The office game day guide
Football squares might be the perfect office activity. It takes five minutes to set up, requires zero sports knowledge to participate, and gives everyone something to talk about on game day. Whether it is the Super Bowl, a playoff game, or just a fun Monday Night Football event, running a squares game at work is one of the easiest ways to bring people together.
Head to the create page and set up your game. Pick the teams, choose whether to link it to a live game for automatic scoring, and set a player password if you want to keep it within your group. The whole process takes about a minute.
If you are running this for the Super Bowl, create the game at least a week in advance so people have time to claim their squares. For a regular season game, a day or two ahead is usually plenty.
Once the game is created, you get a unique link. Drop it in your team Slack channel, send it in a group email, or post it on your office bulletin board. Anyone with the link (and the password, if you set one) can open it on their phone or computer and claim squares instantly.
This is where online squares completely changes the game compared to a paper grid. Remote employees, people in different offices, and even folks who are out sick that week can all participate without being physically present. Nobody has to walk up to a wall and write their name with a marker.
Let people claim squares over the next few days. You can track progress from the game page, which shows how many squares are filled and who has claimed them. If you are having trouble filling all 100, here are a few tips:
Send a reminder when the board is about half full. People respond to urgency, and seeing that 50 squares are already taken makes the remaining ones feel more scarce. If you still have empty squares close to game time, let people claim multiple squares. Most office games allow 2 to 5 squares per person. You can also use the admin quick-assign feature to fill in remaining squares yourself.
Once the board is full (or close enough), log in as admin and click "Assign Numbers." This randomly places digits 0 through 9 along the rows and columns. Do this before the game starts. Then lock the grid to prevent any last-minute changes.
This is the moment when the excitement kicks in. People will immediately check which numbers they got and start looking up which digit combinations are historically the best. For a breakdown of that, check out our post on the best Super Bowl squares numbers.
If you linked your game to a scheduled matchup, scores update automatically. The grid highlights winners at the end of each period, so everyone can check the page and see who won without anyone having to announce it manually. Scores may be delayed by up to 10 minutes, so just refresh the page periodically during the game.
The day after the game, send out a recap message to the office. Congratulate the winners, share the final grid, and start building anticipation for the next one. The best office squares traditions are the ones that happen regularly, not just once a year.
Keep it simple and inclusive. Do not assume everyone knows how the game works. Include a one-line explanation when you share the link, something like "Click any empty square and type your name. That is it." You can also point people to our How to Play page if they want more detail.
Set a player password so only your group can access the game. This keeps it private and avoids any confusion. And remember, this is for bragging rights only. The fun is in the competition and the shared experience, not in any stakes.
Set up a free football squares game in under a minute.
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