Survivor Pool: One Pick a Week, No Repeats, Last One Standing
A survivor pool is the simplest contest in sports and the most stressful: pick one team to win each week. Win and you advance. Lose and you're out. You can never use the same team twice. The last player standing wins.
Pick'em Builder runs the whole thing for you — eliminations, used-team tracking, and a live board of who's still alive — for NFL survivor, and now NBA and NHL survivor on weekend slates.
Free up to 10 players · players join with a link, no app or account · we never touch the pot
Free weekly pools:NFLCollege footballNBANHL
How a survivor pool runs
- 1
Pick the sport
NFL survivor is the classic: one pick per week across the 18-week season. NBA and NHL survivor run on weekend slates — one team per Friday-to-Sunday weekend, all season long.
- 2
Set the rules
No-repeat is built in. For football, decide whether eliminated players can buy back in — or run a gauntlet instead, where nobody is eliminated and the best record wins.
- 3
Players make one pick a week
One team, one tap. The pool won't accept a team a player has already used, and each pick locks when that team's game starts.
- 4
The board updates itself
When a team loses, everyone who picked it is knocked out automatically, and the standings show who's alive and who's out. A missed week counts as a loss, so reminders go out before every round.
Survivor pools by sport
NFL survivor
The original eliminator: one NFL team a week, no repeats, lose once and you're done. Buy-backs are optional for players knocked out early.
Set this up →NFL gauntlet
All of the survivor strategy, none of the early exits. One team a week, no repeats, and the best record after 18 weeks wins. Great for groups who hate sitting out by Week 3.
Set this up →NBA survivor
One team per weekend from the Friday–Sunday slate. 30 teams, roughly 25 weekends — you'll run through the contenders faster than you think.
Set this up →NHL survivor
One team per weekend, no repeats. 32 teams across roughly 25 weekends, in the sport where upsets are most common. Fields shrink fast.
Set this up →
Survivor strategy is about the calendar, not this week
The most common survivor mistake is burning the best team in the league on a game a weaker team would have won just as easily. Good survivor players look ahead: which teams have soft matchups later, and which ones they'll need when the obvious picks run out. The number of teams and weeks changes that math by sport.
- •NFL: 32 teams, 18 weeks. You'll never need the worst teams, so the real question is when to spend the elite ones. Save at least one or two strong teams for December.
- •NBA: 30 teams, about 25 weekends. If your pool goes deep, you'll be picking teams you'd never trust — so look for weekends when a weak team hosts a worse one, and use them there.
- •NHL: 32 teams, about 25 weekends, and even the best team on the board loses often. Expect a fast-shrinking field, and favor big mismatches over big names.
When to fade the crowd
In a big pool, a large chunk of the field often lands on the same heavy favorite. If you take a different, nearly-as-safe team and the favorite gets upset, you jump past everyone who was on it in a single afternoon. That edge only matters with enough players — in a 10-person pool, just pick the safest team you haven't used. In a 60-person pool, being on a different team than half the field is worth a small step down in safety.
Rules to settle before the first pick
Survivor pools are simple until the first unusual week. Decide these up front and post them in the house rules on your pool page:
- •Everyone eliminated in the same week: do they all survive to the next round, or split the pot?
- •Buy-backs (football): allowed or not, and until which week.
- •Survivor or gauntlet: last one standing, or best record over the full season?
- •The payout: winner-take-all, or a smaller prize for the runner-up?
Why commissioners run survivor here
Set up in two minutes
Choose survivor, pick the sport, share the link. Elimination and no-repeat rules are already wired in.
No used-team spreadsheet
Every player's used teams are tracked automatically, and repeat picks are rejected before they save.
Automatic eliminations
Losses knock players out as soon as games go final — no Monday-morning roll call.
Reminders before every round
Players get a nudge before games start, because in survivor a forgotten pick ends your season.
Locks at game time
Each pick locks when that team's game starts, so you can watch Thursday or Friday results before choosing a later game.
Free for small groups
Up to 10 players free, in any sport. Players always join free.
We never touch the pot
Survivor pots are often winner-take-all, which makes the money question more important to get right. You set the buy-in (and the buy-back price, if you allow them), collect it yourself by Venmo, Zelle, or cash, and pay the last survivor. Pick'em Builder tracks the picks and eliminations — it never holds or pays out a dollar.
Pricing
Free for pools up to 10 players — every format, live scoring, full standings. Bigger group? Unlimited is $49/year (about $4 a month) or $5/month, for as many players and pools as you want. Players always join free.
Questions
- What's the difference between survivor and gauntlet?
- Both are one team a week with no repeats. In survivor, a loss eliminates you. In gauntlet, nobody is eliminated — every player picks every week, and the best record wins.
- Can eliminated players buy back in?
- In football survivor pools, buy-backs are an option the commissioner can turn on. Any buy-back money is collected by the commissioner, off the site, just like the original buy-in.
- What if I forget to make a pick?
- A missed week counts as a loss, which in survivor means you're out. Pick reminders go out before each round to keep that from happening.
- Can I pick the same team twice?
- No. Once you've used a team it's gone for the rest of the season. The pool tracks your used teams and won't accept a repeat.
- How does survivor work in the NBA and NHL, where teams play every few days?
- Each week is a Friday-to-Sunday weekend slate. You pick one team from that slate to win; if it does, you survive to the next weekend.
- What if everyone left loses in the same week?
- That's a house rule for the commissioner to decide before the season — common choices are that all of them survive, or that they split the pot. Write it in the house rules on your pool page.
- How much does a survivor pool cost to run?
- Free up to 10 players. Bigger pools need Unlimited, $49/year or $5/month, which covers every pool you run. Players always join free.
Related guides
Last one standing starts with one link.
Build a survivor pool free in two minutes — football, NBA, or NHL — and let the eliminations run themselves.
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