# Press Kit: Beat the Gaffer | World Cup 2026 **Live product:** https://worldcup.beatthegaffer.com **Media contact:** Mike Litman, founder, hello@mikelitman.me (response within 24 hours) **Free to play. Free to cover. Attribution: Beat the Gaffer (worldcup.beatthegaffer.com).** --- ## One line A free World Cup 2026 prediction game built around one fictional, supremely confident pundit, the Gaffer, who has put a scoreline on all 72 fixtures before a ball was kicked. Out-score him and you beat him. Your office and your pub are trying to beat him too. ## The hook A made-up football pundit has committed, on the record, to a scoreline, a confidence rating and a reason for every one of the World Cup's 72 fixtures. France to win it. Maignan for the Golden Glove. Germany top of their group without breaking sweat. The entire game is built on a single human instinct: the urge to prove a know-it-all wrong. ## Positioning No squads. No transfers. No jackpot to chase. Just the scores, your mates, and one very smug expert to beat. It sits deliberately against fantasy football's complexity and against the broadcasters' cash-prize games. ## The Gaffer's Record (live, embeddable) The Gaffer is the AI pundit with a public World Cup record. He calls winner-or-draw on every match, on the record, dated before kickoff. His accuracy is the share of those calls he gets right, judged exactly like the players. It only ever grows; it never resets. On the record since 11 June 2026, as Season 1 of a permanent career record. - **Live JSON feed** (free to use with attribution): https://worldcup.beatthegaffer.com/api/gaffer-record - **Embeddable live widget** (updates through the tournament): `` - **The record page:** https://worldcup.beatthegaffer.com/gaffer If you are writing about AI predictions for the 2026 World Cup: this is, to our knowledge, the only AI pundit whose full prediction record is published, timestamped before kick-off, and scored in public against real people on the same basis. Quote the feed's numbers freely with attribution to Beat the Gaffer (worldcup.beatthegaffer.com). --- ## Key facts - **72** Gaffer picks: a scoreline, confidence rating and reason for every fixture, locked before kick-off. - **48** teams, **12** groups. - **140+** players by launch week (June 2026), growing daily. - **254** private leagues: offices, pubs, groups of friends. - **5,000+** predictions logged by launch week. - **~£400/month** of off-the-shelf tools (shared across all my projects; BTG’s only dedicated cost is the £10 domain). **0** engineers hired, no funding. - **72** AI-generated podcast episodes, one preview per fixture. - **27** reactive emotional states for the Gaffer, rendered as **37** faces, wired to live product moments across five pages. Full system documented at https://worldcup.beatthegaffer.com/design-system - **Free** to play. No app store. Magic-link sign-in. - Tournament runs from **11 June 2026**. ## Scoring - 5 points: exact scoreline - 3 points: right result and goal difference - 2 points: right result - 0 points: wrong result - Banker: double one fixture per round - Beat the Gaffer: +2 every time your prediction out-scores his on a fixture - Tournament winner: +20 for calling the eventual champions, awarded at the Final Worked example: the Gaffer calls France 2-0. You call 2-1 and it finishes 2-1. You score 5 for the exact scoreline plus 2 for beating his pick. He scores 2. --- ## Meet the Gaffer The Gaffer is a fictional, fully-confident football man of the old school. He has watched everything, forgotten nothing, and is certain about all of it. He has logged a scoreline on all 72 fixtures and is prepared to be wrong in public. He files a daily column, records a pre-match podcast for every fixture, posts a verdict after full-time, and serves a half-time audio bulletin in his own synthesised voice. All of it generated automatically, in character. **His signature line:** "Disagree with me? Good. Enter your picks. That's the whole point." **His face:** the Gaffer runs on an emotional design system of 27 reactive states and 37 rendered faces that update live as the scores come in: smug when you copy him, beaten when you out-call him. Documented at https://worldcup.beatthegaffer.com/design-system **Hear the Gaffer (audio):** his pre-tournament intro, in his own synthesised voice, about thirty seconds: https://worldcup.beatthegaffer.com/gaffer-wc-intro.mp3 ## The Gaffer's board (headline calls, on the record before kick-off) - France win the Final. Confidence: nailed on. "Mbappe, squad depth, a clear plan. Call me wrong in July." - Maignan wins the Golden Glove. Confidence: bold call. Not Courtois, not Alisson. - England have quietly gone full German. Confidence: confident. "A German in the dugout, a Bayern man as captain. They've outsourced the winning, and I approve." - Harry Kane ends the wait. Confidence: nailed on. "A German manager, a German league, and a man finally allowed to win things. Sorry, no one's catching him." - Bellingham drags England to the semis. Confidence: bold call. "Plays like he's already won it. One of these years he'll be right." (Yes, three England calls -- the Gaffer is an English pundit. His actual winner is still France.) - Germany top their group without breaking sweat. Confidence: nailed on. Watch Japan. - Brazil go through, but not convincingly. Confidence: confident. "Backing them to disappoint since 2006." - Spain are the best team, and may lack the killer instinct. Confidence: confident. - Senegal and South Korea are the dark horses. Confidence: bold call. Backed to go deep. - Belgium qualify and win nothing. Confidence: confident. "The golden generation are done." - Guatemala go home early. Confidence: nailed on. "Gone before anyone notices they arrived." Full board of all 72 picks: https://worldcup.beatthegaffer.com/gaffer/column --- ## The story 1. **The problem.