This page is the single source of truth for the rules, and it is now adopted — the first league's preseason draft began on 22 August 2026, which is the moment section 16 names. The competitive rules are fixed for this season; changes from here follow the amendment procedure in section 16 and are recorded there.
Available Funds, the House Account and the Prize Pool are records, not accounts. Real money is collected and paid out by the Commissioner directly. See §3 for how money enters the league, and how it is paid back out in a single settlement after the National Championship.
Sharps Pick 'Em is a college football ownership and investment game. Unlike fantasy football, owners do not draft individual players. Instead, they build and manage portfolios of college football teams whose values rise and fall throughout the season.
Owners attempt to identify undervalued teams, make strategic trades, and position themselves to own College Football Playoff teams when the postseason begins.
The game's economy is built around objective Market Values, blind bidding, and free-market trading between owners. Every decision carries financial consequences, rewarding owners who correctly identify championship contenders before the rest of the league.
The ultimate goal is to maximize portfolio value while earning playoff payouts as your teams advance through the College Football Playoff.
Before playing, every owner should understand five core concepts that form the foundation of Sharps Pick 'Em.
Each participant is an Owner. Owners buy, sell, trade, and manage teams throughout the season. Each owner may own a maximum of the league's configured portfolio limit (default: five teams), as established by the Commissioner before the draft. The limit may be set anywhere from four to eight, and it is locked once the draft begins.
The House is not a competitor. Instead, the House functions as an automated market maker. The House:
The House never negotiates prices and never competes with owners.
Market Value is the official valuation assigned to every FBS team. It serves as the benchmark for the league economy and is updated once each week using objective rankings.
Market Value is not intended to predict championship odds. Instead, it creates a consistent pricing system that allows owners to compare teams, evaluate trades, and determine fair prices. Market Value is used to:
Owners are always free to buy or sell teams above or below Market Value when trading directly with another owner.
Money reaches the House Account when owners spend it, not when they pay it in. A Contribution is credited to that owner's Available Funds (§3); it enters the House only when it is used. Money enters the House Account through:
At the conclusion of the College Football Playoff, the entire House Account is distributed according to the playoff payout schedule. No money carries over into future seasons.
For as long as the season is running the market is open continuously (§6 closes it at the Championship Game). Owners may buy ranked teams from the House, add unranked teams for free, drop teams, sell teams to the House (until §8's buyback dates close that side), and agree owner-to-owner trades. What decides whether you can act on a given team is whether that team is available — broadly, whether its published Market Value can still be trusted. An action on an available team happens immediately; an action on an unavailable one is queued and settles at the next market opening (§6).
At its core, Sharps Pick 'Em is a game about building and managing a portfolio of college football teams. Each owner may own a maximum of the league's configured portfolio limit (default: five teams), as established by the Commissioner before the draft. Throughout the season, owners buy, sell, and trade teams in an effort to maximize the value of their portfolio and win the league prize pool.
Most owners will naturally divide their portfolio into two strategies:
These are your “blue-chip” teams — programs you believe will appreciate in value over the course of the season by winning games, climbing the rankings, and making a College Football Playoff run.
The remaining roster spots can be used more aggressively. Owners can temporarily acquire teams with favorable weekly matchups in order to create profitable betting opportunities called Battles.
Success requires balancing long-term investing with short-term trading:
Every roster decision becomes a tradeoff between building long-term portfolio value and generating short-term gains through Battles, creating an active market that rewards both football knowledge and strategic portfolio management.
The economy of Sharps Pick 'Em is intentionally simple, objective, and transparent. Every team has an official Market Value published by the House. This value changes weekly according to nationally recognized rankings and serves as the foundation for every financial transaction within the league.
Unlike traditional fantasy sports, owners are investing in programs rather than accumulating player statistics. Success comes from recognizing value before the market does.
Every figure in this app — Available Funds, the House Account, the Prize Pool — is a record, not an account. Real money is collected and paid out by the Commissioner directly, outside the app. Available Funds are not a bank account, a stored-value balance, or a wallet you can withdraw from: they are the league's shared note of what you may spend and what you are owed.
Each owner has an Available Funds balance: what they may spend in the league right now. It goes down when you buy a team at the draft, win a blind bid, pay cash in a trade, or stake a Battle. It goes up when you sell a team to the House (while §8 still allows it), receive trade cash, win a Battle, or win a playoff payout.
Money enters the league as a Contribution: you send it to the Commissioner directly, and your Available Funds go up once they confirm it has arrived. Nothing is credited before then — the app cannot see your bank.
Winnings are not handed over as you earn them. Battle winnings and playoff payouts are credited to your Available Funds and stay there. After the National Championship — once the House has paid out the whole Prize Pool and holds $0.00 — the Commissioner settles up once, paying each owner their final Available Funds balance.
So the number to watch all season is your balance: it already contains everything you have won and everything you have spent. If it ends below what you put in, you are down on the season; the difference has gone to the owners who did better.
An owner whose final balance is negative owes the league that amount, and settles it with the Commissioner the same way.
Before the season begins, only the AP Top 25 receives an Opening Market Value.
| AP Rank | Market Value |
|---|---|
| #1 | $26 |
| #2 | $25 |
| #3 | $24 |
| … | … |
| #24 | $3 |
| #25 | $2 |
The total value of the AP Top 25 equals $350. This creates the opening league economy. If every ranked team is drafted, exactly $350 is deposited into the House Account before Week 1.
Every FBS team outside the preseason AP Top 25 is free to draft. This allows owners to take calculated risks on sleeper teams without spending part of the opening economy. Owners who correctly identify breakout teams are rewarded as those teams gain Market Value throughout the season.
Beginning after the completion of the draft, the House publishes updated Market Values every week. The following pricing structure is used.
| Team Status | Market Value |
|---|---|
| CFP/AP #1 | $26 |
| CFP/AP #2 | $25 |
| … | … |
| CFP/AP #25 | $2 |
| Any team outside both Top 25s | $0 |
Only ranked teams have a Market Value. A team outside both the AP and CFP Top 25 is worth $0.00 — it is free to draft, free to add, free to drop, is never bid on, and is never bought back by the House (§5, §8). Market Value is the price a ranked team carries, and the House does not price unranked teams at all. The moment a team enters either Top 25 it takes the Market Value for its rank.
Market Value is the price, not a promise that the House is buying. What the House will actually pay narrows twice and then stops altogether, on two dates the Commissioner sets before the draft (§8) — so from the first of those dates a team can carry its full Market Value and still be one the House will not take. The price is what the poll says; whether there is a buyer is §8's question, and after the second date there is none.
Prior to the release of the first CFP Rankings, the AP Poll is used. Once CFP Rankings are released, all Market Values are determined using the CFP Rankings for the remainder of the season. Market Values are republished each time a new poll is applied, which is also what opens the market (§6).
A Sharps Pick 'Em league is designed for 8 to 12 owners, but that is a recommendation and not a requirement — a league may be any size. Each owner manages an investment portfolio of college football teams throughout the season. The Commissioner is responsible for organizing the league and distributing playoff winnings according to these rules.
What the size does change is the buy-in. The draft board is the same 25 ranked teams however many owners there are, so a smaller league has each owner buying a larger share of it: the minimum workable buy-in is $107.50 at four owners against $60.00 at ten. That runs opposite to most people's instinct, so the app computes the floor for your league and shows it beside the buy-in setting (§3).
Those two figures assume the default five-team portfolio limit. The floor covers a share of the draft board plus the §11 stake reserve, and the reserve is one stake per team held — so a league that sets a different limit (§4, Team Ownership) has a different floor. The app recalculates it automatically; it is never a number anyone has to work out.
