The Niners Nation (NN) prediction contest is back! For those who have never played, we pick six games each week, including the 49ers game, Sunday Night Football, and Monday Night Football games. You predict the score of the games, and those closest to the final score accrue points for the week and cumulative throughout the season. At the end of the season we take the Top 16 contestants and run a Top 16 Playoff contest to determine the season individual winner. For those missing the cut, we'll do a separate Open tournament. Please take the time to read the rules and ask any questions you might have. Good luck to everyone this season.
Prediction Contest Rules & Guidelines
- Each week typically 6 NFL games are picked for the prediction contest. 49ers game, Sunday Night Football Game, Monday Night Football Game, one Sunday Morning game, one Sunday Afternoon game and one additional game. Depending upon whether the 49ers game falls on Sunday or Monday Night or the 49ers have a bye week additional games may be picked to ensure the week total is 6 games.
- If the 49ers game falls upon a Thursday Night Game, we will provide an optional bonus game to predict for the week. You can either predict a score for the Thursday Night 49ers game or predict the score of the bonus game, but you cannot predict both. Scoring will be treated separately for each game.
- Prediction Scores must be submitted before game kickoff time or they will not be counted. 10AM PST for Sunday early afternoon games, 1:00PM PST/1:05PM PST (dependent on game kickoff time) for Sunday later afternoon games, 5:30PM PST for Sunday Night Games and 5:30PM PST for Monday Night. The time-stamp of your post counts as your prediction entry time. You may stagger your predictions throughout the week or change your original prediction but please do so using the reply button to your original comment.
- NN editorial staff will typically begin the Prediction Contest thread starting on Wednesday of each week. Note, we will continue to run the prediction contest on the week the 49ers have a bye.
- The Prediction Score Format will be required to closely follow as it cuts down on scoring errors, discussed in more detail below.
- Scoring Results will typically be posted as a FanPost by Tuesday the following week, and might not show up on the main page, so look for the results in a separate posting in the FanPosts section.
- If you believe an error occurred scoring your prediction please post a comment describing the discrepancy in the Scoring Results thread. Any score changes resulting from a scoring error will be posted the following week.
- You may not submit the same prediction score more than twice in one week. This rule is specially designed to curtail 24-17, 23-17, 20-17 block prediction scores. We are also leaving this up to our judgment in case anyone wants to submit 24-17 for two scores than 23-17 for another two scores, etc. Predict to the best of your ability and don't try to game the game.
- Each week the Scoring Result post will announce the Top winner of the week and the cumulative points Leader.
- At the end of the NFL Regular Season we will announce the Top 16 scorers who will move on in a separate post-season contest for individual bragging rights.
- The Top 16 cumulative scorers will face-off in playoff contest predicting the NFL Playoffs. The bottom 4 contestants will be eliminated each week until we crown a Prediction Contest Champion at the conclusion of the Super Bowl. Those players not included in the playoff pool are invited to play in a Prediction Redemption Open Tournament pool during the playoff.
- Anyone with a ninersnation.com account is invited play and can join at any time.
- There are no prizes for participating in this contest, just bragging rights and noteworthy mention for any winners.
Example of Prediction Score Format
IMPORTANT RULE - please read
To make the scoring easier to record and to avoid potential discrepancies with scoring posts, there is a scoring post format that must be followed. If you fail to follow this format, any incorrectly formatted scores for the week will be disqualified. Please review the formatting rules after before posting your results.
The format is "Team A @ Team B: A score - B score." More specifically it is:
Visiting Team @ Home Team: Visiting Team score - Home Team score
Using the San Francisco @ Tampa Bay week 1 game as an example, if you think San Francisco will win 24-14, the required format is:
San Francisco @ Tampa Bay: 24 - 14
If you think Tampa Bay will win 24-14, the required format is:
San Francisco @ Tampa Bay: 14 - 24
Notice that the Visiting Team is always listed first, and the Home team listed second. A bold highlight of the intended winning team is not necessary but helps clarify the winning team in case of an error in the score format, for example:
San Francisco @ Tampa Bay: 14 - 24 would be scored as San Francisco winning 24 - 14
If provided, a bold highlight of the winning team will override a conflicting score format. A bold highlight of the team's individual score is not needed (and could complicate things anyway) and won't be considered in the scoring.
You can post scoring predictions at any time up until the start of the official game time. You can even change your scoring predictions multiple times if needed. If you make a mistake in the formatting, we'll try to reply to your score reminding you to correct it or clarify. Changes must be made as a reply to your original post. Scores must post by the start of the official game time or will be considered late and not counted in the scoring totals.
Scoring Explained - to qualify for scoring points, you first must predict the correct winner of the game. If the correct game winner is predicted, then your Subscore will be calculated and compared with other contestant subscores, based on your predicted score compared to the actual score, and ranked in ascending order for points as defined below. If you predict the incorrect winner for an individual game, your subscore will not be calculated and no points awarded.
Subscore (x) - the subscore involves 4 parts to the scoring calculation:
pPD = Predicted Point Differential
aPD = Actual Point Differential
pPT = Predicted Point Total
aPT = Actual Point Total
- pPD = Predicted Point Differential - if the predicted score is 30-21, then the pPD = 30 - 21= 9
- aPD = Actual Point Differential - if the actual score is 24-17, then the aPD = 24 - 17= 7
PD = |pPD - aPD| = |9| - |7| = 9 - 7 = 2
- pPT = Predicted Point Total - if you predict a score of 30-21, the pPT = 51
- aPT = Actual Point Total - if the actual game score is 24-17, then the aPT = 41
PT = |pPT - aPT| = |51 - 41| = 10
Subscore (x) = PD + PT = |pPD - aPD| + |pPT - aPT| - You add the PD and PT differences together = 2 + 10 = 12, x = 12
The subscores are ranked in ascending order to determine the awarding of points. Basically, the closer your subscore is to zero, the better chance of getting points.
Perfect Score - for correctly picking the winning team and the actual score (subscore = 0), 10 points will be awarded followed by 4, 3, 2, 1 and 0. Subscores, including all ties, will be each awarded points (i.e. there are possible multiple contestant points awarded for 10 points, 4 points, 3 points, 2 points and 1 point awarded).
No Perfect Score - if there are no perfect scores for any individual game (subscore = 0), then 5 points are awarded for the lowest subscore followed by 4, 3, 2, 1 and 0. Subscores, including all ties, will be each awarded points (i.e. there are possible multiple contestant points awarded for 5 points, 4 points, 3 points, 2 points and 1 point awarded).
Bonus Points (Updated for 2019) - in the past we awarded 2 points for 4 or 5 wins out of 6, and 3 points for 6 out of 6 wins. For 2019, we're re-allocating bonus points as follows:
4 wins out of 6 games = 1 bonus point awarded and added to your points total.
5 wins out of 6 games = 2 bonus points awarded and added to your points total.
6 wins out of 6 games = 3 bonus points awarded and added to your points total.
During the Playoff Wild Card and Divisional rounds, bonus points will be awarded 1 point for 4 correct wins and 0 points for 3 or fewer wins.
Maximum Points (the Unicorn) - The maximum theoretical points in a week is 63 points (6 perfect scores = 60 points, plus 6 winners = 3 bonus points, total 63 points). An average week is anywhere from 8 to 10 points. The perfect week score of 63 points will never happen in our lifetime.
Minimum Points (the Whammy) - if you predict 6 games and earn zero points for the week, you qualify for the dubious distinction affectionately known as a "Whammy." This happens more than you would like, so predict carefully and strategically.
