Live Auction Help and Tips

[adave]

Hi guys. My friends and I are switching over to an auction format for the first time in our seven year existence. I'm trying to get any and all the help I can to make sure this live auction draft goes smoothly without any problems and would appreciate the help.

1) How do you guys manage the timing of the auction process? I know that when you do an auction draft online via Yahoo or ESPN there is a time limit for how long a guy is on the auction block. Is there an efficient way to do this live?

2) How do you determine who gets to call out the next player to put on auction block? Just establish a fixed order or does the person who just won a player get to call out the next player?

I'm sure I'll have more questions as I read/learn more about this. Thanks again for the help.

[-shadow-]

I'm new to the auction this year also. From my research here's what Im doing as commissioner of my league to hopefully keep things running smoothly and answer your questions.

I'm going to answer question 1 first.
-I'm going to let people draw numbers out of a bag just like the snake draft. And that's the order they get to pick.

As far as the timing go. I'm going to either give 1-2 minutes for a player to be called out. If they don't call anyone out I'm either going to pick the highest guy on the waiver wire. Or let the next in line to choose a player(I'll give them 30 seconds)

I'm also making my auction draft a auction/snake draft. Im giving everyone a $200 cap and letting the, spend however they want. So if they wanna spend $200 on drew brees they can. When there out of money they have to sit back and watch the players roll by. When everyone is out of money the snake draft will behind with the lowest number picked at the beginning of the draft.

-I'm using a huge dry erase board that everyone can see who's got who and how much money left
-trying to find some one to handle the auction,board, and timer
-if u can get everyone with a computer u can just do everything in one room live with espn. I use espn all year

This will be my first year. So take these ideas just as they are. Ideas

-

[Cards24]

I have been running an auction league for almost ten years. Congrats in making the decision to switch to an auction draft system, your league will not be disappointing.

First of all we use $100 salary cap for our entire roster (14 spots). Some might suggest that is not enough but the principle of auction drafting is based more on percentages than it does on the actual salary (what % of your salary will you use for RB? QB?, etc). So as you can see it doesn't matter if you use $100 or $1000.

Everyone sits on the "roundtable" and we pick from a hat who nominates first. The team owner nominates a player and puts a price on him. At that point the feeding frenzy starts. We allow everyone and anyone (in no order) to raise the price at a min increment of $1 with no max cap. Once the bidding slows down the auctioneer (or one of us) does the traditional "going once, going twice, sold" comment. After that it goes clock wise around the table with the next nomination. The order really doesn't matter because everyone has a chance to bid on any given player.

When we started off I did everything with pen/paper/and a calculator. However, fantasy football and auction draft has evolved and there are various products out there that can help your cause. Do yourself a favor and invest in those products. We use fandraft http://www.fandraft.com/ and was a huge upgrade for our league draft and less work for me I hook up the laptop on a big screen and the software provides all the remaining salaries, what a teams highest bid can be, players on the board, players on rosters, etc.

One last thing, DO NOT allow any trades during the draft what so ever. If you have any more questions let me know. Good Luck!

[Cards24]

One last thing, that maybe I didn't make myself very clear. We use a $100 salary cap to fill 14 spots (of course that could be different depending what you want to set it for). This means that the max bid a player would go for would be $87 at least for the start of the draft. A player could be bought for $87 but the remaining 13 roster spots would have to be filled with $1 players. As you are bidding and buying players the max bid changes, that is why these third party draft software are so useful especially during a high paced, high pressure auction style draft.

[-shadow-]

One last thing, that maybe I didn't make myself very clear. We use a $100 salary cap to fill 14 spots (of course that could be different depending what you want to set it for). This means that the max bid a player would go for would be $87 at least for the start of the draft. A player could be bought for $87 but the remaining 13 roster spots would have to be filled with $1 players. As you are bidding and buying players the max bid changes, that is why these third party draft software are so useful especially during a high paced, high pressure auction style draft.

That's why in my league I'm making a $200 cap on 13 man roster and u can actually spend $200 on one person. If u spend all ur money you have to sit back and wait till all money is spent and then a snake draft will fill remainder of spots. It will be easier for us to keep up with since I'm gonna use the ole dry erase board. I do believe it will work well. Do u waste all your money on a few key players or do u let everyone else spend there money and make sure u end up with a well rounded team

[Cards24]

Do u waste all your money on a few key players or do u let everyone else spend there money and make sure u end up with a well rounded team

That is the one million dollar auction draft question. There are different strategies with both pros and cons. Traditionally speaking for our 12 team league, the teams that spend over 60-70% of their salaries on two players have been more successful (but that also varies by how many teams follow the strategy for a given season). The downside is that if one of those players gets hurt your entire season is over. I wait too long for fantasy football to call it quits by week 3 I like to spread the wealth around but more importantly get steals, and believe me you will get steals! I shoot for middle of the road guys with a possible dark horse that can explode during the season (last year Jamal Charles was my ticket). A lot of this is also based on your league size, roster size, and of course scoring, but the one tip I can give you is bid on undervalued players.

[-shadow-]

Yeah Charles basically helped me win also. Picked him up at the beginning of the year.
I've been doing a whole bunch of auction mock drafts since this is the 1st year my league is doing an auction. I've went different routes. I spent all my money on 2-4 key players and bought cheap later. I saved more money and got late players. And I tried hitting up in the middle. I was pretty much happy with all my teams. I can't wait to get it on lol