Each owner may own a maximum of the league's configured portfolio limit (default: five teams), as established by the Commissioner before the draft. An owner is never required to fill their portfolio. Any team not currently owned by an owner is automatically owned by the House. There is no limit to the number of teams the House may own.
The Commissioner may set the limit anywhere from four to eight teams before the draft; from the first pick it is locked for the season, like every other rule that affects competitive balance (§16). The examples throughout this section assume the default of five.
Owning a team grants the owner exclusive rights to:
Only the current owner of a team may authorize a trade or sale.
The standings answer two questions, and they are deliberately different questions.
Alpha is an owner's Portfolio Value minus everything that has been put into their account — every Contribution they have made (§3), and any balance adjustment the Commissioner has recorded for them (§13). It removes the effect of simply putting more money in during the season, so it measures who has played best rather than who has paid in most. Alpha determines the league standings and the league champion.
Portfolio Value is what an owner is worth: their Available Funds (§3) plus what the House would pay for every team they hold (§8). It is the headline figure an owner watches all season, and it is shown beside every standing — but because it counts money paid in as well as money made, it does not decide the league. An owner cannot climb the table by contributing more.
A team is worth what somebody will give you for it. Market Value is the price a team carries — what it costs to draft, to bid on, or to buy from the House (§2) — but the House does not go on honouring that price all year. Its buying narrows twice and then stops, on the two dates in §8 — so from the first of them a team ranked outside the top twelve counts nothing toward its owner's Portfolio Value, and from the second no team does. Owners may still trade those teams with each other at any price they agree (§9), and a playoff team goes on earning its owner payouts (§12) — but the payouts are paid in cash, and cash is already counted. From the second date, then, a Portfolio Value is simply that owner's Available Funds, and the final standings — and the champion — are decided on what each owner has left against what they put in. Because that date falls before conference championship week, the last weeks of the regular season are played out on cash alone.
Both are public, and so is the position behind them. Every owner can see every other owner's Portfolio Value, Alpha, weekly change, Available Funds and Battle record, and the league's Official Record lists every transaction as it happens. What stays private is the itemised money record: an owner's contributions and their Available Funds ledger are theirs and the Commissioner's alone (§13).
Playoff payouts (§12) are separate from the standings. They are decided by which teams win playoff games, not by where an owner finishes.
| Period | Activity |
|---|---|
| Preseason | Snake Draft |
| Sunday afternoon (AP) / Tuesday evening (CFP) | Poll published — Market Values are re-priced |
| The following morning | Market opens — everything queued settles in one pass |
| Until each team plays | Market is live — actions on available teams take effect immediately |
| 30 min before kickoff | That team comes off the board until the next market opening |
| Thursday–Monday | Games Played |
This weekly cycle repeats until the conclusion of the regular season. Once the College Football Playoff begins, playoff payout rules take effect (§12) and the House stops buying teams back (§8) — but portfolios keep moving: teams may still be traded, bought, added and dropped right through the Championship Game.
The draft establishes the initial ownership of teams and creates the opening league economy. It is the only time during the season that owners acquire teams directly from the House without participating in blind bidding. The draft should take place no later than 48 hours before the first scheduled FBS game of the season.
The Commissioner will determine the draft order by random draw. The draft follows a standard snake draft format.
Example with eight owners — Round 1: 1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → 5 → 6 → 7 → 8. Round 2: 8 → 7 → 6 → 5 → 4 → 3 → 2 → 1. This pattern continues until every owner has completed the draft or chooses to stop drafting.
Any FBS football team may be selected during the draft. Teams may only be drafted once. Once selected, a team becomes the exclusive property of that owner.
Only teams ranked in the Preseason AP Top 25 require payment during the draft. Their purchase prices are equal to their published Opening Market Values (#1 = $26 … #25 = $2). The combined value of all Top 25 teams equals $350, representing the opening league economy.
Teams outside the current AP Top 25 and CFP Top 25 may be added to or dropped from an owner's portfolio at no cost, at any point between the completion of the preseason draft and the close of the season (§6), subject to the availability rule in §6. Unranked teams may participate in Battles and may be traded between owners, but may not be sold to the House. Once a team enters the AP Top 25 or CFP Top 25, it immediately becomes eligible for sale to the House at its current Market Value.
This is deliberate: charging for speculative teams discourages exactly the behaviour the league wants. Free unranked teams reward scouting a breakout early rather than simply holding the largest bankroll, and every team an owner picks up is another possible Battle — which feeds the House and grows the prize pool. The portfolio limit (§4) still applies.
An unranked team is added the moment you ask for it, provided it is available (§6). Two owners who want the same team are settled by who asked first. If the team is not available — it is about to play, or its last result has not been priced — the request is queued instead, and queued requests for the same team are settled at the next market opening in the order they were made.
Free teams may not be added before or during the preseason draft — only once it is complete. An unranked team costs nothing to draft and nothing to add, so the two are the same transaction: allowing adds during the draft would let an owner take a team without spending a pick, and allowing them beforehand would let owners fill their portfolios before draft night began. Dropping is closed until the draft completes as well — the market opens as a whole, not one action at a time (§6).
Owners are not required to fill their portfolio. At any point during the draft, an owner may pass. An owner who passes may continue drafting later if draft rounds are still in progress and portfolio space remains available. The draft concludes when every owner has either filled their portfolio, or every remaining owner passes consecutively.
For as long as the season is running the market is open continuously. What governs whether you can act on a particular team is not the calendar but the poll: a team may be bought, sold, added, dropped or traded only while its published Market Value is trustworthy. Everything in this section follows from that one idea. Two calendars sit on top of it: §8's two buyback dates, which close the House's side in stages, and the end of the season itself — see Close of the season below.
A team is game-locked from 30 minutes before kickoff until that game is officially final. Nothing may be done with a game-locked team by anyone. Once the game concludes the lock lifts immediately — there is no waiting for the next poll.
What happens next is not the same for both sides of the market, and it is the part most easily misread. At the final whistle an owner-to-owner trade may resume at once, because §9 lets the two owners set their own price. A House transaction — buying, selling, adding, dropping — stays shut until the next market opening, under the first rule below. So a team beaten on Saturday night is tradable straight away and unsellable until Monday morning.
Transactions with the House — buying, selling, adding and dropping — are paid at published Market Value, so they need a price that can still be trusted. A team is available for those when all of the following are true:
A team that fails any of these is unavailable, and the app tells you which one and when it will clear. Availability is decided per team, not for the league as a whole: on a Thursday in October most of the board is available while the two teams playing that night are not.
The first rule is about the WEEK, not only about this team, and that is worth stating plainly because it is the one people expect to work the other way. Market Value is a team's rank on the published poll, and a rank is a position against the other teams — so a team that sat out the week is repriced by everybody else's results just as surely as by its own, and most of them are. So once the week's last game has kicked off, the whole board is off the House's side until the opening — a team that played, and a team that did not, come back at the same moment.
And it clears at the OPENING, not when the poll lands. Those are different moments: the poll is published on the Sunday and the market opens the following morning. Clearing at the poll left a gap in which a team was buyable outright while other owners' sealed bids for it were still queued — so the bidder who did what §7 asks could be beaten by somebody who simply waited for the poll and took the team. §7 says a bid is what you pay to be sure of a team you cannot simply take now, and this is what makes that true.
