Circa Survivor Strategy, Part I: Thinking About Pick Popularity

We go through some of the data from last year's contest and discuss how to predict pick rates in Circa Survivor 2024.

When should you pick popular teams like Dallas and Green Bay in Circa? (Matthew Pearce/Icon Sportswire)

The Circa Survivor Pro Football contest is back for 2024, with a $10 million guaranteed purse.

Last year, we reviewed historical data for the Circa Survivor contest and tried to forecast factors to consider to project pick popularity. Because of the contest’s unique rules, large entry fee, large field size, and big purse, it creates some interesting pick dynamics.

One of the unique features is that the Thanksgiving and Christmas slates are their own pick week. That makes it one of the most challenging survivor pools around, as contestants have to navigate a gauntlet of not only picking 18 weekly survivors but also an additional two teams on very limited holiday slates with only three to four games to pick from.

Another fairly obvious thing that emerged from last year in Circa Survivor was that the field changed as last year’s version expanded to nearly 10,000 entries. While we noted that Circa pick rates had shown a tendency toward sharper picks in recent years, that trend was muted in 2023 as more entries flocked toward the publicly popular picks, particularly those that saved future value.

In this first Circa strategy article for 2024, we will discuss figuring out pick popularity trends in the contest and how to leverage those. The second article will follow up with an overview of future value considerations.

Why We Want to Think About Pick Popularity in Circa Survivor

Before we get into some details about projecting Circa Survivor pick popularity each week, let’s start with the “Why.”

To win a large contest like Circa Survivor, you will certainly need a lot of luck, regardless of how well you identify better paths and options.

Looking at historic survivor data, only about 6-of-1000 entries have made it through Week 17 over the last decade. We have only had three years with the 18-week schedule, but only about 1-of-1000 entries have survived to the end over that span. So it’s incredibly challenging to get to the end, even if you pick the biggest favorites available every week. (For Circa, the holiday requirement should typically push that rate under 1-of-1000.)

But when things do break your way, you ideally want to do it on a less traveled path. You want to win the pot outright or split with as few others as possible.

Two Circa Years, Two Vastly Different Prize Amounts

Let’s use two different years in the Circa contest.

In 2023, only four entrants out of over 9,200 made it through and split the pot for $2.3 million each. Several notable extremely popular picks were wiped out, knocking out large chunks of the pool, and the winners avoided selecting the popular selections on those weeks.

Just three years earlier, in the first year of Circa Survivor, there were 1,390 entries and $1.39 million total in play. It was a “chalk” year when lots of the popular picks narrowly survived and had the highest survival rate we have seen in a decade. In Circa Survivor I, 35 different entries made it to the end, splitting the pot and each earning just over $68,000.

You want to win money no matter what, but there is a massive difference between $68,000 and $2.3 million. Yes, the latter amount was in part because of the much larger pot size, but it was also heavily influenced by outcomes that meant fewer entries were part of the pot split. You should ideally try to employ strategies that win you the most money when you hit the correct outcomes to get to the end.

We address many of these ideas in more detail in our Survivor e-book and explain why pick popularity is one of the key strategy considerations in our Survivor article on the Holy Trinity of Survivor Pick Strategy Data.

Projecting Pick Popularity for 2024 Circa Survivor

We don’t know the spread of each game in the 2024 season. Injuries will pop up, surprise teams will emerge, or disappointments will emerge. However, we can identify the factors that tend to lead to teams having high pick popularity, sometimes too high, and a great opportunity to play against.