Our Favorite League Settings
We get this question all the time. We put it in podcast form just over two years ago and you can find that episode here: LISTEN!
We figured it may be fun to revisit that in the newsletter!
Now we don’t recommend starting a league with all of these, but many of these are setting we would add if starting a new league today.
Salary Cap Draft (formerly called auctions) - Do all your drafting this way. Have multiple drafts this way every offseason. Startup, Rookie, Free Agent, etc…
Sidenote: Terminology is changing on the major sites and slowly will throughout the industry. Check out this FSWA award-winning article by Kyle Borgognoni. I know several major sites (Most notably CBS and Yahoo, but others are coming, if not already) have changed their terminology and it’ll be a slow fix to go through the entire industry. Salary Cap Leagues are a thing in dynasty already, although very niche, and there has been a lot of discussion on this terminology being the new wording. I was at the forefront arguing against the “salary cap draft” wording replacing “auction” because of that small niche league type in dynasty… but nothing better has been presented and the major sites have already run with it. I felt something else should have been thought of that didn’t exist already. I guess the difference is that this is just describing the style of draft. I wish they would have thought of something else and less confusing to hard-core players. Salary Cap League or Contract League vs Salary Cap Draft League would likely be the difference to watch for.
As another sidenote… I recorded and came on to speak on this panel listed below and I highly encourage people to listen. Terminology came up near the end and was spoken on by Chase Payne, who is on the board of the FSGA and chairs the Coalition for Change.Diversity from Minorities in Fantasy Football Clubhouse Panel
Hosts: @MiKeMeUpP, @stephiesmallls, @RayGQueSuperflex - This is just the way everything is going. The trend line is stronger than when standard leagues shifted to PPR. SafeLeagues doesn’t even open single-QB leagues anymore. They are tougher to fill, tougher to keep full, etc.
Contract League - Ryan wants all his leagues to have contracts. It’s a little more niche.
Having a non-traditional payout structure - Especially one that pays out more things.
Devy - Add the ability to acquire players in college before they hit the NFL.
Charitable element - Have part of the pot going to charity. It can be one entry fee, part of the winner’s pot, etc. The league can decide, the winner can decide. Whatever. Add it! If every league does, we can all do a ton of good!
Large Roster Size - At least 28 player rosters.
TE Premium - You generally need it to be a larger premium. Also, never 2TE. It is the most detrimental setting I have ever researched in literally tens of thousands of hours of research. Really years upon years of researching settings. If you think not having a top TE in a normal league or TE premium league is a tough thing to overcome, in 2TE the research says you should basically give up on the year the second you notice you don’t have a top TE.
Smaller required positions with more flexes for starting lineup - Ryan mentions on the show requiring one of each position and have the rest of your starters flex.
Playoffs - Have the final spot or two go to the highest point scorers. On the show, I mention how my Pigs league uses 3/3, but really you should be pushing for that last spot to be decided on a way that gets the best team in if the other spots are more luck/schedule-centric win-loss record.
Second Chance rule - Every offseason you get the chance to give up your players and take part in a dispersal draft with any other teams that also make that choice and also any new teams that take over an abandoned team.
Multiple copies - After a few years, I have found that I prefer two copies of players when doing a bigger league like this. I also like splitting it so you can only own one copy as a devy, leaving the other for the rookie draft.
14-team league - Adds value to certain positions balancing values out more, the schedule of playing 13 weeks and everyone once is great.
Toilet Bowl Rule - Winner of the toilet bowl gets pick 1.13. Possibly giving the two worst teams byes in this bracket.
Progressive Pots - Can be a lot of different things, but the most common one people do is for a back-to-back champion.
PPR - Ryan needs his PPR. I said 1/2 PPR, 1/2 PP1D (point per first down).
Rolling Bankroll - have the blind bidding balance roll over year to year and that is the budget you use for all your salary cap drafts.
No divisions! - went undrafted on the show. Generally, with divisions, the schedule leads to playing your division more which only adds more luck to the win-loss record and playoff seedings. I get the old-school, fun nature of them, but generally, we try to remove as much luck as possible. A caveat would be if each side of the playoff bracket was division respective (like the NFL with AFC/NFC). Which isn’t quite as frustrating for the potential for good teams to miss out
Blind Bid Waivers - also undrafted, but we discussed it and frankly assumed it would be in any new league… it’s that obvious.
Playoffs are top advance instead of head to head - undrafted but discussed… now we are getting deep.
Allowing tanking - undrafted but discussed. Allow people to tank and do what they want with their roster.
We did this as a back and forth draft and some very easily can be higher or lower or not even on the other’s list. Just some ideas of things we probably like / would put in a new league.
And now for the reason you are here…
This week’s #SFB11 spot goes to…
Sean McCormick
Thanks for subscribing and we look forward to seeing you in #SFB11!