Our Final Two Fundraising Contests

Edited on 3/12 to add some more details re: Fug Madness.

Our team for the Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the Cure will be running two more fundraising contests that both start this weekend:  March Madness and it's fashionable cousin Fug Madness, courtesy of www.gofugyourself.com.  Because the window for submitting entries for both contests is going to be relatively short, I wanted to post now about the details for each contest.

March Madness

This is the big one!  In the grand tradition of March Madness pools everywhere, we will be asking everyone to predict who will win the 2010 NCAA Men's Basketball National Championship tournament.  For those that don't know, the NCAA March Madness tournament features the top 64 men's college basketball teams.  The teams are divided into four brackets and the tournament is single elimination until only one team is remaining and is crowned National Champion.  

For our March Madness pool, we will be using the brackets and tournament set up at www.ESPN.com.  The name for our league on ESPN is "Relentless Optimism" and the password to join our league is "Optimism".  In order to enter, you will be asked to sign up for a free ESPN.com account if you don't already have one.  From there, you will be asked to pick a winner for each game in the tournament.  Don't worry if you don't know anything about college basketball, you can just guess.  Who knows, you may pick a long shot that goes all the way!  Each correct pick will win you points, with the later rounds of the tournament being worth more points than the earlier rounds.  The person with the highest total points in our league will win our cash prize.  Please note that there is a play in game on Tuesday, March 16th (I think) that we will not be scoring in our contest.

The brackets for March Madness will be released to the public on Sunday, March 14th.  As soon as they are up, our league will be open for you to submit your bracket.  The tournament starts in the afternoon on Thursday, March 18th.  Our league will officially be closed to new entries when the first game starts, so be sure to get your brackets in early.  Mark your calendars now!

Click here to visit the Relentless Optimism March Madness League page on ESPN.com

Fug Madness

The second tournament-style contest that we will be running is called "Fug Madness".  If you prefer fashion to foul shots, this is the contest for you!  Fug Madness is run by the hilarious ladies at www.gofugyourself.com.  For those that don't know, Go Fug Yourself is a very funny blog written by two girls expressing their feelings on all of the wacky things that celebrities wear out in public.  Fug Madness is their annual contest to determine who was the worst dressed celebrity of the previous year.  The "Fug Girls", as the authors are called, will be releasing their ranked list of the top 64 worst dressed celebrities, also broken down into four brackets.  Then, as with March Madness, each celebrity faces off head to head with their opponent, with the readers of Go Fug Yourself voting to determine the winner.  Celebs are eliminated one at a time until only one person is left standing.  To read more about Fug Madness and to view last year's brackets, you can read this post about the 2009 Fug Madness competition.  You can browse through the entire 2009 Fug Madness Archive here.

For this contest, we will be publishing a downloadable copy of their brackets here on our team blog.  If you would like to enter our Fug Madness contest, you will need to download a copy of the bracket and fill it in on your own.  You can then email them back to me at kscincotta@gmail.com and I will compile them.  Scoring will be done exactly like in March Madness, with correct predictions in later rounds being worth more points than earlier round picks.  Brackets for Fug Madness will be released on Friday, March 12th Monday, March 15th (officially!) and the first match up should take place on Thursday, March 18th.  As soon as I know the schedule, I will post the official cut off date for Fug Madness entries.  Much like in March Madness there is also a play in "game" for Fug Madness that will not be scored in our league.  Even with bypassing the play in game, there won't be much time for entries, so again, mark your calendars now!

The Fug Girls have added a FAQ section about Fug Madness that can be found here.

Important Notes

Please note that both contests are fundraisers for our team for the Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the Cure.  For each entry that you submit to either contest, we are requesting a $10 donation to our 3 Day team.  Donations can be made using the Paypal "Donate" button at the top right hand side of this blog.  Entering March Madness will take you away from this site, so please bookmark it so that you remember to make your donations.

The winner of each contest will receive a cash prize equal to half the money collected for that specific contest.  If a member of Relentless Optimism wins either contest, all of the money from that contest will be donated to our team for the 3 Day.  If there is a tie in either contest, a name will be chosen from a hat to determine the recipient of the cash prize for that contest.

Finally, word of mouth is the most effective tool we have to generate entries for these contests.  The more entries we get, the larger the cash prize for the winner and more importantly, the more money we can raise for a really great cause.  Even if you don't enter yourself, please pass on this information to anyone that you think might be interested.