Sports Pick'em
Is Live.

Pick'em was the missing eighth mode. As of today, it's done. Every host on Pro and up has it.

If you run a sports bar, this is the one you've been waiting for. The crowd is already there. The screens are already on. Pick'em turns spectators into participants.

What it does

A Pick'em night is a hosted prediction game tied to real, live sporting events. You open a Sports Night session, seed it with the upcoming slate (usually pulled in automatically — we'll get to that), and broadcast a join code. Players scan the QR or type the code on their phones, see the lineup of games, and lock in their picks before kickoff.

Predictions are presets, not free text. Winner. Over/under. First-half lead. Total touchdowns. Each one resolves cleanly when the real game ends. Players don't have to write essays. You don't have to grade anything.

Live game data, both rails

The whole point of Pick'em is that the games are real. We sync live with the major pro sports leagues, with a primary feed and a redundant fallback so a single outage doesn't kill the night. Schedules, scores, statuses, finals — all stay in sync with the actual games on the actual TVs in the bar.

When a game hits a final status, the system auto-judges every prediction tied to it. You don't sit there with a clipboard at the end of the Sunday slate trying to remember who covered the spread on the late game. The standings update on the public display in real time, the leaderboard reshuffles, and your job stays "host the night," not "tabulate the results."

Lock-of-the-night

This is the mechanic we're proudest of, and the one we think makes Pick'em sticky.

Each player picks one prediction per session as their lock. Nail it, get 2× points. Miss it, get 0.5× — half-credit instead of zero, which keeps the night still in play even after a bad lock.

The lock is announced on the public display. It's the source of every "OH NO" and "OH YES" that erupts when the lock-game finishes. We've watched test rooms and the lock is consistently where the loudest moment of the night happens. That's not by accident. That's the math doing its job.

What's in the host workflow

The Pick'em host UI mirrors the rest of Brainflood: clean controls on a phone or laptop, projector-friendly display on a second screen, no app for players to download.

• Session setup — pick a date and the games auto-populate from the day's slate. You can edit the lineup, swap games, add or remove markets.
• Player join — QR code or 5-character session code. No account required to play.
• Live ticker — the public display shows current scores, who's locking what, and a running standings ribbon at the bottom.
• Auto-judging — predictions resolve when games hit final status. Manual override is one click if you ever need it.
• Per-player accuracy tracking — every player gets a season hit-rate stat. The player who's 68% on NFL spreads is going to come back next week to defend it.

Sundays were going to happen anyway. Might as well turn them into something the regulars come back for.

Where it fits

Sports bars are the obvious home. NFL Thursday and Sunday slates, March Madness, NBA Game 7s, World Cup, World Series, the playoff weeks — any night where the bar already has the crowd watching, Pick'em adds participation without changing what's on the TVs.

It also slots into pubs that want a "sports themed" rotation alongside trivia and bingo, and into corporate or suite-box events where everyone's watching the same game.

Tier availability

Pick'em is on every tier: Free, Starter, Pro, Business. Each Pick'em session counts toward your monthly games budget like any other event (Free: 3/month, Starter: 12/month, Pro and Business: unlimited). The natural friction shows up when a host running a weekly NFL slate plus midweek trivia outgrows Free in two weeks and Starter within a season. Pro adds AI Host and multi-venue at $39/month, which is roughly what a single decent Sunday clears in tips.

If you're already a host, Pick'em is there in your dashboard right now.

What's next

The 2.0 work for Pick'em — player-vs-player side bets, custom market builder, season-long leagues, college football specials — is on the roadmap but not in this release. Today's drop is the core experience: live games, predictions, lock-of-the-night, auto-judging, public display. That's what we wanted shipped before football season.

We want to see Pick'em nights running in real bars before we build the next layer. If you run one, tell us how it lands.

Where to take it from here

• The mode page — full feature breakdown, mockups, tier table.
• The sports-bars venue page — how a typical Sunday runs, sample week, host workflow.
• Launch the app if you're already a host.

We posted a discussion thread on the in-app forum's Host Lounge board for anyone who wants to swap setup notes, talk pricing for venues, or ask the team questions. Drop in if you're trying it out.

— The Brainflood Devs

All posts