Join a Bracket Pool to Raise Money for Joe Maddon’s HIP and Win Awesome Cubs Prizes

Any other degenerate bracket-filler-outers out there? Yeah, I thought so. Most of us have pools at work or among friends, probably a few random ones out there on various online venues. But whether you’ve completed one or 51 brackets already, I think you’re going to want to do one more.

Cubs Insider previously partnered with Joe Maddon’s Hazleton Integration Project on a small fundraising raffle, so they reached out to us with information on their next effort. HIP is going through Gameraisr, an online platform that leverages major sporting events like the NCAA tournament, to reach a goal of $5,000 in donations via bracket entries.

It’s a pretty simple process: just go online to the Gameraisr page for Joe Maddon’s HIP and fill out your picks. You’ll then be asked to register and will be presented with options to donate (there are presets or you can enter your own amount) in order to finalize your entry. Simple enough.

What’s that? You want to be able to win fabulous prizes? Oh yeah, they’ve got some of those.

First prize* is four tickets and four field passes to ANY Cubs game in ANY city during the 2017 season. It’d be good enough if they were just letting you choose one of the 81 home games, but this really opens things up for those of you who live too far from Chicago or who want to plan an awesome road trip. Second prize is a Cubs hat autographed by Maddon and third prize is a baseball bearing the manager’s signature.

No word on whether Tim Buss’s thong and luchador mask will be made available, though I’m guessing we could get HIP to work something out for the last-place finisher.

I’ve already entered my picks, so you’re really only going to be playing for the hat or ball, but please don’t let that stop you from donating. One more time, click here to make your picks.

*Gameraisr uses the Fibonacci scoring system. 1 point for round 1. 2 points for Round 2, 3 points for Round 3, 5 points (2+3) for Round 4, 8 points (3+5) for Round 5, and 13 points (5+8)for the Championship.