How the draft works
The teams you will be cheering for and that will be earning you the points needed for BISERGS glory is determined by a six-round draft. At the end of the draft day on June 7th, everyone's slate of teams will be determined. There are a few important things to understand about the draft.
After you register to play the BISERGS, you will have the opportunity to put the 48 World Cup teams into your preferred order. You can view the teams by their FIFA World Rank or by their World Cup Groups. Simply click on a team and it will be added to your draft order preference list. There is a button that says “Use FIFA Ranks”. If you click this button, it will add any unpicked teams to your preferred order list by their current FIFA World Rank.
You must have your draft order preferences completed by the Draft Order Draw, or you will be assigned random teams. Don't let that happen.
BISERGS registration closes on June 5th at 11:59 PM Pacific Time. On the following day, Saturday, June 6th at 7 PM Pacific time, the Draft Order Draw will take place. In the past, the draft order was determined by Greg's daughters pulling names out of a hat. His girls have grown and technology has evolved to the point that a randomizer will be used to put all BISERGS participants in order for the draw. A cool little animation will make the names appear one at a time — log in to this website on June 6th to watch this important step with bated breath.
The draft order is serpentine style. This means the BISERGSer with the first pick in round 1 will get the last pick in round 2. The BISERGSer with the last pick in round 1 gets the first pick in round 2. The pattern repeats for rounds 3, 4, 5, and 6.
There will be many people playing this year and they each get six teams. This means that each World Cup team will be available to be picked by multiple BISERGSers. The following formula was used to determine how many Brazils, Spains, Argentinas, and Germanys will be available in the BISERGS draft.
[(Number of Participants + 1) × 6] ÷ 48
Rounded up
This is designed so that even if you have the last pick, you won't be forced to take the last team on your list. Each participant is only allowed to “own” a team once, so you won't be given a team you already have even if they are still available in a later draft round.
On June 7th at 7 PM, the BISERGS draft will take place. There is also an animation that will allow you to follow along as the teams are assigned. You'll be biting your fingernails as you hope Colombia is still available when your second round pick comes around.
After the teams are decided, the only thing left to do is cheer for your teams, watch the leaderboard, and join in the discussion around the BISERGS updates added to the app.