A Battle is only live once it has bound, 30 minutes before kickoff (§11). A matchup that has appeared but not yet bound holds nothing: while both owners can see it coming, either of them may still sell, drop or trade the team, and rule 3 does not apply until the line freezes. So the third rule falls at the same moment as the second, and what it really adds is the stretch after the final whistle, while the wager is being settled.
An owner-to-owner trade (§9) is not governed by Market Value — the two owners set their own price — so a stale price cannot hurt either of them, and rule 1 above does not apply. A team may be traded whenever it is not game-locked and not carrying a live Battle. That holds all season, including throughout the College Football Playoff: there is no postseason ownership freeze.
So a team beaten on a Monday night is tradable the moment that game is final, while it stays off the board for House transactions until the next market opening prices it. The two questions are asked separately because they protect different things: the trade rule protects nobody's price, and the availability rule protects the House from paying a price the result has already overtaken.
Florida State opened 2024 ranked #10 — a Market Value of $17.00 — and lost to Boston College on the Labour Day Monday, after that Sunday's poll had already been published. The next poll had them unranked, worth $0.00. Between the final whistle and that poll the result was public knowledge and the price was not, so selling to the House at $17.00 would have cost the prize pool $17.00 for a team it could not resell at any price. Rule 1 takes Florida State off the board for those six days. It is not a rare shape: in the 2024 season 21 games finished after the poll that had already priced their week — every Sunday, Monday and Tuesday kickoff.
When a new poll is published and applied, the market opens the following morning at the time the Commissioner has set. That opening does two things: it re-prices every team, and it settles everything that has been queued since the last opening.
The opening is tied to the poll rather than to a weekday because no weekday works all season — the AP Top 25 lands on a Sunday afternoon and the Playoff Committee rankings on a Tuesday evening from week 11. Opening the morning after means every owner has had the same overnight period to decide, whatever time the poll actually landed.
The market runs right through the National Championship Game. Owners may keep buying, bidding, adding, dropping and trading until that game is final — §11 and §12 mean through the Championship Game, not past it.
Once the Championship Game ends the season is over and the market closes. All team transactions stop — buying, bidding, adding, dropping, selling to the House and owner-to-owner trading — and nothing reopens until the next preseason draft.
The close is a clean cutoff. Anything still unsettled at that moment expires: a queued order that has not been applied is cancelled rather than held for a later opening, and a trade the two owners agreed but which never settled is cancelled too. Nothing carries into the next season. Both owners are told when a trade ends this way.
From there the league moves to final settlement (§10): the Commissioner pays out each owner's closing balance, once.
The market closes rather than simply going quiet because money paid to the House after the last game has nowhere to go: §10 requires the House Account to finish the season empty, and every playoff payout has already been made by then.
If a team is available, your action happens immediately. Buying it from the House, selling it back, adding it free, or dropping it all take effect the moment you submit them, at the current Market Value. A conditional drop is the one exception, and §8 explains why.
If a team is unavailable, your order is queued and settles at the next market opening. You are told why it was queued. A queued order can be changed or cancelled at any time before it settles.
Speed decides a contested team. Two owners who want the same available team are settled by who acted first, and two owners whose orders are queued for the same team are settled by who queued first. This is a change from earlier drafts of these rules, which sent contested teams to a waiver order so that reacting quickly would not be an advantage. A live market cannot honour that promise and remain a live market, so the promise is withdrawn rather than left in place untrue.
One order per team. You may have only one queued order for any given team, so you cannot queue both a drop and a sale for the same team.
Everything queued is processed in one pass, in this order:
The order follows two principles. Anything that releases comes before anything that acquires, so a sale can fund a bid and a drop can free the spot a bid needs, within the same opening. And a commitment another owner is relying on outranks your own: a trade is something two people agreed, while a bid or an addition is a decision you made alone, so trades are honoured first.
A queued order that is refused — you were outbid, you could not afford it, the team was gone, the team is no longer ranked — is closed out with the reason. A queued order that simply could not be tried yet, because the team is still unavailable, rolls forward to the next opening.
Blind bidding exists for teams that are unavailable when you want them. An available House team is simply bought at Market Value, first come first served; there is nothing to bid against. Bids queued for the same team are settled at the opening by highest amount, and a tie by who bid first. Bidding above Market Value therefore buys certainty, not a discount — it is what you pay to be sure of a team you cannot simply take now.
An owner holding five teams queues a sale of one and a bid on another, both unavailable. At the opening the sale settles first, which frees a portfolio spot and puts the proceeds in their Available Funds — so the bid can be paid for out of the sale, in the same pass.
An owner may never own more than their league's portfolio limit — five teams unless the Commissioner set otherwise before the draft (§4). An action that would put you over the limit right now is refused outright unless you name a team to give up in the same breath (§8). You may also queue more than you have room for — a drop queued alongside may make room, and you will not know which bids you have won until the opening. Anything that would put you over the limit when the opening settles is void, and you are told which and why.
Every action is checked against §11's reserve as it happens: after it, you must still be able to cover one Battle stake for every team you hold. An action that would leave you unable to stake your own portfolio is refused, whether it executes immediately or settles at an opening. Battles are mandatory, so this is the one limit the market will not let you spend through.
A completed transaction is final. No transaction may be canceled or modified after it has been processed unless a clerical error materially affected the outcome.
Every action is published as it happens, and every opening publishes its full result: updated team ownership, winning blind bids, completed trades, teams sold to the House, the updated House Account balance, and current owner portfolios. Every order you queued shows what happened to it, including why a losing bid lost.
After the draft, any team not owned by an owner is considered House-owned. There are two ways to acquire one, and which applies depends only on whether the team is available (§6):
The rest of this section describes the second case.
Any ranked FBS team owned by the House may be acquired through blind bidding — teams that were never drafted, teams previously sold back to the House, and teams that became House-owned through other league transactions.
Unranked teams are not bid on. A team outside the AP and CFP Top 25 has no Market Value, costs nothing, and may simply be added to any owner's portfolio on request, at any point between the completion of the preseason draft and the close of the season (§6), subject only to the portfolio limit (§4). Free teams are deliberately easy to pick up: an owner who spots a rising team early, or who just wants a side in a Battle, should not have to outbid anyone for a team nobody is charging for.
Every House-owned team has a published Market Value, which serves as the minimum acceptable bid. Owners may submit any bid equal to or greater than the team's current Market Value. Bids below Market Value are automatically rejected.
Blind bids are confidential. No owner may view another owner's bid before the market opens. Owners submit one sealed bid for each team they wish to acquire.
Bidding above Market Value buys certainty, not a discount. Bid the minimum and you pay the minimum if nobody else wants the team; bid more and you are covered if they do. A team that becomes available before the opening can be bought at Market Value by whoever asks first, so a bid is a claim on a team you cannot take right now.
At the market opening, all bids are opened at once. The owner submitting the highest valid bid acquires the team, and the winning bid amount is deposited in full into the House Account. Nobody reviews or approves this — the highest bid wins, so there is nothing to decide.
Notre Dame is House-owned with a Market Value of $18. Bids: Spencer $18, Mike $20, Sarah $23, Chris $19. Sarah submitted the highest valid bid, becomes the owner of Notre Dame, and $23 is deposited into the House Account.
If two or more owners submit identical highest bids, the winning owner is the one who queued theirs first, timed to the millisecond.
Owners may submit blind bids on as many House-owned teams as they wish. However, an owner may never exceed the portfolio limit. If multiple winning bids would exceed it, you choose which ones you keep: rank your bids in the order you want them, and the highest-ranked bids that fit are processed. The rest are void, and you are told which and why.
