Friendly Sports Rivalry With Friends, on Your Ticker
A friendly sports rivalry with friends works when four things are settled before the first pitch: who picked which side, how a winner is decided, what the loser has to do, and when they have to do it. Make the stake a forfeit rather than money, write the tiebreaker down, and keep the score where everyone can see it. GridTicker's Rivals puts all of that on the ticker of everybody in the rivalry. It shows the series as it is played, the trash talk, a countdown to the forfeit and, once it is over, a wall of shame.
What makes a rivalry stay friendly
Most rivalries between friends go sour for the same few reasons. Nobody agreed what happens in a tie, or the loser "forgot," or a bet turned into real money. A few rules head that off:
- Stake a forfeit, not cash. The loser wears the winner's jersey, or walks the kids around in a costume the winner picks. It is funnier than money, and nobody resents it a week later.
- Agree how it is settled. A playoff series, a season, or something you will judge yourselves.
- Write the tiebreaker down. Pick one before you need it, so nobody argues about it afterward.
- Set a forfeit day. A forfeit with a date gets done.
- Keep a record. A rivalry that comes back every year is worth more than one that ends in a single season.
Setting up a rivalry on GridTicker
Everything lives in Settings, under Rivals. Press Start a rivalry and fill in a few things.
Name, emoji and season
Give the rivalry a name and an emoji, and say which season it is. Use the same name every year, because that is how GridTicker keeps the rivalry's all-time record.
The forfeit and its day
Say what the loser does, the forfeit day and what that day is called. The guide's own example: calling the day "trick-or-treat" makes the ticker count down "6 days to trick-or-treat." You can also enter the winner's pick for the forfeit once it is chosen, such as a particular costume.
Who's in
Each side gets a name, a GridTicker username if that person has one, and a pick. The pick can be a team or anything else. You can add more people if there are more than two of you. People who want to follow along without picking a side, like a grandparent, can be invited as watchers.
Nobody is in a rivalry until they say yes. Each person with a username gets an email that says who invited them, and nothing typed into the rivalry. The invitation itself waits in their Settings, where they can accept or decline it. Only the person who made the rivalry can change it later.
How it's settled
- A playoff series. Pick the league, the two teams, the first game, the last possible game and the series length. Each side takes one team. GridTicker reads the series as it is played and settles the rivalry on its own when somebody wins.
- I'll say who won. For anything you settle yourselves. When it is over, tick Won beside the winner and save.
- A fan group. A season-long rivalry for friends who each follow their own teams in one league. More on this below.
Any rivalry can also describe its tiebreaker in your own words, and the tiebreaker is shown on the card.
The series, as it is played
A series rivalry follows the games on its own. The card shows each side's series wins, and the game while one is on. Between games it shows the next game's day, time and channel.
If the forfeit day comes before the series could end, set a tiebreak on the total scored through a chosen game. If nobody has won the series after that game, the side whose team has scored more across those games wins. If that is level too, the side whose team won that last game wins. As the series gets close to that game, the card shows the running count, such as "RUNS 14-9."
The trash talk
On a browser screen or a phone, the rivalry's card shows:
- its name and a line of trash talk
- each side's pick and series score
- the game on now, or the tiebreak count
- the countdown to the forfeit day
- the all-time record and the wall of shame
Messages are where the real needling happens. Open a rivalry and send a message to everyone in it, or only to the people you pick, and nobody else sees it. A message can be up to 80 characters. It crosses the ticker of everyone it is for twice on each screen, a minute and a half apart, and then it is gone. The rivalry's page keeps the whole conversation.
LED panels are still in testing and not for sale yet. On a panel, the rivalry runs as the same card in blocks across the strip, with two faces yelling at each other on either side of the word RIVALS where the stretch begins.
The countdown to the forfeit
The rivalry shows on the ticker from the day it is made until it is settled. After that, it stays until the day after the forfeit day and for as long as its outcome card runs. If there is neither, it stays for three days from when it was settled. If you want to keep a season off the tickers until you are ready, untick Show it on our tickers while you set it up.
The outcome card and the wall of shame
Once a rivalry is settled, someone can add a picture of the loser doing the forfeit, and the card becomes the outcome card. It shows who won, what the loser owes, the picture and the all-time record. It runs for three days from when the picture was added, and the winner can stretch that to anywhere from 1 to 30 days.
Those pictures also make the wall of shame. Anybody in a rivalry can add up to 24 pictures a season. By default the card shows last year's loser. The rivalry can be set to show none, or the losers of up to the last 10 years, newest first. A 32-row LED panel lists the losers by name instead of showing pictures.
If your rivalry is older than GridTicker, enter the earlier seasons with Add a past season and they count toward the all-time record.
Fan groups: a whole season of bragging rights
A fan group is a set of friends in one league, each with their own starred teams. The card covers the week: your teams' games on now, over the next seven days, and finished in the last day. A grudge match, where two friends' teams play each other, comes first, with both teams' logos, who is behind each side, and extra trash talk.
A table ranks the friends by the combined record of their starred teams this season. It is ordered by win share, so starring more teams does not help anyone.
Keeping it friendly
If a rivalry stops being fun, there are ways out. Anybody except the person who made a rivalry can leave it, from every season. You can block someone, and they are not told: to them, it just looks like you have not answered. Anything you report is hidden from you right away.
How GridTicker helps with this
GridTicker runs in any modern browser, on a spare screen, a second monitor or a TV. Rivals is its own stretch of the ticker for everybody in the rivalry. The Rivals guide covers starting one, how a rivalry is settled covers series and tiebreaks, and records and the wall of shame covers the losers' gallery. To choose which screens show rivalries, use Rivals under Where each ticker appears.
To get your rivalry on a screen before the next game, set up a strip at https://app.gridticker.com/signup.