Salary Cap Leagues

[Endzone Express]

My experience has been "that auction leagues are not for everyone". By that I mean that the leagues that I have been in that used an auction format had much, much higher owner turnover than traditional draft leagues.

I have also found that "keeper" auction leagues require much more team management and more commissioner involvement than regular auction leagues. The auction itself is fun for just about everyone regardless of the length of time, but it's the amount of time that must be invested after the draft that spoils it for some owners.

Don't get me wrong, I still play in one auction league currently and I am considering another for this season. But some owners will become frustrated by the cap and it's effect on their ability to make trades etc. Just be prepared as some owners will lose interest. Like the guys have said previously "find baseball guys" for auction leagues.

[springfield atoms]

i was not in our league the first year, but i went to the draft of another league that used our rules. it took two nights of about 3 hours a night drafting.

that was for eight teams with 30 players each (we use defense)

our league is a keeper league with 12 teams now, and we redraft roughly 120 players per year. takes about three hours.

my tips on the auction would be this:

1- establish the salary rules (ie minimum bid per player, bid increments, etc) we have 30 players for $30 with a minimum bid of .25 and increments of 25


2- have a strong commissioner to lead the auction. the commish has to tell folks that they need to say something and raise their hand to bid, and that his decision is final. ours does it the old "i have $1.25 to i hear $1.50 style"

3- establish an order for teams calling up players. not that it helps them, but we do it in reverse order of finish. also, when a team calls a player, they either say "position, name and team" which starts at the minimum OR says "for 1.00, rb, joe bleaux, chicago"

4- THIS IS PERHAPS MOST IMPORTANT get a dry erase or chalk board. write each teams name, how much they have to bid, how many players they need, and what their max bid is. have a person responsible for updating it. as old as our league has gotten, we get mistakes on money or roster spots yearly.

5- have a person who keeps a list of the draft in order the players were called up, what team called the player for bidding, who got the player, and what the winning bid was

6- have a person responsible for filling out the rosters for all the teams in the league, ask the players to do this for their own teams too (seems natural, but some wont) we use excel to keep up with our rosters, so we just print blank sheets.

7- establish rules for time to call up players, team time outs, league time outs and passing. we allow teams to pass their turn to call up, but ONLY if they didn't pass the time before. we give two time outs per team at the draft (for discussing trades) and also will stop every 3-4 rounds for rest room/smoke/beer breaks.