It's back!Due to circumstances beyond my control, there's a limited window of opportinuty to get in on the game - today is March 23 and all entries must be submitted to be no later than midnight, April 2. The good news is that it shouldn't take but a few minutes for you to complete the entire process.
If you're a fan of sports at all, or have ever worked in an office, there's a good to great chance that you're aware of the phenomenon that strikes America this time of year. That's right - it's March Madness, the 64 (er, 65) team college basketball tournament that drains efficiency from thousands of companies as workers kill their time filling out their brackets and subsequently trying to sneak in actually watching the games of the first few rounds of the tournament. It's one big semi-gambling semi-orgy - and everyone semi-loves it.
The idea:
With the NCAA tournament in full force, and with my joint film and sports appreciation, I got the idea to run a box office game the same way that the tournament is run. 32 films, one box office champion, many shining moments.
So, what you'll do is click on the link provided below, download your bracket, fill it by picking the movie for each matchup that you think will have the higher box office total, and send it to me by April 2.
The rules:
1. For each matchup, select which film will have the higher box office. Continue through the bracket until a champion has been crowned.
2. Scoring per round will be 1-2-4-8-12, for a possible total of 76 points (see table in workbook).
3. For the tie-breaker, enter your predicted top 5 films (box office) from the ones listed. One point for will be rewarded for each correct film, and an additional point for proper placement, for a potential 10 points. In the case of a tie, if one person's tie-breaker portion is not filled out, the other will win.
4. Brackets MUST be turned in (sent to blogcabins@yahoo.com) no later than April 2.
5. Box office data will be counted from April 2 - September 20, 2010.
6. One entry per person.
The prizes:
Still slightly up in the air, but most likely the same kind of deal as done in year's past (a t-shirt and a DVD of your choosing from Amazon.com valued at up to $19.99). However, this year, I was hoping to get the community involved in the prize-giving (to paraphrase Forrest Gump, I am not...a rich...man), so if there's something you can offer to the prize pool, please let me know. Hopefully, we can get a nice booty going. We had 34 players last year, so just a few items will make it that much more worth it.
The link to your bracket (if having troubles - right click, Save Target As):
http://blogcabins.webs.com/March%20to%20Box%20Office%20Madness2010.xls
* Please enter your picks using the same titles I have entered in the master bracket, even if they aren't technically accurate; slight changes are made for formatting issues, and having the names match makes the scoring go that much quicker. Please don't re-format the file in any way if possible. Enter your names and picks and go! *
The banner:
Finally, what fun would this be if it's just a few people? This game is open to EVERYONE. I want this to be BIG! I've made the banner that you see in the sidebar, and I'd love it if you'd put it on your site as well (if possible). Let's do this right! With any luck, everyone will be doing it next year.
The code:
<a href="http://largeassmovieblogs.blogspot.com/2010/03/march-to-box-office-madness-2010.html" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="Large Association of Movie Blogs" src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y82/dyjafi/marchboxbanner200.jpg"/></a>
Good luck, and be sure to get me your brackets by April 2! Any questions, comments, suggestions, or prize offerings, email me at blogcabins@yahoo.com.
