Every March, productivity experts publish gloomy estimates of the hours lost to college basketball. Every March, managers who have run a bracket pool quietly ignore them. They know something the spreadsheets miss: a well-run office pool can do more for team cohesion than a dozen formal team-building sessions, and it costs almost nothing.
Brackets, fantasy leagues and Super Bowl squares are some of the few rituals that genuinely cross generations at work. A Boomer who filled out paper brackets for decades, a Gen X manager who has run the same fantasy league since the dial-up era, and a Gen Z analyst who follows every game on an app can all compete on level terms. That is rare, and worth protecting.
The three classic office games
March Madness brackets
The NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments each start with a field of 68 teams, narrowed to 64 after the opening round, and run through single-elimination rounds over about three weeks. Participants predict every game in advance, and points usually increase in later rounds. The beauty of a bracket is that expertise helps only a little. Upsets are so common that the colleague who picks by mascot or team colours regularly beats the self-declared expert, which is exactly why newcomers love it.
Fantasy football leagues
Fantasy football runs for the whole NFL season. Each participant drafts a roster of real players and scores points based on their statistics. It rewards research, trading and weekly attention, and it creates a season-long running conversation. The draft itself has become a social event in many offices, with themed snacks and good-natured trash talk.
Super Bowl squares
The simplest of the three. A ten-by-ten grid creates one hundred squares; each person claims some, and the digits zero to nine are then randomly assigned to the rows and columns. At the end of each quarter, whoever holds the square matching the last digit of each team's score wins. No knowledge of football is required at all, which makes squares the most inclusive game on the calendar.
Why these rituals work across generations
Team-building activities often fail because they feel forced. Pools succeed because they piggyback on something people already care about, and they offer low-stakes reasons to talk to colleagues outside your usual circle. The finance director and the new marketing hire suddenly have something to discuss. Remote employees get a reason to post in the team chat that has nothing to do with deadlines.
They also flatten hierarchy in a healthy way. Nobody gets a better bracket because of their job title. A junior employee topping the leaderboard over the CEO is a story people will tell for years. That small reversal of status does a surprising amount for trust, the kind of informal connection we argue for in making everyone a relationship builder.
Keeping it friendly and inclusive
The difference between a pool that builds culture and one that divides it usually comes down to a handful of choices by whoever organises it.
- Keep stakes small or zero. Bragging rights, a trophy that travels from desk to desk, or the right to pick the next team lunch spot are often more motivating than cash.
- Make participation optional. Invite everyone, pressure no one, and never let joining or not joining affect how people are seen.
- Offer a no-knowledge path. Squares, random team draws or a pick-by-colour option let people who do not follow sport take part on equal terms.
- Publish simple rules up front. Scoring, tie-breakers and deadlines should be clear before the first game.
- Celebrate the moments, not just the winner. Shout out the biggest upset pick, the most loyal fan, even the worst bracket. Humour keeps it light.
We also recommend a quick check before collecting any money. The rules on paid pools vary by place: some jurisdictions tolerate small social pools where every dollar goes back to participants, others restrict them, and many employers have their own policies. When in doubt, run the pool for prizes the company provides, or let the winner direct the pot to a charity of their choice. That keeps the fun and removes the grey area.
A note for leaders
If you are the manager, your role is host, not hero. Join in, lose gracefully, and let others take the spotlight. Make sure the game never turns into pressure on people who would rather sit out, and keep work deadlines realistic during the busiest sporting weeks rather than pretending the tournament is not happening.
It also helps to think about timing and format. A bracket that locks at noon on the first Thursday of the tournament creates a lively morning of last-minute picks; a squares grid pinned up a week before the big game gives everyone time to join. For distributed teams, a shared online bracket group or a simple spreadsheet works just as well as the paper sheet on the breakroom wall.
We think the best office pool is one where the person who knows the least about sport has the most fun.
Handled well, a bracket or a fantasy league is not a distraction from work culture. It is work culture: the shared jokes, rivalries and stories that make a group of individuals feel like a team. And it reminds everyone, across every generation, that a little friendly competition with a little uncertainty is one of the oldest ways humans have of bonding.
