How to Build a Year-Round Squares Group

The group chat that lit up every Sunday from September through February has gone quiet. Nobody's arguing about coin-flip numbers. Nobody's posting a screenshot of the grid at halftime. That silence is the off-season, and it's the exact moment most squares groups quietly die.

They shouldn't. The reason people love a squares pool has almost nothing to do with football specifically. It's the shared thing to watch, the low stakes, the running joke about whoever always ends up with 0 and 0. That works in July as well as it works in January, as long as somebody keeps the lights on. Here's how to be that somebody.

Why groups fall apart in the off-season

The usual story: one person ran every board during the season. They picked the games, filled the grid, chased people for their squares, sorted out the winners. When football ended, that person got their weekends back and never started up again. Six months later everyone's forgotten the group existed.

The fix isn't to work harder. It's to make the group less dependent on one exhausted organizer, and to give it something to do when there's no NFL Sunday on the calendar. Both of those are easier than they sound.

Summer has plenty of games, actually

People think the sports calendar goes dark after the Super Bowl. It doesn't. Right now, in the middle of the summer, there's a full slate to build boards around.

Baseball runs all summer long, and a squares board works fine for it. The MLB All-Star Game lands July 14 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, which is a perfect one-off event for a group that hasn't played in months. Low commitment, everyone knows it's happening, nobody has to follow a full season to join in. The WNBA is in the middle of its season too, with the All-Star Game set for late July in Chicago. If your crew has a few basketball fans, that's an easy pickup.

The thing worth remembering is that a squares board runs on any game with a score. Two numbers, four quarters or however the sport breaks up, done. That opens up baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, whatever your people actually watch. You're not waiting for football. You're just picking the next game with a scoreboard.

If you've never set one up outside of a Super Bowl party, the beginner's guide to football squares covers the mechanics, and they carry over to any sport without much change.

Spread the work so it survives

A group with one organizer is a group with one point of failure. The trick to a year-round squares group is rotating who runs the board.

Pick a different person each month or each event. One friend takes the All-Star Game, another grabs a random Saturday baseball game, someone else handles the first NFL preseason board in August. When the job moves around, nobody burns out, and the group stops depending on whether one specific person feels like it this week.

This is where doing it online instead of on paper actually matters. When you run football squares with a printout, handing off means re-teaching someone the whole routine. When the board lives on a link, whoever's up that week just creates one, shares it, and the numbers get assigned automatically. The handoff takes two minutes. On PickMySquare the board fills itself, assigns numbers randomly, and tracks winners on its own, so the "organizer" job shrinks to picking a game and posting a link.

Give the group a rhythm

Groups stay alive when there's something predictable to show up for. You don't need a game every week. You need a pattern people can count on.

Some ideas that hold up across a full year:

• A monthly marquee board. One big event a month, no more. All-Star games, a rivalry weekend, the college football opener in late August. Enough to keep the chat warm without asking for a Sunday-every-week commitment.
• A playoff tradition. Basketball playoffs in spring, baseball in October, the College Football Playoff in December and January. Postseason games sell themselves.
• A draft-night or opener board to relaunch football season. The 2026 NFL season kicks off Wednesday, September 9, with the Seahawks hosting the Patriots in a Super Bowl 60 rematch. That's your reunion board. Everyone's excited, everyone's around, and you've kept the group breathing all summer so it's an easy yes.

The point of the calendar is that the group never fully goes cold. A quiet stretch is fine. A six-month blackout is what kills you.

March Madness is the off-season anchor

If there's one event that pulls a lapsed group back together, it's March. The bracket is a cultural event, and it doubles as a natural mid-year checkpoint for a squares group that's been coasting through winter.

Worth being clear about how it works, because there are two different games here. You can run a squares board on a single March Madness game, like the championship, the same way you'd run one for any game. And separately, you can run an actual bracket pool where everyone fills out the whole 68-team bracket and racks up points as the rounds go. Both live on PickMySquare. A lot of groups do both: a bracket pool for the tournament, a squares board for the title game. It's the one time of year where even the people who ignored every other board suddenly want in.

Keep the stakes tiny and the vibe big

The groups that last for years are almost never the high-money ones. Big pots invite drama, arguments about who paid, someone taking it too seriously. The groups that survive are usually playing for nothing, or for a five-dollar buy-in, or for the right to trash talk until the next board.

Off-season boards especially should stay light. Nobody's going to sweat a random Tuesday baseball game for real money, and they shouldn't have to. Make it about the group, not the payout. Keep the buy-in low or skip it entirely, and you remove the biggest reason casual players drop off.

Year-Round Squares Group FAQ

Can I run a squares board for sports other than football?
Yes. Any game with a score works. Baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, the mechanics are identical: assign the numbers, match them to each team's score, check the winners at the end of each period.

How often should we run boards in the off-season?
Once a month is plenty. A single marquee event each month keeps the group warm without asking people to commit every week. Ramp back up as football season approaches.

How do I keep the group going without doing all the work myself?
Rotate the organizer. Have a different person create and share the board each month. When the board lives on a link, the handoff takes minutes because the numbers and winners are handled automatically.

Is a bracket pool the same as a squares board?
No. A squares board is a grid tied to one game's score. A bracket pool is a full March Madness bracket where you pick every game and earn points across the rounds. PickMySquare runs both, and bracket pools exist only for NCAA March Madness.

What's a good event to restart a dormant group?
Something everyone already knows is happening: the MLB or WNBA All-Star Game in July, the college football opener in late August, or the NFL kickoff on September 9. Low commitment, wide interest, easy yes.

Do off-season boards need a buy-in?
Not at all. The groups that last usually play for very little or nothing. Keep the stakes small and the boards stay fun instead of turning into a bookkeeping chore.