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This topic timing is perfect.

I was asked what it takes to run a contest of this magnitude and I sat down and wrote out what it takes. It goes as follows:

What goes into putting on the Bad Man contest?

When the final game of the regular season ends, the contest work for next year starts. It all starts with preparing a new spreadsheet and updating information from the just completed season.

July kicks things off typically as I create the thread in the forum advising of the rules and that the contest is open for registrations. Not only for Bad Man but Three and Out as well.

A newsletter is put together and sent out to the forum and to everyone that was in the prior years contest. That is typically done at the end of July and another newsletter about three weeks later in August as the season is only a few weeks away.

It gets really busy going forward as people enter the contests. I answer a lot of questions, have people sending me funds to enter and a lot of bookkeeping to keep the book straight. Money is transferred from my account to a separate account and it sits there until its time to pay out the winners from not only Bad Man but the 5-0 Side Jackpot and Three and Out.

In the final days before the Friday deadline to enter and submit picks for week 1, it is really hectic and a big overload of time and stress. The last-minute entries come in fast and furious and not only those via Zelle but those that have paid by money order or cashier’s check.

The first week of the season starts for me on Tuesday as I have to print out a rotation schedule. From there, I manually enter it into a spreadsheet and put a preliminary line for each game. For those games with a solid number, I have to determine which way I think the line is going to move. For example, if a line is 6, I have to determine if I’m using 5.5 or 6.5, it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Wednesday, I go back into the rotation schedule and see if the lines have moved, they typically do, it’s like clock work and I make adjustments to the lines if necessary. My alarm goes off at 5:55PM Eastern to remind me to send out the lines for my 6PM Eastern deadline. At that point, I do one last check of the lines for any movements. Next, I take the lines from the spread sheet and load it into the software, quadruple check for errors and upload the information onto the Freaksforum Bad Man webpage. Next step is to post the rotation schedule in the Bad Man topic in the forum. From there it’s on to the e-mail I send out weekly with all of the information. I also have to update the auto response to let you know I received your selections.

Friday afternoon I start inputting the selections into the spread sheet that the contestants send in. This goes on all day and up until the very last minute before entries for the week close. Even then, I often have to deal with people who send in their picks past the deadline and it’s no fun because everyone thinks it’s so easy to just allow them to be late. Sorry, but there’s a deadline for a reason. Even Fezzik found that out in the Circa Invitational this year.

The one thing that I do as the picks come in, I’m tick marking the rotation schedule so when it comes time to do the tallies of picks for each team, I can double check that everything matches up. Most times it does, but I’m not a machine and have to spend time to find my mistake. Sometimes it’s as easy as entering NE instead of NEP or just a mistype from what I’ve manually entered in. When you send in your picks, I tick mark the rotation schedule and then manually type your picks into the spreadsheet. Not to mention the people that don't list their picks in rotation order as it asks, I have to write down the picks and re-order them and enter them in the spreadsheet.

Once everything matches up, I take that spreadsheet and post it on the Bad Man webpage. From there I take the tallied list by team and post it on the webpage and then figure out the consensus top five picked teams.

Sunday, I grade the games manually. Typically, after the 1PM games are all final, then after the 4/425PM games are completed and finally again after the late game. If all five picks are graded, I come up with your record for the week and then tally it to the overall season record and update the points earned. I do this for the rest of the entrants who use the MNF game after it ends.

I then have to reorder everyone by points earned but before doing that, I go over the weekly record to make sure I didn’t make a mistake and check the standings to make sure I didn’t miss to update the point total.

Then I post the information on the Bad Man webpage, which also includes updating the weekly consensus record and the weekly overall info on W/L and the weekly consensus record.

Back to the spreadsheet to manually transfer information from the closed week into the next week which includes the standings and points earned. From there I print out a new rotation schedule for the upcoming week and manually enter it into the spreadsheet and Tuesday starts everything all over again. This for 18 weeks of the season and managing the Three and Out contest and Three and Out.

I do a write up in the forum about the week of Bad Man. If you didn't check it out during the season, you missed a good read.

In between all of this, I get inquiries regarding a multitude of things.

I’ll fast forward to the end of the season as that’s where this started. I send out e-mails to the 5-0 Side Jackpot winners. I do them in batches so I can handle it a bit easier than sending out all 18 weeks at once. Zelle has a limit on what you can send daily so I have to keep that in check as well.

I’m able to use the week verification period to get this completed. Someone always requests a verification of the results so it’s unofficial for several days. There has never been a change to the standings but it’s a fail safe put in place nonetheless.

From there it’s to pay out the winners of the Bad Man contest.

And we are back to where it all starts again.

As you can see it’s a lot of work and a lot of time. So, you want to run a season long cash football contest? There are other things that go on with maintaining the contest such as the cost of the software, the ISP, the URL, and the massive amount of time spent on doing all the work.