Q: What is pick’em? A: Pick’em is a game where players try to pick the winners of different sporting events. The goal is to pick as many winners as possible in different games. As the player picks winners he or she accumulates points. The player with the most points at the end of the tournament wins. iPickem Open tournaments are open to all registered users. Groups can also hold their own pick’em tournaments. We currently only offer traditional pick’em where several match-ups are presented for each round. Q: What is iPickem? A: iPickem is a concept around hosting pick’em tournaments for users as a value-add service. Fed up with not finding a service that satisfied a need on one of our message boards, we sought to build a service that would be flexible and user friendly. Q: How do I play iPickem? A: First, you’ll need to register and login to iPickem. After you are logged in, you can join any of the iPickem Open tournaments that haven’t closed (Note: some tournaments that go on for several weeks may allow you to join even after some rounds have finished.). Go to the first available round for that tournament and select the team you believe will win. Do this for each game available. You can pick all of the games for all of the rounds at once, or do each round as the tournament goes. Rounds will close before the first game in that round begins. Be sure to check the round’s close date and time to make sure you get your picks in. It is recommended that you make picks a few rounds ahead. This will prevent you from getting no points if you miss the round deadline and you’ll have an opportunity to change your picks anytime up until the round deadline. Q: Is pick’em just for Football? A: No. You can actually have pick’em tournaments for just about any sport that involves teams or individuals going head to head. Obviously, it works best for leagues where there are multiple games going on over a series of weeks. Initially, we would like to limit iPickem to professional and college sports based in the USA. But we fully intend to expand very soon. Q: What if I don’t know much about sports? A: Pick’em has traditionally been a game enjoyed by all. Whether you know the sport or not, you can guess and win. Pick’em is a great way to begin educating yourself about the teams and the sports they play. It also adds to the excitement of watching a game when you have an interest in one of the teams winning. Q: Are there different types of pick’em? A: Yes, there are. We currently operate traditional pick’em tournaments that may include a spread or not. We hope to introduce additional tournament types in the future. Q: What is a Spread? A: A Spread is an amount that is determined through betting trends to equalize the opponents. If the majority of bets are favoring one team over another, bet takers will provide a spread which effectively adds to the score of the weaker team. This is intended to draw even bets for both teams. Effectively, the spread is the expected score difference between to the two teams based on conventional wisdom. Picking a winner when there is a spread involved is more difficult because the “winner” has to overcome the spread. When spreads are used, we will determine the spreads from reliable sources. While real spreads change with betting trends (and as new information comes out about the game), we will only input one spread toward the beginning of a round. For example, for NFL and college football, we’ll likely input the spreads on Tuesday of each week. This will give users time to enter their picks and we believe will still provide enough difficulty to make the tournaments very challenging. Q: Are there prizes for the winners? A: For some of the iPickem Open tournaments we do offer prizes. We encourage the Group Leaders to offer prizes for their tournaments. Q: What does it cost to play pick’em? A: There is no cost to play any of the tournaments on iPickem. Q: What are Groups and can I start one? A: iPickem Groups allow users to host their own tournaments. Be it a group from work, your hunting buddies, your Facebook friends, an Internet message board, or whatever, you decide who is in the group and can participate in your Group tournaments. You even decide which games and how many rounds are in your Group tournaments. Q: How do I set up my own group? A: Just send us an email at ipickem.net and we'll help you set up a group. Q: Why aren’t there any forums or chat rooms on iPickem? A: iPickem was created to provide a service to online communities. We aren’t out to leach members or page views, but rather to provide a service that online community owners will feel comfortable partnering with and offering to their users. We believe the discussion about the Group Tournament results should be held back at their site. Our long range plan will take us further down that line allowing online community owners more integration and flexibility. Q: How are the game scores updated? A: We encourage the Group Leaders to log on and input scores for games. The iPickem Staff will verify the scores and input any that were missed. We also offer opportunities for sponsors to assist in score updates in exchange for ad space on the iPickem.net site. Please contact us if you’re interested in being a sponsor.