FAQ

How do I install the app on my iPhone?

There's no App Store download — you add the app to your home screen straight from Safari. iOS won't prompt you, so you have to do it by hand:

1. Open baseballmadness.app in Safari. This only works in Safari — Chrome and Firefox on iOS don't offer "Add to Home Screen."
2. Tap the Share button (the square with an upward arrow), in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen.
3. Scroll down the share sheet and tap "Add to Home Screen."
4. Tap Add to confirm, and the icon drops onto your home screen.

From then on, a dedicated app icon sits on your home screen. Tapping it launches the pool full-screen — no Safari address bar or toolbar — just like a regular app.

One caveat: this only installs the home-screen shell. It still needs a network connection to load your bracket and the leaderboard, and there's no offline mode or App Store version.

How does scoring work?

The tournament runs in four rounds. You earn points for each pick that matches the actual result:

Round 3 is a two-finalist pick per pool. The eight Omaha qualifiers split into two four-team pools. For each pool you predict its 1st-place finisher (the pool winner, 4 pts) and its 2nd-placefinisher (the runner-up, 2 pts). If you name a pool's two finalists but get their order backwards, each earns a 1-point consolation. So a single pool can score 6 (both right), 4 (winner only), 2 (runner-up only, or both reversed), 1 (one finalist, wrong place), or 0 — and the round tops out at 12 points across the two pools.

When do my picks lock?

• R1 + R2 lock together at the R1 start time. Once regionals begin, those picks become read-only.
• R3 + R4 + tiebreaker lock together at the R3 start time (start of the College World Series in Omaha). They only open after the admin records the eight teams going to Omaha! Consider this your second chance!

R3 picks use the actual8 Omaha qualifiers, not whoever you predicted in R2. You can't pick a team that didn't make it.

Tiebreaker rule

The tiebreaker is your predicted total runs scored in the deciding championship game (sum of both teams). It is required when you submit R3 + R4 picks — the field pre-fills with 0, and your save keeps whatever value is in the box.

1. Leaderboards first sort by total points (highest first).
2. Players tied on total points are then ordered by their maximum possible final score (current total plus everything still in play, highest first) — so whoever has more upside still alive ranks higher. Once the tournament ends nothing is left to play, so this has no effect on the final podium.
3. If players are still tied on total points after the championship game has been played, the tie is broken by whoever's tiebreaker guess is closest to the actual total runs (smallest absolute difference wins). Direction does not matter — over and under are weighted equally.
4. If multiple players are still tied on both total points AND tiebreaker proximity, they are all declared co-champions. There is no further tiebreaker — the title is shared.

What counts as the "deciding" game? The championship is a best-of-three series. The deciding game is the last game actually played — Game 2 if the same team wins the first two, otherwise Game 3.

What if a team is disqualified or a result changes?

The admin can edit any result at any time. Scoring is recomputed on every page render, so leaderboard standings update automatically the next time you load the page.

Do I have to join a group?

No. You can compete solo on the global leaderboard — fill out a bracket, save your picks, and you'll be ranked against every other player who has a bracket. Groups are an optional layer for a private friends-and-coworkers leaderboard.

You can join or create one or more groups at any time from the Groups page. Leaving your last group also works — you stay on the global leaderboard.

How big can a group be?

Each group holds up to 50 members. When a group hits 50, new joiners — whether they come from the public browse list or an invite code — see a "This group is full" message. If you run a larger pool, create a second group with the same name and invite the overflow.

How does group chat work?

Each group has its own private chat room — only current members can read or post in it. Messages are plain text plus Unicode emoji (no file or image uploads in v1), up to 1000 characters per message.

The newest message appears at the topof the list, with older messages below. Posting a new message updates other members' views within a few seconds without a manual refresh.

You can delete your own messages at any time. Group owners can delete any message in their group. Members ejected from a group lose access to its chat immediately.

Can I see other people's brackets?

Yes. Any signed-in player can view another player's bracket at /users/[gamerTag]/bracket— you don't need to share a group with them.

To keep picks fair while rounds are still in play, what's visible depends on the tournament clock:

• R1 + R2 picks become visible to other viewers only after the R1 lock deadline (when regionals start).
• R3 + R4 picks and the tiebreaker become visible only after the R3 lock deadline (start of the College World Series).

The bracket owner's email is never exposed — viewers see the gamer tag and picks only.