import { Link } from "react-router"; import { Button } from "app/components/ui/button"; export function meta() { return [ { title: "How To Play - Brackt" }, { name: "description", content: "Learn how to play Brackt and compete in multi-sport fantasy leagues", }, ]; } export default function HowToPlay() { return (
Brackt is a multi-sport fantasy league where you draft athletes and teams across dozens of sports, then watch your roster compete all year long. Here's everything you need to know to get started.
Before the season starts, everyone in the league participates in a draft by picking real teams (and athletes in individual sports) across a set of sports chosen by your commissioner. Over the following months, those picks compete in their actual seasons. When it's all said and done, whoever earned the most points from their picks wins.
Your league includes a set of sports selected by the commissioner, such as the NFL, NBA, Golf, Formula 1, Tennis, and more. Your roster has one dedicated spot for each sport, so you need to draft at least one pick from every sport in the league.
Extra draft rounds beyond the number of sports create{" "} flex spots. Flex picks can come from any sport. These are great for grabbing a second (or even a third and a fourth!) player in a sport where you see value, or doubling down on a safe bet. How you use your flex spots can be the difference between winning the league and finishing at the bottom of the table.
Example:{" "} Your league has 20 sports and 24 draft rounds. That means you fill 20 dedicated sport spots and have 4 flex picks to use however you like.
Points are awarded based on where your picks finish: 1st through 8th. The better they finish, the more you earn. Your commissioner can adjust point values before the draft, but here's what a typical league looks like:
| Finish | Points |
|---|---|
| 1st Place | 100 |
| 2nd Place | 70 |
| 3rd Place | 50 |
| 4th Place | 40 |
| 5th–6th Place | 25 |
| 7th–8th Place | 15 |
If nobody in your league drafted a team that finishes in the top 8, those points aren't awarded to anyone in your league. In other words, if no one picks Indiana to win the NCAA Football championship, the manager who drafted Miami, the team that lost to them, still only would receive the 2nd place points.
Some sports don't have a single championship, they have multiple major tournaments spread throughout the year. Classic examples are golf and tennis, but other sports may be scored by majors as well. You can see on your league pages how each sport is scored. For these sports with majors, players earn{" "} qualifying points (QP) {" "} at each one:
| Major Finish | Qualifying Points |
|---|---|
| 1st | 20 QP |
| 2nd | 14 QP |
| 3rd | 10 QP |
| 4th | 8 QP |
| 5th–6th | 5 QP |
| 7th–8th | 3 QP |
| 9th–12th | 2 QP |
| 13th–16th | 1 QP |
QP don't go straight to your score — they determine the final ranking within that sport. Once all the majors are done, total QP are added up, and whoever's ranked 1st through 8th earns the standard league points. Consistency across majors is the key.
Because Brackt is a "draft and done" league, the draft is your only opportunity to take action. Once the final pick is made, your roster is locked for the entire year. There are no trades, waivers, or mid-season pickups. Your success depends entirely on the strategy you execute during the draft.
{/* Timing Mechanics */}The draft uses a snake format where the pick order reverses every round. You can configure the timing of the draft using one of two primary mechanics:
These mechanics can be applied to any draft speed. Whether you want to finish in an hour or over the course of a week, the system scales to your needs:
To keep the draft moving regardless of the pace, you can use the{" "} Draft Queue{" "} to pre-rank your targets. If your clock expires, the system automatically selects the highest available player from your queue. If your queue is empty, the system will select the highest-ranked athlete remaining in the pool to ensure the draft never stalls.
Once the draft ends, your roster is locked. No trades, no waivers, no pickups. Just watch your picks compete across the year and see how your draft decisions play out. Points accumulate as sports seasons wrap up, and standings update in real time.
If there's a tie in the final standings, it's broken by who has more 1st-place finishes. If that's still a tie, it goes to 2nd-place finishes, then 3rd, and so on.
Want the full breakdown? Read the{" "} official rules .