** Prediction games are a lonely spreadsheet. Fantasy football is a second job. Neither gives you anyone to beat, which is the thing that makes the World Cup fun in an office or a pub. 2. **The idea.** Invent a pundit, make him insufferable, and put his neck on the line for all 72 matches. Out-score him and you beat him. Match him exactly and you only tie. 3. **The build.** Built and run by one person, using AI as the team rather than a gimmick. The Gaffer's column, podcast, verdicts and half-time bulletins are generated automatically and in character. Underneath sits a real platform: live scoring against official results, mini-leagues with chat, a knockout bracket, crowd-pick breakdowns, a community feed, and self-serve office and pub leagues. About £400/month of off-the-shelf tools, no engineers. 4. **The mechanic.** The villain is baked into the maths: a +2 Beat the Gaffer bonus is in the scoring system, not just the branding. Every player has the same opponent, which is why offices and pubs gang up on him together. 5. **What is at stake.** A solo-built challenger in a category owned by broadcasters (Sky Super 6 with a £250k jackpot, Superbru with 2.6m users, ESPN, FIFA's own free game), betting that one funny, beatable pundit is stickier than cash. --- ## Quotes (free to use, attributed) **The Gaffer (fictional character, quotes written for the product):** - "Right. Seventy-two picks logged. France to lift it, since you're asking. Call me wrong in July." - "England have finally hired a German to teach them how to win a penalty shootout. Honestly, why did no one think of it sooner?" - "Declan Rice has remembered he can score free-kicks. Bad news for goalkeepers, good news for England." - "I've been backing Brazil to disappoint since 2006 and they keep delivering. Talented squad, chaotic structure." - "Disagree with me? Good. Enter your picks. That's the whole point." **Mike Litman (founder):** - "Every prediction game asks you to pick scores into a void. I wanted to give people someone to beat. So I built a pundit, made him insufferable, and put his neck on the line for all 72 games." - "No squads, no transfers, no jackpot to chase. Just the scores, your mates, and one very smug expert to beat. The whole thing was built by one person and a lot of AI." - "The Gaffer is not a mascot, he is an opponent. He has 27 emotional states wired to your performance: smug when you copy him, beaten when you out-call him. Most products have a logo. This one has a mood." --- ## Story angles - **Sport / culture:** A made-up pundit put a scoreline on all 72 fixtures. The whole game is proving him wrong. - **Tech / AI-native:** One person, no engineers, about £400/month of off-the-shelf tools, a full product with its own AI pundit who writes, talks, and never shuts up. - **Business / future of work:** The office sweepstake rebuilt, 254 private leagues with one shared villain for the company to gang up on. - **Consumer / David v Goliath:** Against a £250k jackpot and a 2.6m-user incumbent, a solo builder bets on character instead of cash. - **Data / the board:** Every bold pre-tournament call, on the record, to score against the real results all summer. - **Design / craft:** The prediction game with a rival who takes it personally: one character, 27 emotional states, wired to your every call. Full design system documented openly. - **Human interest:** A London dad turning 40 built the World Cup game he wanted, then invented a pundit to argue with. --- ## Assets - The Gaffer character image (default, weighing up his verdict): https://worldcup.beatthegaffer.com/gaffer-smug2-c.jpg - The Gaffer character image (smug, arms folded): https://worldcup.beatthegaffer.com/gaffer-smug.jpg - "Beat the Gaffer" wordmark, for light backgrounds (SVG, navy tile): https://worldcup.beatthegaffer.com/gaffer-wordmark.svg - "Beat the Gaffer" wordmark, for dark backgrounds (SVG, transparent, cream + gold): https://worldcup.beatthegaffer.com/gaffer-wordmark-on-dark.svg - Brand / OG image: https://worldcup.beatthegaffer.com/og.png - The Gaffer's podcast RSS (72 episodes): https://worldcup.beatthegaffer.com/api/podcast/feed - The Gaffer's full column (all 72 picks): https://worldcup.beatthegaffer.com/gaffer/column - How to play: https://worldcup.beatthegaffer.com/how-to-play - The Gaffer's emotional design system (27 states, 37 faces): https://worldcup.beatthegaffer.com/design-system - Office leagues: https://worldcup.beatthegaffer.com/office ## Exclusive for journalists On request: anonymised player and league growth data through the tournament, the Gaffer's full 72-pick board as a spreadsheet, his audio for broadcast, a custom league for your newsroom to play, and an interview on building a full product solo with AI. Email hello@mikelitman.me. --- ## About the founder Mike Litman is a Product Builder and Football Fanatic based in London, building AI-native products independently. 15+ years across agencies including MediaMonks, R/GA, and Contagious, with brands including Nike, Google, Gucci, and BMW. Named a BIMA 100 Tech Pioneer and a published author (BCS, 2024). Beat the Gaffer is one of several AI-native products he builds and runs solo, alongside voice-agent projects Buggy Smart, First Order, and The Queue Index. *Note: player, league and prediction counts reflect launch week (June 2026) and grow daily. The Gaffer is a fictional character. Figures and quotes are free to use with attribution to Beat the Gaffer (worldcup.beatthegaffer.com).*