INFER Future Bowl

Overview

Forecast on future-bowl tag questions with your INFER team and earn prizes for team and individual efforts and accuracy! The tournament is scheduled to run from November 3, 2022 to April 30, 2023. This tournament is intended for individuals who are on a team led by an INFER Team Lead. 

Prizes

The Future Bowl will award prizes totaling $5,250 to both high-performing teams as well as select forecasters who demonstrate high accuracy and engagement throughout the tournament.

• End of Tournament Grand Prizes - Awarded June 2023
  • Team Accuracy Grand Prize - up to $3,000
    • Awarded to the most accurate team at the end of the tournament in April
    • Teams will be scored relative to others, and final rankings will take into account the number of scored questions each team participated in
    • The winning team must have at least 8 active team members every month of the tournament (active = at least one forecast in a month)
    • The grand prize will be divided among each team member equally - a team member must be active at least 5 of the 6 months of the tournament to earn their portion
    • There is no limit to the number of individuals that can qualify for the prize within a team, but the prize is capped to $3,000
    • If there is a tie in ranking between two or more teams, the team with the highest average number of forecasters per month during the tournament will be awarded the prize
  
  
  • Best Individual Forecaster Prizes - $750 each + invitation to INFER’s 2023 Pro Forecaster Program
    • Awarded to the 3 best performing and most active forecasters throughout the tournament: $750 each
    • Winners will be determined by the INFER reward committee and will be selected based on monthly activity, including number of forecasts, comments, quality of rationales, and other engagement on the INFER platform throughout the tournament
    • Winners will be extended an invitation to join INFER’s Pro Forecaster Program for the remainder of the 2023 season - see more details here.

Tournament Logistics

• INFER will post 1-2 tournament-specific questions each month during the tournament. You will only be scored on those questions, although we encourage you to try other non-tournament questions to practice your forecasting and contribute to our INFER research.
• Only questions with the future-bowl tag will be eligible for tournament rankings.
• Tournament scoring will be completed through INFER and use our relative brier scoring system.
• Prize eligibility —
  
• Participating teams can have no more than 2 INFER Pro forecasters
• INFER Pro Forecasters are not eligible to win tournament prizes
• INFER Team Leads are not eligible to win tournament prizes
• INFER reserves the right to modify tournament guidelines or reward amounts
• Prizes can be distributed in one of two ways —
  1. Paid directly to the prize winning team member via Gusto or Veem
  2. Donated to the cause of the team member’s choice (in accordance with our charitable guidelines).

Forecasting Tournament Best Practices

Here are some tips to consider that may help improve your performance during the tournament:

• Include rationales for all of your forecasts. Rationales give context to why you think a certain way; they don’t need to be long, but they should be informative.
• Update your forecasts incrementally and often. Research shows that the most accurate forecasters tend to make small updates to their forecasts as new information becomes available or their thinking evolves.
• Be collaborative with your teams – try having quick 30-minute meetings once per month or once per week to tackle one question together. You’ll be surprised how much a team’s score can improve just by talking through information and helping each other see different perspectives.
• Most importantly, have fun!