Circa NFL contests had massive Thanksgiving mini-week

(PRESS RELEASE) -- Coming into the Thanksgiving mini-week, six entries in Circa Grandissimo and 900 entries in Circa Survivor remained. After four games where the underdogs won every game, the first season of Circa Grandissimo came to an end and Circa Survivor entries dropped below 50.

In Circa Grandissimo and Circa Survivor, all entrants must pick one game on Thanksgiving or Black Friday. There were four games on those days this year. Detroit was favored over Green Bay, Kansas City was favored over Dallas, Baltimore was favored over Cincinnati and Philadelphia was favored over Chicago on Black Friday. In every game over this holiday, the underdog won.

There were six entrants to start the week in Circa Grandissimo, of the initial 69 who entered the contest. The high-stakes contest, with a $100,000 prize pool, had a prize pool of $6,900,000. Three entries were on Baltimore and three were on Philadelphia. In the official contest rules, rule 19.c.iii states “If zero entries remain, the Contest ends and the prize pool will be split equally among all entries that successfully submitted a selection in the Contest Week that is concluding, regardless of the Contest Week in which this occurs.” With both Baltimore and Philadelphia losing, all six lost, and all six won $1,150,000.

“The first year of Circa Grandissimo exceeded expectations in number of signups and how long the season went,” Circa Sports Director of Operations Jeffrey Benson said. “It’s incredible how far into the season Circa Grandissimo made it. And now six people will walk away with over a million dollars!”

Circa Sports CEO Derek Stevens said, “What an unbelievable ending to the first ever Circa Grandissimo. We never thought we could get 69 people to participate in a $100,000 entry fee contest. With the highest entry fee for a football contest ever, we were simply hoping to get 15 entrants. The demand for a high-stakes contest, under the Circa Sports umbrella, was truly amazing. We’d like to congratulate all six winners of the inaugural Circa Grandissimo football contest.”

The six winners of Circa Grandissimo are:

- BINOCOLLECTION

- FTW DEGERENATES

- GAMBLEBALLS

- KUJO

- SAMMYSADISTONOF

THE DREAM TEAM
In Circa Survivor, 900 entries entered the week. Two failed to get their entries in at the deadline. Of those who did get their picks in, 489 were on Philadelphia, 269 were on Baltimore, 78 were on Kansas City and 13 were on Detroit. A staggering 851 entries, were eliminated in the mini-week, bringing the total down to 49. Of the 49 who advanced, 28 picked Chicago, 10 picked Cincinnati, 8 picked Dallas and 3 picked Green Bay. Those 49 are still competing for the $18,718,000 in the largest prize pool ever.

Last year, for the Thanksgiving mini-week, 54 entries were alive at the start of the week, and all 54 survived. Fewer people advance to week 13B in 2025 than in 2024. Those 49 will still have to pick a game from the slate on Sunday and Monday to advance to week 14.

Benson added, “This is a holiday weekend everyone will remember for a very long time. Winning in the NFL isn’t easy. All four dogs win outright, and it totally turns the contests upside down.”