Quick answers for commissioners and players. For more detail, follow the links to the relevant guide.
Getting Started
No. The guided setup wizard walks you through every decision with plain-language explanations. If you can fill out a form, you can set up a pool.
Yes — there's no limit on how many pools you can create or manage.
Private pools are only joinable by people with your direct join link, and aren't listed anywhere on TheCommish.app. Public pools are listed on our Browse Pools page so anyone can find and join them. See the Getting Started guide for more.
Yes, most settings can be changed any time from your pool's Settings page. Changes apply going forward — they don't retroactively change picks or results that have already happened.
Survivor Rules
You decide — it's one of the first things you'll configure. Options range from automatic elimination to several "fallback" rules (most popular pick, Monday Night visitor, auto-bye) that you can chain together. See the Pool Settings guide for the full breakdown.
No — once a player has picked a team, that team is unavailable to them for the rest of the season. This is core to how Survivor works and isn't a setting you can turn off.
Bye weeks are optional "free passes" you can offer players, letting them sit out a week without being eliminated. You decide whether to enable them, and how many each player gets for the season.
You can require two picks per week starting from a week you choose — but it's not a single week. Once it starts, every surviving player needs two winning picks every week from that point on, continuing until the pool has a winner.
Yes — that's what Mid-Season Start is for. It lets you create a brand-new pool that begins at a later week (say, Week 8) instead of Week 1. Everyone in that pool starts together at that point, with its own entry fees, prizes, and winner — it's a separate pool, not a way to join an existing pool partway through. This is popular for commissioners who want to run a second pool for players who got eliminated early elsewhere and still want to play.
Pick'em Rules
In Pick'em, players pick a team for every game each week, not just one, and there's no elimination — every entry plays every game, every week, all season, with the same team pickable as many times as a player likes. The pool is won by whoever has the most points when the season ends. See the Pick'em Pool Settings guide for the full breakdown.
Straight mode is simple — pick the team you think will win outright. Against-the-spread mode has players pick which team will "cover" a spread you set for each game before players pick, so an underdog can still be the right pick even if it loses narrowly.
You set one rule for the whole pool: zero points for every unpicked game (the default), zero points only for games that already kicked off, a randomly assigned team, the away team, or — in spread mode — the underdog. Whichever you choose, it only ever costs points for that one game — it never eliminates anyone.
Not yet — the embed widget currently supports Survivor pools only. Pick'em pools can still run entirely on thecommish.app in the meantime.
Structure, Prizes & Tiebreakers
No — most pools work fine flat, with one overall winner. Leagues and Divisions exist mainly to support layered prizes (small prize per division, bigger prize per league, top prize overall). See the Structure guide.
You set this in advance with a Tiebreaker rule per prize: split the prize evenly, award it based on margin of victory, keep the pool going another week, or decide it yourself. See the Prizes & Tiebreakers guide.
No — the Amount field is optional. You can run a pool with bragging-rights-only prizes, or leave the dollar amount private even if there is one.
Embed & Branding
Yes — that's the embed feature. Add your domain, assign your pools to it, and copy a short code snippet onto your site. See the Embedding guide.
By default, an embedded widget shows a small "Powered by TheCommish.app" badge. Some plans support removing that badge entirely for a fully white-labeled experience — check your plan or contact support@thecommish.app.
Your old key stops working immediately, so you'll need to update the embed code on your website right away with the new one, or the widget will go down until you do.
Running Your Season
This can depend on your pool and plan setup. Check your commissioner dashboard during a game week to see what's expected, or contact support@thecommish.app if you're not sure. See the Running Your Season guide.
Your dashboard shows a "Results need your review" alert once your pool (or a league/division within it) comes down to a winner or a resolved tie.
Yes — both your Commissioner Picks view and the player's own Pick History show the exact reason (lost pick, no pick, etc.) in plain language.
Joining a Pool
You'll need to register, but it's part of the join flow itself — you don't need to create an account ahead of time. Just click the join link your commissioner shared with you.
Yes, as long as each one is open to you (via a public listing or a join link).
That depends on your commissioner's settings — some pools allow multiple entries per player, others limit you to one. If allowed, you can join again the same way to create another entry.
Making Picks
From your player dashboard, find the pool and click Submit Pick (or Change Pick, if you've already picked that week). If your commissioner has embedded the pool on their own website, you can also pick directly from there.
Yes, as long as the specific game you picked hasn't started yet. Once that game kicks off, your pick for it locks in and can't be changed.
It depends on your commissioner's settings — some pools eliminate you immediately, others have a fallback rule (like assigning you the most popular pick or a bye week) before elimination. Check your pool's rules page, or ask your commissioner.
Survivor: no — once you've picked a team, it's unavailable to you for the rest of the season. Pick'em: yes, there's no reuse restriction — pick the same team as many weeks as you like.
Pick'em Basics
You pick a team for every game each week, not just one, and nobody gets eliminated — every entry plays every game, every week, all season. Points earned each week add up toward a season total, and whoever has the most points when the season ends wins.
It only costs you points for that one game — every other game that week is unaffected, and you're never eliminated. Exactly what happens (zero points, a random team assigned, etc.) depends on your commissioner's no-pick rule setting.
Your Standings page shows season points and win/loss record for every entry, with tabs to filter by the current week or the season overall — so you can always see where you rank, even though nobody's ever out of the running.
Standings & Elimination
Your player dashboard and the pool's Standings page always show your current status.
Check your Pick History — it shows the exact reason in plain language (for example, your picked team lost, or you didn't submit a pick that week).
You can see how you're doing at every level — your division, your league, and the pool overall — all from the same Standings page, using the tabs at the top.
Prizes
Your pool's rules page lists any prize tiers your commissioner has set up, including whether dollar amounts are shown publicly.
Your commissioner sets a tiebreaker rule in advance — it might split the prize evenly, go to whoever's picks won by the largest margins, continue the pool another week, or be decided directly by your commissioner. Ask your commissioner if you're not sure which rule your pool uses.
