Circa Survivor Strategy, Part II: Team Future Value

We go through the 2024 season and rank teams into tiers based on projected future value for the Circa Survivor contest.

The Chiefs and Ravens are the two most valuable teams for Circa Survivor in 2024 (Mark Goldman/Icon Sportswire)

To win 2024 Circa Survivor, you will probably have to survive 20 picks, or close to it, if the contest goes to the end of the NFL regular season. Circa Survivor includes two unique holiday weeks, where you must successfully pick a team to win on Thanksgiving (or the Friday after) and Christmas Day.

In part 1, we detailed how to think about pick popularity in Circa Survivor and how that holiday rule impacts how entries are picked, compared to national public pick popularity data.

In this article, we are going to examine the 2024 teams, detail how much future value each team has entering the season, and provide some thoughts on strategies for 2024.

Why We Care About Future Value in Circa Survivor

The Circa Survivor contest is a large-field contest with a guaranteed pot of $10 million ($1,000 per entry fee). If it fills, the contest will have at least 10,000 entries. That is very likely since last year’s contest had over 9,200, with four getting all the way through to split the pot in a year that featured some big upsets.

We had seven different losses that eliminated at least 30% of the existing pool with that outcome last year.

Biggest elimination results in Circa Survivor IV, by percentage

Over half of the remaining pool was knocked out on Thanksgiving when the Lions lost to Green Bay. Another 60% was eliminated a week later when Pittsburgh and Jacksonville lost as the co-popular picks. Finally, in Week 16 (pre-Christmas Day slate), six of the ten remaining picks went out while picking the Denver Broncos. (The four remaining entries were the ultimate winners who got through after avoiding the crowd with Denver.)

The point of showing that chart is to illustrate that several key games crushed large percentages of the Circa field with one result in 2023. We still ultimately had a contest where it was necessary to go undefeated, just as it has been in all four Circa Survivor contests so far.

Having the Mentality that You Need Regarding Future Value

Does that mean it’s guaranteed to go the distance? No, we were just one or two more key results from it ending around Christmas Day last year. But you should go into the contest with the attitude that you need to run the gauntlet of picking 20 straight winners.

If you have that attitude, you need to get comfortable with the idea that you will pick 20 different teams. That includes the 4 or 5 Super Bowl contenders, 9 or 10 other playoff contenders at some point, and also six or more teams that ultimately will be non-playoff teams, some of them with losing records.

It is really hard to get through the gauntlet. In most cases, all the planning will be for nothing. In 2023, only about 4% of all entries that started the contest even made it to the Thanksgiving game picks. But your chances of winning will be significantly reduced if you do not plan ahead. This isn’t a 4-week sprint. It’s a 20-pick marathon.

You cannot make 20 A+ picks over the course of Circa Survivor. Some of your picks will be C+ picks that try to advance your entry in better shape for the future when stepping back and looking at the entire picture. You will almost certainly have to take some gross teams as moderate favorites in Circa Survivor.

The key is whether your picks on the top teams are A+ rather than B+ picks by employing them when they are most valuable. Also, your C+ picks on the other less valuable teams don’t turn into D-picks because you selected the riskier team everyone else is also taking that week.

Projecting the Most Valuable Teams for 2024 Circa Survivor

Now that we understand the game theory behind why we should care about projecting future value let’s turn to which teams project as the most valuable.