A bid you give up this way is not withdrawn from the auction — it simply stops being yours to win, and the next-highest bidder inherits the team. So ranking is a decision about your own portfolio, never a way to keep a team away from somebody else.
You rank bids from the dashboard, alongside the queue itself, any time before the market opening settles them. A new bid joins the bottom of your ranking, so if you never touch the order it is the one you queued first that you keep.
The total of an owner's open bids may not exceed their Available Funds, less the Battle stake reserve their portfolio requires (§11). Because bids are sealed and resolved together, an owner who bid more in total than they could pay might win several teams at once and be unable to settle them — and there would be no principled way to choose which wins to honor. Bids that would take an owner's outstanding total past their Available Funds are rejected when submitted.
The winning owner pays the full amount of their submitted bid. There are no refunds or discounts. Because bids are voluntary, every owner is responsible for determining the maximum amount they are willing to pay.
The House's willingness to buy narrows in three stages as the season runs toward the playoff. Each boundary is a date the Commissioner sets before the draft and publishes to the league:
| From | The House buys |
|---|---|
| The start of the season | Any team in the Top 25, at Market Value |
| The first buyback date | Only teams ranked 1–12, at Market Value. Teams ranked 13–25 may no longer be sold back. |
| The second buyback date | Nothing. House buybacks cease entirely for the rest of the season, including for teams ranked 1–12. |
The dates are the league's own and need not track the College Football Playoff calendar. The second one should fall before conference championship week, which closes the House for the last stretch of the regular season as well as for the postseason: an owner goes into the championships committed to the roster they hold.
That is the recommended structure and not a requirement. Much of a league's setup is left to the Commissioner's discretion and this is no different, so a Commissioner may set a later date. The app warns them where it would fall — on the settings screen, and again in the Draft Room before the first pick, which is the last moment either date can be changed — and then lets them proceed.
Both dates are fixed when the draft begins and cannot be moved for the rest of the season (§16). Owners plan an exit around them, and a boundary the Commissioner could move is a boundary they could move to suit their own portfolio, which §13 forbids. A league whose Commissioner has not set both dates cannot start its draft.
This is about buying, not about pricing. Market Values continue to follow whichever poll is current (§7) — the AP poll, and the Playoff Committee's once it is released. A team therefore keeps a Market Value that rises and falls after the House has stopped paying it, which is what it is worth to another owner in a trade (§9) and nothing more.
Unranked teams are never bought back, at any point in the season. They cost nothing to acquire and have no Market Value for the House to pay; drop one for free instead (§8, Dropping a Team).
The House may also refuse a sale it cannot fund. The House Account never goes negative and there are no partial buybacks: a team is bought back at its full Market Value or not at all. If the House holds less than that, the sale is refused and the owner keeps the team.
Where several eligible sales together would exceed what the House holds, they are processed in the order they were submitted. Each is paid in full until the House cannot cover the next one, and that one is refused. This is the one limit on buybacks that does not depend on the team or the date — two owners holding identically ranked teams can get different answers in the same minute, decided by who asked first.
The staging prevents a late-season sell-off from shrinking the prize pool on the way into the playoff, while leaving owners a real exit for as long as it is safe to offer one. Published in advance and frozen at the draft, the two dates make that exit something an owner can plan around rather than something that arrives when a poll happens to. Everything else continues at every stage: owner-to-owner trades remain permitted (§9), owners may still buy eligible unowned teams from the House, and the House Account remains active and may keep growing through Battles, purchases from the House, fees, and other league activity. The House Account is the official Playoff Prize Pool, and its final value is determined at the conclusion of the season.
These limits apply to every route by which a team could reach the House, not merely to a sale an owner chooses. Nothing in this rulebook sells a team on an owner's behalf (§11), so there is no automatic process that could return one to the House after buybacks have closed.
Owners may sell a team they own back to the House while the House is still buying teams of that rank, and while that team is available (§6). A sale of an available team happens immediately; a sale of an unavailable one is queued and settles at the next market opening. A queued sale is paid at the Market Value on the day it executes, not the day it was queued — a poll lands in between, and it is the poll that sets the price. A team outside the AP and CFP Top 25 has no Market Value for the House to pay, and cost nothing to acquire — it may be dropped for free instead (§8, Dropping a Team), and becomes sellable the moment it is ranked. Selling to the House allows an owner to exit a position, free a portfolio spot, or realize gains before a team's Market Value declines. Unlike owner-to-owner trades, sales to the House always occur at the team's published Market Value.
The House purchases teams at their current published Market Value. Market Value is determined using the weekly pricing schedule published by the Commissioner and is not subject to negotiation. The House pays the full Market Value — there is no fee and no deduction.
An owner drafted Penn State for $15. Six weeks later Penn State has a Market Value of $24.
| Purchase Price | $15.00 |
| Current Market Value | $24.00 |
| Amount Paid to Owner | $24.00 |
The owner receives $24.00 and keeps the whole $9.00 gain. Because the House always pays Market Value, the same rule runs the other way: an owner who paid $22 for a team whose Market Value has since fallen to $17 is paid $17.00, and the $5.00 difference is a real loss.
Once a team is sold, ownership immediately transfers to the House and the selling owner permanently relinquishes all rights to the team unless they reacquire it through a future transaction. It goes back on the board on §7's usual terms: any owner may buy it at Market Value while it is available, or bid for it if it is not.
An owner may drop any available team in their portfolio at any point in the season, returning it to the House for $0.00. Dropping requires no Commissioner approval, and a drop of an available team takes effect immediately. Dropping a team that is unavailable is queued like anything else.
Dropping exists because the House only buys ranked teams, so an owner needs a way to release one that has no buyer — to free a portfolio spot, to shed a team they no longer believe in, or to make room for a blind bid that succeeds. Drops settle first at a market opening, before anything that needs a spot, which is what lets a drop and a bid at the same opening work together. The owner receives nothing, so no competitive advantage is gained beyond the roster spot.
An owner may also file a conditional drop order: a team to be dropped automatically if a pending acquisition lands — a blind bid that wins, or a free-agent request that is granted — and the portfolio limit would otherwise be exceeded. The team is given up only if the acquisition it was filed against actually happens; if the bid is outbid, or another owner asked for the free team first, the owner keeps it.
A conditional drop always settles at the next opening, even when the team is available — which is the one exception to §6's rule that an available team is acted on at once. What it waits on is the acquisition, not the team, and that outcome is not known until the opening. Releasing it immediately would give the team up whether or not the acquisition landed, which is the loss this instrument exists to prevent.
A conditional drop executes only if an acquisition actually lands and a roster spot is needed for it. If the owner already has an open spot, or none of the acquisitions they won that opening requires one, nothing is dropped and the team is kept.
An owner may file more than one. At an opening the earliest eligible one is used first. Any that are not needed expire at the end of that opening — they do not carry forward, so a drop filed one week can never fire against an acquisition made in a later one. An owner who still wants the option files it again.
An owner must have an available roster spot before any acquisition is finalized. A drop may not be made retroactively to satisfy the portfolio limit after an auction has already resolved — a winning bid that would exceed the limit is void, and the next-highest bid inherits the team.
A conditional drop order is not retroactive: it is filed in advance and executes as part of resolving the acquisition, so the spot exists at the moment the acquisition is finalized rather than being created afterwards. The same reasoning permits an owner at the limit to take an available team by naming one to give up: the drop and the purchase happen together, so the spot is not created after the fact. If either half is refused, neither happens.
