Last updated: Feb 06, 2024
Top 10 Websites to Fill Out Your March Madness Bracket
March Madness is one of the most entertaining tournaments in the world of sports. Even though the tournament is filled with thrilling upsets, entering a bracket pool or contest can be just as exciting. Whether you are a novice or an expert, here are the best websites to help you get in on the madness.
Men’s Bracket: Print the 2023 Men's March Madness bracket here!
Women’s Bracket: Print the 2023 Women's March Madness bracket here!
What Are the Best Websites to Fill Out Your Bracket?
1. ESPN
ESPN is one of the most popular sites to use for filling out your bracket. Their bracket contest is called the ESPN Tournament Challenge. It is free to fill out and features a grand prize of a trip for two to next season’s Maui Invitational in Hawaii and multiple smaller prizes, such as Amazon gift cards.
You can compete against family and friends by using the “groups” feature. This is an easy way to host office and friend pools for free. To fill out your bracket, navigate to the current year’s ESPN Tournament Challenge website and click “Create New Bracket.” You will then be able to name your bracket, create and join groups, and complete your bracket. Don’t forget to predict the final score of the final game for a potential tiebreaker.
2. CBS
CBS is a great option for filling out a free bracket, competing against friends, and winning great prizes. CBS’s contest, called the CBS Sports Bracket Games, offers a grand prize of a new car, four tickets to the Final Four games, and cash to cover travel and accommodations.
To fill out your CBS bracket, go to the CBS Sports March Madness Bracket Games website and click “Enter Now.” You will be taken to the Bracket Games lobby, where you can create brackets and groups. CBS offers a convenient auto-fill option for your bracket if you would rather let the algorithm do some or all of the picking.
3. NCAA.com
NCAA.com is the website of the NCAA, the governing body that hosts March Madness. Accordingly, the site hosts the official March Madness Bracket Challenge of the NCAA. The NCAA.com bracket contest is called the Capital One NCAA March Madness Bracket Challenge, and it is notable for being the only contest that allows you to watch live game footage directly from your bracket page.
Like other sites, NCAA.com features groups for running pools, as well as a matchup analysis tool to help you make accurate predictions. To fill out your bracket, go to the Capital One NCAA March Madness Bracket Challenge website or app and click “Join Now.” You will be able to create a profile and fill out your bracket. NCAA.com is also the official source for blank, printable March Madness brackets, which they offer in PDF format.
4. Yahoo!
Yahoo!’s bracket contest has one of the most compelling prize structures among all free-to-play sites. The grand prize is typically $50,000 in cash or more. Second through fourth-place finishers in the contest also walk away with cash prizes in the thousands. Yahoo’s contest is called the “Yahoo Fantasy Tourney Pick ‘Em.” To play, navigate to the Yahoo Fantasy Tourney Pick ‘Em page, then click “Sign up now.” You will be prompted to create a Yahoo Fantasy account, after which you will be able to fill out your bracket and create groups. Yahoo also offers printable brackets as PDFs.
5. Plexkits
Plexkits is the premier source for March Madness brackets formatted as digital spreadsheets. Available in downloadable formats compatible with either Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel, these spreadsheets are essential tools for anyone running a bracket pool who craves privacy, security, transparency, and ultimate control over the function of the pool. Plexkits is a digital marketing company that designs complex and beautiful templates to help marketers get the most out of their office software.
This expertise carries through into their brackets, which are the most functional, customizable, and attractive spreadsheet-based brackets available. To download your template, go to Plexkits’ March Madness Bracket page, then scroll down to the “Download Your Bracket” section and click on “Google Sheets'' or “Microsoft Excel,” depending on your application preference. You can also download your women’s bracket on the same page.
6. SB Nation
SB Nation is a great place to print your bracket and find coverage of the NCAA Tournament from bloggers, including fans of your team. Every year, SB Nation features detailed coverage of March Madness in the form of a series of articles from bloggers around the country, which offers a unique perspective on the tournament you won’t get from more traditional media outlets.
SB Nation hosts a dedicated blog page for most Division I schools, so visit your school’s blog to find coverage tailored to your fan community, written by local fans. To print your bracket, go to the SB Nation NCAA Men’s Tournament Bracket page and click “Printable Men's March Madness Bracket.” Below this, you will also find the link for a printable women’s bracket.
7. PrintYourBrackets.com
PrintYourBrackets.com offers a free, downloadable March Madness bracket that is formatted for Microsoft Excel, as well as an option for filling out a bracket on their website that you can download or print. PrintYourBrackets.com is a company that specializes in large-format paper tournament brackets to be used in office pools, bars, schools, and local sports competitions.
