40% of Circa Survivor already eliminated

(PRESS RELEASE) -- Sports betting venture Circa Sports’ professional football contest, Circa Survivor, started the season with a record-setting 14,266 entries by the Saturday afternoon deadline. However, nearly 40% of the field, 5,563 entries, were eliminated by Sunday night largely due to the loss by the biggest favorite on the board – Cincinnati. Now, 8,703 contestants are left with a $14.266 million prize pool on the line.

Cincinnati emerged as the most-picked team for the first week, with 4,985 entries (34.3% of the field) backing them against New England. Despite being the biggest favorites, moving between 7.5 and 8-points, Cincinnati faced early challenges including questions on if star Ja’Marr Chase would take the field. In the second quarter, New England took an early lead. It looked like Cincinnati had made a touchdown pass late in the half but an overturned catch immediately turned into a fumble. New England went up 13-0 early in the second half, and while Cincinnati’s offense started to work, they could not make up that deficit.

Atlanta also took out contestants with a loss. After the news of Russell Wilson’s injury came out, many people thought Atlanta would be a good play as the line increased. However, it’s offense did not look good in their first game with Kirk Cousins at the helm and Pittsburgh came away with the win. That loss took out 431 entries (3% of the field). Other teams that lost with double-digit picks on them included New York, Cleveland and Kansas City.

There are still 123 picks on San Francisco on Monday night. If New York ends up beating San Francisco, another 0.9% of the field would be eliminated.

Although this week took out a large portion of the entries, it pales in comparison to the carnage seen in Week 1 of 2022 Circa Survivor season. In that season, 3,427 of the 6,133 entries (56% of the field) was taken out.