NCAA March Madness 2011 Bracket Pool: Donate to a Good Cause

The Wife Hates Sports loves to celebrate NCAA March Madness. For the 2011 tournament, The Wife Hates Sports would like to promote a bracket challenge. The hosts are friends of the site – but why promote them? Well, because the wife hates sports… and the wife hates cancer, too.

Friends of TWHS have a $10 per bracket pool running, which donates 10% to Susan G. Komen for the Cure – an organization that raises money for breast cancer research.

It’s one way to get into the tournament more, plus to help out a good cause.

The specifics for the bracket challenge are below. This is an email from the gentlemen in charge of the pool. Please note the payment details and league rules.

NCAA MARCH MADNESS POOL

*****PLEASE READ IN FULL BEFORE DOING ANYTHING, AS PAYMENT TERMS HAVE CHANGED FROM PRIOR YEARS*****

Welcome to the 2011 Blasbalg Brothers March Madness NCAA Tournament Pool. Many of you are receiving this email because you participated in a previous year’s pool.

Like last year, we will be using cbs.sportsline.com to manage the brackets. The group is called Blasbalg and the password is gmen. Click on the following link to go directly to the group.

http://jblas.mayhem.sportsline.com/e (Link no longer available)

Entry fees are still $10 per entry, but unlike prior years, there are only two ways to pay for your entries, and we will not be accepting late payments:

• PayPal to: jebalz@comcast.net (note this is different from prior years)

When paying PayPal, be sure to click Personal in payment options, and be sure to indicate which entry or entries you are paying for. If you don’t know how to do this, please pay $11 per entry to avoid fees. Any extra money will go directly to charity.

• Cash to one of the pool organizers.

• NO CHECKS, NO MAIL. If you don’t know one of the pool organizers, and you don’t have a PayPal account, either set one up (it’s easy, secure, and FREE), or have a friend PayPal the entry fees for you.

Again, this year, there are no late fees, and no payments via mail. ONLY ENTRIES PAID FOR IN FULL BY TIPOFF OF THE FIRST GAME WILL BE CONSIDERED VALID. If your entry is not paid in full by the time the games begin, YOUR ENTRY WILL BE DELETED. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Like last year, 10% of the total prize money will go directly to charity. This year, we will be donating to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. You can learn more about this organization at their website: http://www.bcrfcure.org/ Feel free to give any amount over the $10 per entry, as all extra payments will also be donated directly to this cause (if you wish to give extra to charity, please indicate that in the notes of your PayPal transaction).

Brackets come out this Sunday evening (March 13), but it is not too early to go to the link above and make sure you can sign in, and more importantly, to go to PayPal and send your payments in. If you do not yet have a cbs.sportsline.com account or a PayPal account, you will be required to set them up (both are free). If you have any problems or need assistance, please let us know.

Link No Longer Available

We will be using a 1-3-5-7-10-15 scoring format. Questions? Please refer to the rules at the cbs.sportsline.com site (go to http://jblas.mayhem.cbssports.com/help/rules). Last years total payout was over $4,300, we paid out 5 places, and the 1^st place winner received $2,500 (over $850 went to charity).

Enter at the cbs.sportsline.com website AND paid for by the tip-off of the first tourney game will be considered valid entries. This is slightly different from years past, where we gave entries leeway in paying after tipoff.

PLEASE check the website if you have any questions.

You may receive an email from the cbs.sportsline.com site, as well as a reminder from us as the tournament approaches.

Thanks and good luck.

Jason, Jeff, and Jeremy Blasbalg