Making room in the same breath is subject to all of the following. The team being given up:
The Battle stake reserve (§11) is then tested against the roster the transaction leaves behind — the team acquired counts, the team released does not.
This mechanism applies to immediate acquisitions only. An owner whose acquisition is queued to the next opening uses the conditional drop above instead: a queued order does not yet know whether it will land, and giving a team up for an acquisition that then fails is the loss these two instruments exist to prevent.
Owners may freely negotiate the purchase, sale, or exchange of teams with one another at any time during the season, up to the moment the Championship Game becomes final (§6). Unlike transactions involving the House, owner-to-owner trades are not governed by Market Value. Instead, they are governed entirely by mutual agreement between the participating owners.
Market Value serves only as a benchmark during owner-to-owner negotiations. Owners may agree to any purchase price regardless of the team's published Market Value — above, at, or below. No approval is required from the Commissioner regarding the negotiated price.
The Commissioner does not determine whether a trade is "fair." If both owners voluntarily agree to the transaction, it is valid.
Owners may negotiate transactions using cash only, teams only, or teams plus cash. Examples include: Alabama for $20; Michigan for Notre Dame; Oregon and $5 for Penn State; Georgia for Clemson and $8. Any of those is permitted, provided both owners agree and all portfolio limits are maintained.
A trade moves at most one team in each direction, plus cash. One team may go each way, or a single team may go one way for cash; a trade may not bundle two or more teams travelling together. And cash only ever moves against a team coming the other way — there is no cash-only trade, because a payment with no team behind it is a gift rather than a trade, and the league keeps no record of what it bought.
Whatever the shape, the whole exchange happens at once or not at all: both teams change hands and the cash moves in the same moment. Nobody hands over a team and waits to see whether the other half arrives.
One owner proposes the trade and the other confirms it. The proposal identifies the participating owners, the teams changing ownership, and any cash exchanged. The counterparty's confirmation is what makes the trade official; nobody else approves it.
A proposal does not expire. It stands until one of three things happens: it is accepted, it is declined by the owner it was sent to, or it is cancelled by either owner. Nothing times it out. A trade that has been agreed but cannot settle yet — because a team is game-locked or carrying a live Battle (§6) — simply stays pending until settlement is possible, however many market openings that takes.
A trade costs nothing beyond the cash the two owners agree. No fee is charged for trading, and nothing is owed to the House when a team changes hands.
A trade settles the moment the second owner confirms it, provided every team involved is available (§6). Ownership transfers and cash is exchanged according to the agreed terms, immediately. Processed trades are final.
A trade is not gated on the poll, because its price is not derived from the poll — the two owners set it themselves and price the risk between them. What does apply is availability: a team about to play, or one carrying a live Battle, cannot change hands. A trade agreed on such a team is held and settles at the next market opening.
If a trade cannot complete — because a portfolio filled up, or a team stopped being available before the opening settled — it is held, not cancelled, and settles at the next opening instead. Neither owner loses a trade they agreed to because of one week's timing.
A trade needs no approval. If two owners agree, the trade is agreed — the league does not need a third person to bless it, and cash in a trade moves directly between the two owners without ever passing through the House. The app still enforces every league rule on both sides: the portfolio limit, the lock rules, and whether the buyer can actually pay.
A settled trade stands. The Commissioner does not unwind one: both teams and the cash have already changed hands, and the app enforces every league rule on both sides before it settles, so a trade that breaks one does not complete in the first place. Two owners who agree they got it wrong can simply trade back. The Commissioner may raise a concern about collusion with the league under §13, which is not a routine step and does not delay a trade.
The House Account serves as the central treasury for the league. Every dollar owners spend is deposited into the House Account and remains there until the conclusion of the College Football Playoff; money paid in but not yet spent sits in that owner's Available Funds (§3). The House Account exists solely to collect league funds and distribute playoff winnings. The House does not retain profits, and no funds carry over to future seasons. At the conclusion of each season, the House Account balance is reduced to $0.00.
Owners purchasing preseason AP Top 25 teams during the draft pay the team's Opening Market Value. If every preseason Top 25 team is drafted, the House Account begins the season with $350.00.
Whenever an owner acquires a House-owned team through blind bidding, the owner's entire winning bid is deposited into the House Account.
The House Fee — 10% of every Battle pot by default, unless your Commissioner set it otherwise before the draft — is deposited into the House Account (§11). A push or a canceled game refunds both stakes and takes no fee, so a Battle contributes only when it pays out.
Any additional league fees must be approved before the season begins and clearly communicated to all owners. No new fees may be introduced after the draft without unanimous owner approval.
The Commissioner shall publish the House Account balance after each market opening. At a minimum, the weekly update should include the beginning balance, draft payments (if applicable), blind bid revenue, Battle entry fees collected, and the ending balance. This allows every owner to verify that league funds are being tracked accurately throughout the season.
Following the conclusion of the College Football Playoff National Championship, 100% of the House Account is distributed according to the official playoff payout schedule. No portion is retained by the House, the Commissioner, or the league, and the House Account must equal $0.00 before the season is complete.
Each share is credited to the winning owner's Available Funds rather than handed over on the spot. Once every share has been paid and the House is empty, the Commissioner settles the season in one payment per owner, against their final balance (§3). That way an owner receives a single figure covering the whole year — buy-in, trades, Battles and playoff winnings together — instead of a fortnight of separate payments.
A playoff share is paid to the owner of the winning team. When a winning team is House-owned — nobody drafted or bought it — there is no owner to pay, and that share is neither forfeited nor kept by the House. It is added to the rounds still to be paid, in proportion to their percentages, so the remaining winners share it.
Because the National Championship is the last share paid, it absorbs whatever remains — which is what makes the $0.00 above a guarantee rather than an expectation. In the single case where the champion itself is House-owned, and there is no later round to carry the share into, whatever remains is returned to the owners in proportion to what each contributed. The House ends every season at $0.00 without exception.
A Battle occurs whenever two owners each own teams that are playing one another during the regular season or the conference championship games. Where Market Value reflects a team's standing in the marketplace, Battles reward on-field performance, and they turn every head-to-head matchup between two owned teams into a stake in that week's result.
Battles are not optional and are not proposed. If you own a team and another owner owns its opponent, you are in a Battle for that game. The matchup itself creates it.
Battles cover the regular season and the conference championship games only. There are no Battles in bowl games or in the College Football Playoff. Postseason games are already paid under §12, which awards a percentage of the Prize Pool for every Playoff win — so a postseason Battle would pay the same result twice, and would do it in a way that changes the pool it is being paid from: a Battle deposits 10% of its pot into the House, while §12 pays out of the House. The postseason is settled one way, by §12.
A Battle appears as soon as both teams in a game are owned by different owners, and it binds 30 minutes before kickoff, at the moment the line freezes. Until it binds nothing has been staked and neither team is held: either owner may still sell, drop or trade the team away, and the matchup simply dissolves. Whoever holds the two teams when the line freezes is in the Battle, and from that moment it is mandatory.
You can always walk away from a Battle. You cannot keep the team and walk away. That is the whole of the rule. Giving a team up to avoid a matchup is a legitimate move rather than an exploit — it costs you the team, which is a real price, and the other owner may do the same. What no owner can do is hold a team through the freeze and then decline the wager it brings.
Acquiring a team in order to create a Battle is strategy, not an exploit. An owner may take an available team — including a free unranked one — because they like the matchup. They still risk the stake and still spend a portfolio spot, the team must be acquired before the game lock (§6), and the wager settles on the line 30 minutes before kickoff rather than the one showing when they acted. The owner on the other side is not asked, but they are not trapped either: they may give the team up at any point before the freeze.
