams that are going to be going through some significant difficulties with some injuries."