Are you smarter than an NFL punter?
Tress Way loved two things about The Associated Press’ list of the top 100 college football programs of all-time, which the NFL punter came across on Twitter last August: His alma mater, Oklahoma, was No. 2; and the order was determined by a formula, not one writer’s opinion.
“You could not argue it,” said Way, who began quizzing teammates, coaches and staffers at Washington Redskins training camp in Richmond about the list and kept track of who could name the top-10 programs in the fewest number of guesses.
Everyone wanted a turn, and each new attempt attracted an audience. The excitement over this simple off-field diversion inspired Way to create What’s Your Bid, a team trivia game that combines elements of Family Feud, Trivial Pursuit and Spades. A Kickstarter campaign to fund the project launches July 31.
“I wasn’t surprised when he told me he created this, because even back in college he said one of his dreams was to create a board game,” said Ben Habern, who roomed with Way for two years at Oklahoma. “It was a passion of his and I knew at some point he would find the time to put something like this together.”
Habern, the marketing and strategic partnerships co-ordinator for the College Football Playoff, is one of three friends from Oklahoma who agreed to help Way get What’s Your Bid — the debut product from Way Fun Games LLC — off the ground.
The genesis of the idea came a year ago, when Colt McCoy and then-quarterbacks coach Matt Cavanaugh needed only 11 guesses to name the AP’s all-time top-10 college football programs. Then one coach asked Way if he had any other lists handy.
Way scribbled topics on his hotel notepad and helped satisfy the team’s trivia craving for the remainder of camp. By the start of the regular season, trivia had become as popular an activity among players as ping-pong, with questions ranging from the top-grossing Leonardo DiCaprio films to past Super Bowl winners and the 13 original U.S. colonies.
The goal was to create a trivia game everyone would enjoy, even people convinced they despised trivia. The key to developing a more accessible trivia game, Way decided, was finding questions with at least a couple of answers that most people know.
As in Family Feud, success in What’s Your Bid depends on every member of the team contributing. For each question, teams have 30 seconds to decide how many poker chips to bid, depending on how many answers they think they can guess correctly while alternating answers. If a team gives an incorrect answer or fails to reach its bid, the chips go to the other team. The first team to 30 chips wins.
“The hardest challenge is getting it in people’s hands,” Way said. “It’s addicting. The only thing better than trivia is more trivia.”