No Battle is created once a game has kicked off. A team is game-locked from 30 minutes before kickoff until its game is officially final (§6), so it cannot ordinarily change hands while the game is being played at all. That lock depends on the league holding the game on its schedule, and it lifts if the game is never marked final — so if a team does change hands with its game under way, no Battle is created for that game: neither owner may take on a stake in a result that is already being decided.
No Battle binds that an owner cannot pay for. The stake is taken at the freeze, and that is the only moment it is asked for. If either owner cannot cover it then, the Battle does not bind, nothing is staked, neither team is held, and both owners are told why. There is no second attempt — being topped up after the freeze does not revive it. §11's reserve exists precisely so this never arrives as a surprise: it holds a stake behind every game your teams play, all week, and the app tells you how much is being held. The consequence is worth stating plainly: an owner who is perfectly solvent gets no Battle that week if the owner on the other side is short. The alternatives are worse. A reduced stake is not the stake this league agreed; letting a balance go negative pays the winner and the House with money that does not exist; and awarding the game to the solvent owner would settle a wager nobody made.
Both teams come off the board when the Battle binds and stay off it until it has settled. A team carrying a live wager may not be traded, sold to the House, or dropped — the owner on the other side is entitled to face the team they were matched against. This is the third availability rule in §6. It falls at the same moment as the game lock, so in practice the Battle adds nothing to how long a team is held: what it does is carry the hold past the final whistle, until the wager is settled. After that the team is still unavailable until the next market opening prices its result, under the first rule.
The point spread is fixed 30 minutes before kickoff and does not move afterwards. Lines are volatile in the last minutes before a game, and freezing early settles the wager on a stable number rather than on whichever quote happened to be showing at kickoff.
Every Battle uses that line, whenever it was created. A Battle written on the Tuesday settles on the same number as one written an hour before kickoff — so acquiring a team early cannot lock in a line that has since moved. If no line is quoted by then, the game settles straight up.
At the standard stake and the default fee, a $5-per-owner Battle creates a $10 pot: $1.00 to the House Account and $9.00 to the winning owner.
Because Battles are mandatory, every owner must keep enough in Available Funds to cover one stake for every game their teams play this week, and never fewer than one stake per team. Holding four teams means keeping four stakes back; if one of those four plays twice in the same week — which happens when the season opens, because the “Week 0” games are filed as week one — that is five, because both games are Battles. A team on a bye still holds its one stake back. The app will not let you queue a bid that would spend into that reserve, and it tells you how much is being held.
The reserve lasts exactly as long as the Battles do. It exists to guarantee a stake for a wager the rules compel you into, so once no Battle can be created it is securing nothing and is released in full. Battles cover the regular season and the conference championship games only, so from the end of that week nothing is held back — your Available Funds are yours to spend for the rest of the year, and the market stays open right through the National Championship (§12).
Nothing is ever sold or dropped on your behalf. The league does not liquidate an owner's teams to cover the reserve, at any point in the season. Instead, an owner whose available cash is below their required reserve enters Margin Call.
The only way to get there is by losing Battles, which nobody chooses to do — every other route is checked before it happens, from your first draft pick (§5) to every market action afterwards (§6).
While under Margin Call you may not do anything that increases your exposure:
Everything that reduces your exposure or brings money in remains open, and these are how you get out:
Margin Call is tested when you act. If you are in good standing at the moment you submit a bid or a free addition, that order stands — entering Margin Call afterwards does not retroactively cancel it, and a queued order is never withdrawn because of a Battle you lost in between.
The reserve requirement itself is still checked when the acquisition settles. An order that would leave you unable to keep a stake for every team you would then hold is refused at that point, whether or not you are under Margin Call. The question asked at the opening is therefore “can this owner support this team”, not “has this owner been in good standing since they queued it”.
Margin Call is not a penalty and carries no fee — it is a pause on growth until you can cover the Battles you already have. Your Battles continue to be created and settled normally while you are in it, provided you can fund them; one that cannot be funded is not created, and both owners are told (§11).
Owners aren't limited to the standard $5 wager. If both owners agree before kickoff, they may increase the Battle amount to any mutually agreed value — for example $10, $20, or $50 per owner. The 10% House Fee applies to the raised pot as well.
A raise may be agreed from the moment the matchup appears, days before it binds. Waiting for the freeze would leave half an hour to propose a raise and get an answer, which is no time to agree anything. An agreed raise is the stake that will be taken when the Battle binds — and, like the Battle itself, it dies with the matchup: an owner who gives the team up before the freeze pays nothing, whatever was agreed.
This creates room for friendly rivalries, high-stakes matchups, and larger additions to the House Account and prize pool.
The owner whose team covers the point spread wins the Battle. The spread is the one that stood 30 minutes before kickoff (§15) and does not move after that; one owner holds the favorite and the other the underdog by virtue of which team each owns.
If the game is canceled or declared a no contest, all Battle stakes are refunded.
If the result lands exactly on the spread (a push), or an officially sanctioned tie occurs, each owner receives a refund of their original Battle stake. No House Fee is taken and no payout is awarded.
Owners may be in as many Battles in a week as their portfolio creates — one for each of their teams facing another owner's team. Each scheduled game produces at most one Battle, since a game has only two teams.
The objective of Sharps Pick 'Em is to own teams that advance through the College Football Playoff. As teams win playoff games, their owners earn payouts from the House Account according to the official playoff payout schedule.
The prize pool is not a champion's prize. Unlike traditional fantasy sports, no part of it is awarded for finishing top of the standings: owners are paid each time one of their teams wins a playoff game, and nothing else. The league champion (§4, decided on Alpha) wins the league — not the pool.
At the conclusion of the regular season, the House Account becomes the official playoff prize pool. The entire balance of the House Account is distributed before the season concludes.
Teams keep changing hands throughout the playoff. There is no postseason freeze: owners may trade with one another, bid, buy, add and drop right through the National Championship Game, subject only to the ordinary rules — a team is untouchable while it is game-locked or carrying a live Battle (§6), and the House buys nothing from the second buyback date onward (§8).
So a payout goes to whoever owns the team at the moment it wins its game, not to whoever held it when the bracket was announced. A team traded away between rounds takes its remaining payouts with it, and a team bought mid-bracket earns for its new owner from that point on. Price that in when you deal during the playoff: what you are buying is the rest of a run, and what you are selling is the same.
Each College Football Playoff game awards a fixed percentage of the final House Account to the owner of the winning team.
| Round | Games | Payout Per Win | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| First Round bye (top-4 seed) | 4 | 3% | 12% |
| First Round win | 4 | 3% | 12% |
| Quarterfinals | 4 | 6% | 24% |
| Semifinals | 2 | 11% | 22% |
| National Championship | 1 | 30% | 30% |
| Total | 15 | — | 100% |
Each percentage is calculated against the Prize Pool — the House Account balance recorded when the playoff begins. A First Round bye — earned by each of the four top seeds — is credited as a 3% payout, the same as winning a First Round game: the round pays the same whether you played it or earned the right not to. The top seeds' reward is the guaranteed place in the Quarterfinals and a week without a game that could end their season, not extra money.
One case moves a payout off the table above. If a winning team is House-owned, there is nobody to pay, and that share is added to the rounds still to be paid rather than kept (§10) — so those later rounds pay more than their stated percentage. Absent any unclaimed share, the table applies exactly as written, and either way the fifteen payouts distribute the whole Prize Pool.
