Olympics Office Pool Format Ideas
January 16, 2014 by
My friend Paul just shared this Olympics office pool format. He and a few coworkers did this for the 2012 summer Olympics and apparently enjoyed it immensely.
It sounds fun and simple, so I thought it would be good to share with the EOP community. Please contact us if you know of any other Olympic Pool formats we should add!
(Update 2/1/14: I received another format from Joe that I included as a second option. Also attached the Excel templates which can be downloaded.)
Option #1 - Paul's Format - Based on # of Olympians
Below is the email, attachment, and screenshot I got from Paul (I changed a few things so it makes more sense for you guys):
I attached a template for my Fantasy Olympic idea. The countries and number of participants was what was pulled off of Wikipedia as of today (1/13/14). It should probably be updated a little closer to the start of the Olympics. The USA had the most participants at 224. So all other countries multiplier was based off this number. This way countries with fewer participants get more points for medaling. A country with one participant gets a multiplier of 224. 2 particpants get a multiplier of 112 and so on. Then each gold is worth 3 points, silver is worth 2, bronze worth 1, and then the total score is multiplied by the country multiplier.
I applied the 2010 medal count to this years country and multiplier data and you can see the results. Even though USA and Canada got the most overall medals, South Korea and Norway were higher scoring.
I did this for the summer Olympics and it was pretty fun. Jamaica was my money making country.
It looks like 26 different countries medaled in 2010. So the draft should maybe be around 30 countries total. 10 people pick 3 each (same order as NFL wins pool). Or maybe 8 people pick 4 countries each (snake draft).
If you are able to set this up on easyofficepools lets get a pool going!
Option 2 - Joe's Format - Based on Recent Performance
- Take the medal count from the last three Olympics.
- Assign points (Gold 3, Silver 2, Bronze 1) for each medal for each country.
- Prorate points for each year, (60% for 2010, 25% for 2006, 15% for 2002), placing a little more weighting on recent performance.
- Determine end points for each country and % of total points for all countries.
- I multiplied the % by 2.5, and round to nearest 5 to give me a ‘cost’ for each country.
- Each player gets 400 credits to spend how they like on up to 5 countries.
- Example 1 (USA 315 points, Netherlands 85 points)
- Example 2 (Canada 260, South Korea 130, Bulgaria 5, Ukraine 5)
- You score for each medal during the Sochi Olympics (Gold 3, Silver, 2, Bronze 1)
Took a little work to set it up in spreadsheets, but super easy for amateur pool players to participate.
Joe
These excel templates are still from 2014. If anyone has an updated template for this format, please email it to us at easyofficepools@gmail.com
Summary and Your Thoughts
That's it! I don't have anything setup yet to manage this automatically on the site so you'll have to manage your pool with one of the good old-fashioned spreadsheets provided. Leave a comment below if you have another format or question on any of these.Enjoy!
-Sean
(SPECIAL THANKS TO PAUL AND JOE FOR SHARING THEIR CREATIVE FORMATS!!!!)
Comments
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Thanks for updating the list for 2016, but it looks like the list only goes down to Rwanda. Can you post the full list?
Great catch. It is updated now. Thanks for letting us know!
Sean
Thanks!
Any chance that you’ll be updating the spreadsheet with the number of medals throughout the Olympics?
Any chance of you guys updating your spreadsheet for the 2016 summer Olympics??
Hi Brandie- we are planning on updating it but don’t yet have the list of participants. Check back as the Olympics get closer. If you have found the list from a credible source online please let us know where to find it … I think there could still be some qualifications that need to happen before the list gets published . Thanks for reaching out!
I have also got a group interested in spreasheet for summer OL 2016
Looks like a lot of work to build from scratch
Hi Harpa – Just updated Paul’s spreadsheet w/ # of olympians. Enjoy!
-Sean
Thank you!
Hey Harpa – Please re download. The initial spreadsheet only had countries through the letter R.
Sean
Hey Brandy – Wanted to let you know that the spreadsheet for Paul’s format is now updated! Have fun
-Sean
Hi Brandie – The initial spreadsheet uploaded only had countries updated through the letter R. If you re download you’ll get all countries. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Sean
So were close now. Does anyone have a template updated with Sochi data?
Albania,2
Andorra,6
Argentina,7
Armenia,4
Australia,61
Austria,130
Azerbaijan,5
Belarus,24
Belgium,7
Bermuda,1
Bosnia and Herzegovina,5
Brazil,13
British Virgin Islands,1
Bulgaria,18
Canada,220
Cayman Islands,1
Chile,6
China,66
Croatia,11
Cyprus,2
Czeck Republic,85
Denmark,12
Dominica,2
Estonia,24
Finland,103
France,105
Georgia,4
Germany,153
Great Britain,56
Greece,7
Hong Konk,1
Hungary,16
Iceland,5
Individual Olympic Athletes ,3
Iran,5
Ireland,5
Israel,5
Italy,113
Jamaica,2
Japan,113
Kazakhstan,52
Kyrgyzstan,1
South Korea,71
Latvia,58
Lebanon,2
Liechtenstein ,4
Lithuania,9
Luxembourg,1
Macedonia,3
Malta,1
Mexico,1
Moldova,4
Monaco,5
Mongolia,2
Montenegro,2
Morocco,2
Nepal,1
Netherlands,41
New Zealand,15
Norway,134
Pakiston,1
Paraguay,1
Peru,3
Philippines,1
Poland,59
Portugal,2
Romania,24
Russia,225
San Marino,2
Serbia,8
Slovakia,62
Slovenia,66
Spain,20
Sweden,106
Switzerland,168
Chinese Taipei,3
Tajikistan,1
Thailand,2
Timor-Leste,1
Togo,2
Tonga,1
Turkey,6
Ukraine,43
United States,230
Uzbekistan,3
Venezuela,1
Virgin Islands,1
Zimbabwe,1
got it now. thanks
Alright!
i was unable to download the spreadsheets. anyone else having difficulty?
Hi Jeanne – What version of Microsoft Excel do you have? What error are you getting?
Hello!
Is there a way toy can send your template? We want to participate in our office here. Also the link to wiki where you pulled the data would be helpful also.
Thank you!
Hi Chelsea – Glad you are going to participate. I’ve added templates to the article that you can download. Hope your office has fun!
-Sean
Sean could you please post the spreadsheet on here, I’m interested in trying this out.
Hi Tim,
I just included spreadsheets for two different formats. Thanks to Joe for sending over the second format based on countries recent Olympic performances.
Enjoy!
Sean