There was little response to tgordon92's query about starting a Fantasy Olympics 2018, so maybe folks are just waiting for someone to kick it off.
I'm interested in trying something a bit different based on a brief conversation some of us had after the 2016 Olympics. This is not intended to replace or compete with the old way of doing it. Here's what I'll do if enough people are interested:
tl;dr:
Each country will be assigned a cost.
Each contestant will receive a budget.
Select as many countries as you wish without exceeding the budget.
Scoring is the same as in past contests: gold=5, silver=3, bronze=1.
Ties will be broken in favor of the cheaper team.
Budget and country costs are listed below.
Long version:
Gracenote (http://sportsdemo1.gracenote.com/documentation/vmt) has been publishing their predictions for medal totals for almost a year. I've held off announcing this contest because they only recently included the Russian athletes (OAR). I won't be surprised if they post new predictions between now and the start of the Olympics, but I'm going with the current (as of Jan. 31) predictions to give folks time to select countries. Using the same scoring system as in the past (gold=5, silver=3, bronze=1), Gracenote's predictions can be turned into total predicted points for each country. The cost of each country is the predicted point total for that country. Countries that are predicted not to win any medals cost 0.50.
Contestants in this alternate version of Fantasy Olympics 2018 will be given a budget. The budget is the cost of the top three countries minus 0.50. This precludes selecting the top three countries (an arbitrary choice on my part), and it forces selecting at least one country that is expected not to medal (assuming you consume your whole budget).
The only constraints on the number of countries you may choose are the budget and the number of countries that are competing. You are not required to consume your whole budget.
Ties will be broken based on the costs of the contestants' teams (collection of countries). For example, if two folks tie with 330 points, but one spent 320 and the other spent 318, the one spending less (318 in this example) would win the tie-breaker.
Code:
Budget: 323.50
Country Cost
--------------------------------------
Norway (NOR) 120
Germany (GER) 119
United States (USA) 85
Canada (CAN) 77
France (FRA) 76
Netherlands (NED) 60
Sweden (SWE) 47
Switzerland (SUI) 45
Austria (AUT) 43
South Korea (KOR) 39
China (CHN) 38
Japan (JPN) 38
Olympic Athlete from Russia (OAR) 22
Czech Republic (CZE) 18
Italy (ITA) 18
Australia (AUS) 14
Poland (POL) 11
Finland (FIN) 10
Belarus (BLR) 7
Slovakia (SVK) 6
Latvia (LAT) 5
Spain (ESP) 5
Great Britain (GBR) 4
Hungary (HUN) 4
Liechtenstein (LIE) 3
Belgium (BEL) 2
Kazakhstan (KAZ) 1
Ukraine (UKR) 1
all others 0.50