Assume the House Account contains $600 at the start of the playoff and that every winning team is owned. A First Round bye is worth $18, a First Round win $18, a Quarterfinal $36, a Semifinal $66, and the National Championship $180. A team entering with a First Round bye and winning it all earns $18 + $36 + $66 + $180 = $300 (50%). A team entering without a bye and winning it all earns the same $18 + $36 + $66 + $180 = $300 (50%). A title run is worth half the Prize Pool from either seed; what the bye buys is one fewer game that could end the season.
Owners receive a payout for every playoff victory earned by teams they own. An owner with multiple playoff teams may receive multiple payouts during the same round.
Once a playoff team loses, it is eliminated from the tournament. The owner receives all payouts previously earned by that team but earns no additional payouts after elimination. Ownership of the team does not change.
Following the National Championship Game, all remaining playoff payouts are distributed, the House Account balance becomes $0.00, final league standings are published, and a new season begins with the next preseason draft.
Those final standings are decided on Available Funds against Contributions. The teams an owner holds stopped counting toward Portfolio Value on the second buyback date, when the House stopped buying (§4, §8), and the Battle stake reserve lapsed after that — with the last conference championship game, because there are no Battles in the postseason (§11).
Those two fall in that order deliberately, and the stretch between them is a real phase of the season rather than an oversight. Once the House has closed, an owner's teams count nothing and cannot be sold — but Battles are still being played with them, and the stake reserve is still held back for those Battles. An owner who drops below the reserve in that window cannot sell their way out: they may drop a team or trade one away (§11), and otherwise they are committed to the roster they carry into the championships. That is the intent — the exit closes before the games that decide the playoff field, not after them.
The Commissioner is responsible for administering the league and ensuring that Sharps Pick 'Em is conducted fairly, consistently, and in accordance with these rules. The Commissioner serves as the league administrator and facilitator, not as a competitor with special privileges.
The required duties are the ones that involve money moving outside the app, because only a person can confirm those (§5):
Alongside those, the Commissioner runs the preseason draft, admits owners to the league (How owners join, below), and sets the league's configuration — the time the market opens, the buy-in, the portfolio limit — within the limits §16 places on when each may change.
There are two routes in, and the Commissioner decides on both.
Discoverability is off by default, and publishes only the league's name, season, Commissioners and number of owners. A league that never switches it on is exactly as private as one that cannot be found at all.
Membership locks when the preseason draft is started. No new owner may join a league from that moment — by either route. An outstanding invitation cannot be redeemed into that league once the draft has started, and a pending Ask to Join request can no longer be approved.
The reason is that everything downstream assumes the roster of owners is settled: §5 gives every owner a preseason draft, §16 freezes the competitive rules at the first pick, the buy-in is sized from the number of owners splitting a fixed board (§4), and §12's payouts are shares of a pool everyone else has funded since the preseason. Someone admitted in week 7 has had none of that.
Everything else happens on its own and is recorded in the transaction log: Weekly Market Values follow the polls, the market opens the morning after each poll, blind bids resolve at that opening, purchases and sales and trades and Battles are processed automatically, the House Account balance is the sum of its entries, and playoff payouts are calculated from the bracket. The Commissioner does not perform these and cannot decide them.
The Commissioner is responsible for enforcing the rules exactly as written. All owners are expected to comply with league rules and deadlines. The Commissioner may reject or reverse any transaction that violates the Official Rules — for example illegal portfolio sizes, late transaction requests, invalid blind bids, trades involving teams not owned by the seller, or duplicate and conflicting transactions.
Situations not explicitly covered by these Official Rules shall be resolved by the Commissioner using the principles and intent of the game. When making a ruling, the Commissioner shall prioritize competitive fairness, consistency with existing rules, and the long-term integrity of the league. Any interpretation shall apply equally to all owners.
The Commissioner may correct clerical or administrative errors, including recording mistakes, incorrect Market Values, mathematical errors, transaction processing mistakes, and payout calculation errors. Corrections should be made as soon as reasonably possible after the error is discovered. The Commissioner may not alter the outcome of completed games or retroactively change league rules.
A correction to an owner's Available Funds is an Adjustment: it carries a stated reason, it appears on that owner's funds record, and it is never edited afterwards. An Adjustment moves the balance and therefore the Portfolio Value, but it is not something the owner played for — so Alpha subtracts it exactly as it subtracts a Contribution (§4), and no correction can move an owner up or down the standings.
The Commissioner may participate in the league as an owner. While participating, the Commissioner is subject to the same rules, deadlines, fees, and restrictions as every other owner. The Commissioner may not use administrative authority to gain a competitive advantage.
If the Commissioner is directly involved in a dispute or transaction that could reasonably present a conflict of interest, the Commissioner should disclose the conflict to the league. The Commissioner may appoint a temporary co-commissioner or obtain approval from a majority of the remaining owners to resolve the matter.
Every Battle, every trade, and the draft carries a discussion thread — the Battle Board, the Trade Talk, and the Draft Chat. All of them are league-wide. Any owner may read and participate in any thread, and the Commissioner has exactly the same visibility every other owner has — no more. There are no private trade negotiations inside the app; owners who wish to negotiate privately may do so through any channel outside it.
The Commissioner may moderate any thread by removing a comment that violates these rules or the league's standards of conduct. A removed comment leaves a visible placeholder in its place, so that moderation is apparent to the league rather than silent. The Commissioner may never edit another owner's comment; the only action available on another owner's words is to remove them.
Except where otherwise provided by these Official Rules, the Commissioner's decisions regarding league administration, transaction processing, and rule interpretation are final.
The following examples illustrate how the rules operate in common situations. These examples are for explanatory purposes only and do not modify or supersede any Official Rule.
Oregon currently has a Market Value of $18. Spencer decides to sell Oregon back to the House. He receives $18.00, Oregon becomes unowned, and the House Account falls by $18.00.
What the House will buy narrows twice and then stops, on two dates the Commissioner published before the draft (§8). Until the first of them it takes any team in the Top 25; after it, only teams ranked 1–12; and from the second, nothing at all. So Oregon at #14 could be sold the day before the first date and not the day after, at the same $18.00 — the price did not move, the buyer left.
Jason owns Alabama. Spencer wants to acquire Alabama. They agree to Alabama for $32. Jason proposes the trade, Spencer confirms it, and it settles the moment he does — nobody approves it. Spencer pays Jason $32 directly, and because this is an owner-to-owner transaction the House Account does not change.
Suppose the portfolios are as follows:
| Owner A | Owner B |
|---|---|
| #3 Notre Dame | #5 Ohio State |
| #11 LSU | #10 Ole Miss |
| #20 Kansas State | #21 Florida |
| open roster spot | Ohio University |
| open roster spot | open roster spot |
Florida is scheduled to play Florida State next week. Owner A is bearish on Florida and believes Florida State will cover the spread. Florida State is currently unowned and unranked, so Owner A adds it for free. Florida State does not play for another four days, so it is available and the addition takes effect immediately.
Because Owner B owns Florida and Owner A now owns Florida State, the two owners are automatically matched in a Battle for that game — no proposal or acceptance is required.
If Florida State covers the spread:
Had the two owners agreed before kickoff to raise the stake to $20 each, the pot would be $40: $4.00 to the House Account and $36.00 to the winner.
The Prize Pool is $600 when the playoff begins and every winning team is owned. Texas enters without a First Round bye and wins the National Championship, earning 3% ($18) First Round + 6% ($36) Quarterfinal + 11% ($66) Semifinal + 30% ($180) Championship = $300, or 50% of the Prize Pool.
