Bracket Challenge
View the case- Brand
- NHL
- Year
- 2017
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Quiz & Trivia
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- ExpandTheRoom
Objective
The NHL wanted its Bracket Challenge to feel as fast and exciting as the playoffs themselves, and to turn postseason hype into engagement that starts before the matchups are even set rather than a one-off pick made once. It also needed the classic wide bracket to actually work on the phones most fans were playing on, and it wanted the game to spread on its own — through friends, coworkers and rivals — while giving fans whose brackets busted early a reason to keep coming back.
Solution
A fan registers before the 16-team playoff field is even locked, building a profile and inviting others to play. Once the seedings are set, the bracket opens: instead of one wide grid, it unfolds on a phone as a stack of expandable panels, so a fan taps through one series at a time — picking a winner, plus the number of games for each First Round matchup — then zooms out to see the full tournament at a glance. After submitting before the deadline, the fan creates or joins private Bracket Leagues with friends, coworkers or self-declared hockey nemeses, then follows a live-scored leaderboard against that league and the world through the Stanley Cup Final. Newer editions let a fan tap Random Picks to auto-generate a bracket to tweak, or check team stats under Matchup Analysis before locking in a pick. If the First Round wrecks their bracket, a Second Chance Bracket lets them re-enter and keep playing for the rest of the playoffs.
Results
After the 2018 relaunch, nearly 1 million fans submitted about 1.6 million brackets, up 105% year over year; the agency's case study cites 926,000+ brackets submitted and year-over-year growth in both total players and brackets created following the redesign. The game has kept growing since: more than 1.42 million brackets were submitted in the 2019 initial challenge, and about 1.31 million in 2025, up 18% year over year.
- 1
The fan opens the challenge hub on NHL.com/Bracket or in the NHL app, which shows the current phase of the game, and registers with an NHL account ahead of the playoffs, building a profile and inviting others before the matchups are even set.
- 2
Once all 16 playoff seedings are set, the bracket unlocks; on mobile it appears as a stack of animated modules the fan expands to work on one section and collapses to see the whole bracket, all in portrait orientation.
- 3
The fan taps a team to pick the winner of each First Round series, and for each of those series also predicts how many games it will take, which earns a bonus if correct.
- 4
Picks cascade forward as the fan selects winners through the Second Round, the Conference Finals and the Stanley Cup Final to complete the full bracket.
- 5
Instead of picking every matchup by hand, the fan can hit Random Picks to auto-fill a complete bracket for editing, or consult Matchup Analysis, which surfaces team statistics alongside each matchup.
- 6
The fan submits the finished bracket before a lock deadline tied to the start of the playoffs, after which no further changes are allowed.
- 7
The fan can create or join a private Bracket League with friends, co-workers or rivals, compete in public leagues including a celebrity 'Famous Hockey Fans' league, and share the finished bracket on social media with the #NHLBracket hashtag.
- 8
As real playoff series conclude, the bracket scores live with escalating points per round plus the game-count bonuses, and the fan tracks the running total on a leaderboard against their leagues and the global field, with tiebreaker rules settling ties.
- 9
A fan whose original bracket is busted after the First Round can enter the Second Chance Bracket, predicting the remaining rounds fresh for a separate prize.
- 10
The fan who tops the final leaderboard wins the grand prize.
