Ballhype is a growing force to be reckoned with in sports news and fandom. As I had mentioned in covering the site upon its initial launch at the beginning of the month, Ballhype offers sports' biggest fans a place to gather, share the latest stories and make their guesses as to which teams will come out on top in the day's games.Last week, Ballhype launched its first contest to see who was most adept at picking winners, and most importantly, upsets. The site awards players with more points for correctly picking upsets than they do if you choose the favorite each time, so you are rewarded for risk. As they write, "Take the occasional risk! If you lose, yes, you look like an idiot. But if you win, oh my, it's sweet."
My against the grain, contrarian approach turned out to have worked last week, as I learned I had racked up the most points, despite not having the best won/lost record. My ultimate prize? Ballhype featured my picks on their blog (See: Game Show), I got a quasi-quote on the front page of their site, and get to go through the next week with a silly halo around my logo, comprised of a mashup of both Sacramento Kings and Oakland A's logos, with a little Cal sprinkled in. Pretty silly, huh?
You can see last week's picks leaderboard here. No telling what this week will bring.