If Oregon enters with a First Round bye and wins the National Championship, its owner earns 3% ($18) bye + 6% ($36) + 11% ($66) + 30% ($180) = $300 — the same 50%. The bye pays what a First Round win pays; what it saves Oregon is a game they could have lost.
Had one of the First Round winners been House-owned, its 3% would not have been paid to anyone; it would have been added to the rounds still to come (§10), and every later payout above would be slightly larger.
Spencer drafts Texas ($26), Penn State ($20), Ole Miss ($15), Tulane (free), and Boise State (free) — a total draft investment of $61. The two unranked teams cost nothing, and Boise State is later traded for $12 having been acquired for $0.
During the season Spencer sells Ole Miss to the House. Its Market Value has risen to $19, so Spencer nets $19.00. He also wins Louisville for $8 on a blind bid, trades Boise State to Jason for $12, wins a $20 Battle against Mark, sees Texas win the National Championship, and sees Penn State reach the Semifinals.
By the end of the season, Spencer has earned money through strategic drafting, buying, selling, trading, Battles, and playoff success. This example illustrates that success in Sharps Pick 'Em is driven by active portfolio management throughout the season, not simply by drafting the best teams.
The following terms have the meanings set forth below whenever they appear in these Official Rules.
A wager between the two owners of the teams in a game. It appears when both teams are owned and binds 30 minutes before kickoff, when the line freezes; from that moment it is mandatory. Before it binds either owner may give the team up and the matchup dissolves. See §11, which is where every Battle rule lives.
A confidential offer to purchase an unowned team that is not currently available. Bids for the same team are opened together at the next market opening, and the highest valid bid wins.
The official postseason tournament recognized by these rules. Playoff payouts are awarded based on victories achieved during the College Football Playoff.
The individual responsible for administering a league: confirming Contributions, distributing College Football Playoff winnings, running the preseason draft, and handling corrections. Transactions are processed and recorded automatically (§13).
The neutral entity that owns every team not currently owned by an owner. The House buys and sells teams according to the Official Rules but does not compete in the league.
The central prize pool that receives money from draft purchases, purchases from the House, blind bids, and any other payments required by these Official Rules. The entire House Account is distributed during the College Football Playoff.
The official purchase and sale price of a team, derived from its rank in the current poll using the schedule in §3. It is computed, not assigned: an unranked team's Market Value is $0.00.
A team is untouchable from 30 minutes before its kickoff until that game is officially final. See §6. It applies all season including the playoff. A trade is stopped by this and by a live Battle (§11), but not by the pricing rule — §9 sets its own price.
A team may be acted on with the House — bought, sold, added or dropped. Its last result has been priced by the current poll, it is not game-locked, and it carries no live Battle. See §6, which is where the rule lives. An action on an available team happens immediately; an action on an unavailable one is queued to the next market opening.
An owner's spendable cash balance. It funds draft picks, purchases from the House, blind bids, trade payments and Battle stakes. It grows when the Commissioner confirms a Contribution (§3), and by an Adjustment the Commissioner records against it (§13). Owners' screens label it Cash; the two are the same balance.
An owner's Portfolio Value less everything that has been put into their account — every Contribution they have made, and any Adjustment the Commissioner has recorded. It removes the effect of simply putting more money in during the season, so it measures who has played best rather than who has paid in most. It determines the league standings and the league champion (§4).
A correction the Commissioner makes by hand to an owner's Available Funds, with a stated reason, recorded on that owner's funds record (§13). It is not a Contribution and it is not performance: Alpha subtracts it, so an Adjustment never moves an owner up or down the standings.
Money an owner sends the Commissioner off-platform. It becomes Available Funds only when the Commissioner confirms receipt (§3); until then it is a request and buys nothing.
The state of an owner whose Available Funds no longer cover the Battle stake reserve their Portfolio requires (§11). Nothing is sold or dropped on their behalf; they simply may not increase their exposure until they are back over the line.
The moment, the morning after a new poll is applied, at which every team is re-priced and everything queued since the previous opening is settled in one pass.
A participant in the league who may buy, sell, trade, and own college football teams.
Another name for the House Account after the College Football Playoff field has been finalized. Once the playoff begins, the House Account exists solely for distributing playoff payouts.
The complete collection of teams currently owned by an owner. Owners may never exceed the maximum portfolio size established by these Official Rules.
An owner's Available Funds plus what the House would pay for every team in their Portfolio (§8) — which is a team's Market Value until the House stops buying it, and nothing after. It is shown on the standings but does not decide them, because it counts Contributions as well as gains (§4).
The preseason draft format in which the draft order reverses after each round.
Any NCAA Division I FBS football program eligible for ownership under these Official Rules.
An agreement between two owners, moving at most one team each way plus cash (§9). Trades occur directly between the two owners and never touch the House Account.
Any action that changes ownership of a team or affects the House Account, including purchases, sales, trades, blind bids, and Battle entry fees.
Not a separate figure — the same Market Value, spoken of across the season, because a new poll re-prices every team each week. There is one price for a team at any moment and it comes from the current poll.
The highest valid blind bid for an unowned team at a market opening. The winning bidder purchases the team for the amount of the submitted bid.
Unless otherwise specified, words used in the singular include the plural, and words used in the plural include the singular whenever the context requires. In the event of any conflict between a definition contained in this section and another provision of these Official Rules, the more specific rule shall govern.
These rules are adopted. They became Version 1.0 on 22 August 2026, when the preseason draft of the first league began — the moment this section had always named. Anywhere a rule is genuinely undecided it is listed under Open Questions below rather than left for an owner to discover mid-season; nothing is open at present.
From that moment the amendment procedure below applies and every change is recorded in the version history at the end of this section. The competitive rules of a season are fixed once its draft starts, so a rule that changes how money moves cannot be changed again until the season is over.
Once adopted, these Official Rules govern all aspects of Sharps Pick 'Em. No verbal agreement, text message, email, social media post, or prior custom shall supersede these Official Rules unless formally adopted as an official amendment.
Except as otherwise provided in these rules, amendments may only be made between seasons. Once the preseason draft begins, the Official Rules shall remain in effect for the entirety of that season. Any amendment shall apply equally to all owners and shall not retroactively alter completed drafts, transactions, Battles, or College Football Playoff payouts. The League Commissioner is responsible for publishing all approved amendments prior to the start of each new season.
Where this rulebook is unsettled — because it contradicts itself, or because the app does something it never described — the question is listed here until the Commissioner rules on it, so owners can see what is undecided rather than discovering it mid-season.
Nothing is open. Every question raised so far has been ruled on and written into the sections above. A rule that is genuinely undecided is published here before the season it would affect; while this list is empty, the rules as written are the rules as they stand.
Every change to these rules from adoption onward is recorded here, newest first. Before adoption there was nothing to record: editing an unadopted draft is not an amendment, which is why this history begins where it does rather than covering the drafting.
| Version | Date | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | 22 August 2026 | Adopted, on the first pick of the first league's preseason draft — the moment named in Status of This Document above. The text as it stood at that moment is Version 1.0; the competitive rules are fixed for the 2026 season. |
Sharps Pick 'Em is designed to combine the strategy of investing, the excitement of college football, and the competition of a fantasy league into a unique ownership experience. Success is earned through careful drafting, disciplined portfolio management, timely transactions, and identifying teams capable of making deep postseason runs.
Compete fairly, respect your fellow owners, and enjoy the season.
Sharps Pick 'Em Official Rules · Version 1.0, adopted 22 August 2026 · © 2026 Spencer Plassman. All rights reserved.