In addition to their March Madness brackets, they sell single and double-elimination brackets to accommodate between four and 64 teams. To fill out your bracket, go to the PrintYourBrackets.com home page and scroll down to the “Trending Now” drop-down menu, where you will find links for the latest available printable and downloadable brackets.
You can fill out your bracket on PrintYourBrackets.com here.
8. Sporting News
In addition to well-written, professional coverage of all the March Madness action, Sporting News also offers a downloadable and printable bracket in PDF format. Sporting News started as a print magazine in 1886 that specialized in baseball. Today, it is an online-only media company that publishes daily news articles about sports of all kinds produced by its staff writers.
Keep in mind that the downloadable file does not allow you to edit the bracket, so you will have to print your bracket and fill it out by hand. To print your bracket, head to the Sporting News NCAA Tournament Bracket Printable March Madness Bracket site and click “Printable Bracket” in the middle of the page. The bracket will be displayed for you to download or print directly.
9. Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated, the iconic print and digital sports magazine, offers a bracket contest with prizes of gift cards worth thousands, as well as a printable bracket in PDF format. On their website, you can read expert March Madness coverage and predictions. You can also sign up for their daily tournament newsletter called Morning Madness.
To sign up for their bracket contest, go to the Sports Illustrated Bracket Challenge page and click “Reserve a Spot.” You will then be prompted to create an account, after which you will be able to fill out your bracket. To print your bracket, go to the Sports Illustrated Print Your Men’s NCAA Tournament Bracket page, scroll down, and click on the “Download Your Printable Bracket” link. This will take you to a PDF bracket, which you can download or print.
10. Athlon Sports
Athlon Sports is one of the most classic sources for March Madness information and predictions. Since the 1960s, they have published annual preseason magazines on football, basketball, and golf. You can now find the same insider sports information on the Athlon Sports website, in addition to a dedicated fantasy sports section.
While you will have to supply your own paper or digital bracket form, Athlon Sports provides bracket picks from several of their editors who are college basketball experts. You can copy one bracket directly, combine the picks from multiple brackets, or simply use the editors’ picks for insight and information. To find their picks, go to the Athlon Sports NCAA Bracket Cheat Sheets page and scroll down to browse the predictions.
Honorable Mentions
BetMGM
Founded in 2019, BetMGM is a relatively new betting site offering all of your March Madness needs. In addition to general content like Division I news and printable brackets, this site keeps up-to-date articles on rumors in the league, projections of the tournament’s biggest competitors, and betting odds for different games throughout March Madness. If you plan to make casual or serious bets on the games, BetMGM is a reliable and thorough source of daily information.
DraftKings
DraftKings is a popular sports betting website that also offers free-to-play March Madness bracket contests. Their standard bracket challenge features a prize pool of $60,000 and a first prize of $2,500. There are also generous prizes for runners-up. For those seeking a different bracket experience, DraftKings offers a March Madness survivor pool with a first prize of $30,000.
Lines
Lines is a betting site that offers odds, analysis, and many betting options for March Madness. Like other betting sites, they offer frequently updated news on Division I teams as well as provide a bet tracker that spans 11 different online sportsbooks. In that way, Lines is really a sports betting aggregator you can use to keep track of your March Madness predictions and the odds you may be facing throughout the tournament.
FAQ
How do you score a bracket challenge?
You score a bracket challenge by awarding one point for each correct prediction in the first round (Round of 64), then doubling the points awarded per game in each successive round. For each correct prediction in the Round of 32, you thus get two points. Keep doubling the points per game every round, awarding four points per game in the Sweet 16, eight points for Elite Eight games, 16 points for Final Four games, and 32 points for calling the championship winner. The First Four play-in games are not scored by most bracket challenge websites.
When can you fill out a March Madness bracket?
You can fill out a March Madness bracket anytime between Selection Sunday and the start of the tournament. Selection Sunday is the day that the finalized selections, seeds, and groupings of NCAA Tournament teams are announced. Selection Sunday takes place on the Sunday immediately preceding the start of the tournament, with the announcement occurring around 7 p.m. Selection Sunday is the culmination of a selection weekend during which the ten-member NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Committee selects, seeds, and places teams within the bracket.
Is it free to fill out a March Madness bracket?
It is free to fill out a March Madness bracket. Several websites have free online brackets available, where you can fill out your bracket and form groups to compete against your friends. CBS Sports, ESPN, Yahoo Fantasy, and the NCAA website are great places to find free online brackets. Most of these sites also hold bracket contests, which are free to enter and award substantial prizes to the winner. Plenty of websites also offer free printable brackets if you prefer to fill out your bracket on paper.