The history of Picks League starts here

Get to know our history, mission, and founders

The history

PicksLeague was founded in the early 2000s under the premise of taking the greatest time of year (football season), and making it better. How?!? We made it more addictive. Instead of just caring about the big matchups in college football & the NFL, we made the little games count too. We did it with a slight mix of genius, a little luck, a large amount of sports obsession, and a sure vice of a wanna be gambler; all while being mixed in a pot of simplicity.

What did we get? A league where each individual picked any 5 NFL games & any 5 College games against the LINE each week while being allowed to star 1 game overall. The star game was the kicker, this is your double point game, your for sure bet game, your “if I had any extra money and actually lived in Vegas I would lay it all down on this game” game. So each week everyone picked 10 games. Both big matchups and small matchups. East coasters staying up to watch the West coast games, and southerners actually caring about games in the Northeast.

This picks league became an addiction to all who joined. WE HAD MADE FOOTBALL SEASON BETTER.

As the league grew year after year, so did our way of managing it. We went from using emails alone, to a simple excel sheet, to excel sheets running multiple macros, and finally online. At the same time it began to occur that it took a lot of time running this league as an administrator. We began putting in 8, 12, 15 hours a week during season to keep up with scores, standings, finances while putting off 15 hours of grad school and/or work. There had to be a better way… And we couldn’t be the only league with this problem…

We searched the internet. And we searched again. Yet no site truly offered complete customization no matter what type of league was run - we couldn't find a website that could host our league with OUR rules. So we decided to make our own site; to share our PicksLeague idea with all while reaching out to any administrators who also found just the right mix to MAKE FOOTBALL SEASON BETTER with their own custom league.

Our misson

Our goal, our mission, the point of PicksLeague.com existing is to help all custom pool/league administrators so their league can run smoothly with all complexities involved while the admins gain their valuable time back to enjoy the season just as much as they did before.

The leagues become easier on participants too. We have more options to submit picks than ever before, AND submission right up to the second before kickoff. No more waiting for the admins to stay up late finalizing their excel sheet before we found out if we squeezed out a victory each week. Live scoring, live standings, live rankings, live bankrolls, league statistics, texts for picks completed, texts for picks submission, and more! Ultimately, for the participants, the leagues are easier to participate in with complete transparency.

Perhaps our favorite part about the whole experience is how it seems impossible now to watch the games without having our laptops or smart phone by our side. With up to the minute score updates and the knowledge that 37 people picked Michigan State to win by 5, it becomes ridiculous that they score a touchdown on 3rd and long to win by 8 when they're just trying to run out the clock and kick a field goal to go up by 4.

We are continually improving PicksLeague.com to make it easier, more fun, and more comprehensive than any other website out there. If you feel we haven't set this site up to fully suit your league's needs, let us know and we'll do what we can to change that.