Play FOF for money?
 

Is this the final frontier for this game? I'm not talking about a bullshit enterprise funded by some porn king trying to buy friends with bogus prize promises... I'm talking about a league where participating costs something, and the winners get prizes... more or less along the same lines as a fantasy football league.

I know there are cons. Are there pros?

{giggle}

I think the theoretical "pro" is that if people pay, you'd have more engaged owners. But could you get enough people to pay an amount that's meaningful enough to keep them engaged? (In other words, if I'm just paying $20 per season and I'm bored with the league, I'd still be inclined to say "bah, it's just 20 bucks. I'm not bothering to export.")

Many pros.

I think the administrator has to be paid.

Whatever. I'm in.

Heavily restrict trading?

Heh. You'd pretty much have to do that if any meaningful cash is involved. Good point.

I think you pay an administrator to be the 33th participant in the league. He doesn't run a team.

YY.

We've had enough cheating scandals WITHOUT money involved. Wait'll you see what happens with money involved, including site hacking (wiping out opponent uploads before a sim, say). No thanks.

we should probably all get together at this point and just play a game of football.

Bountygate at FOFC

IMHO here are some critical things to make that happen.

1.) Paid, independent simmer. Honestly, would have to be paid enough that owner X would have to really think about coming off the hip to try and corrupt the process.

2.) Draft classes. Either one of two things. ONLY game generated classes OR the classes are made public. At the end of the day in the TFL, I'm the only one who knows what was in the draft files. Yes, they are based on the historical files so you can get a lean, but, I'm the only one. AND I DON"T HAVE A TEAM. I just run the offseason.

3.) Limit trading of future picks. To keep teams from intentionally giving a way the future or indirectly tanking by trading top talent for way off in the future considerations.

4) Robust trade dispute mechanism: Not just a couple posts of that trade sucks but a clear mechanism where a majority or larger percentage of players would have to vote to over turn.

Key assumptions
- Source code for the game still remains only in Jim's hands
- The game hasn't been hacked beyond what some of the great minds in this league have disclosed and graciously shared with the community.

Sooner or later, the game, site, league or something would get corrupted. Always happens.

But would be a hell of a ride until it did.

There is only one hack that I am aware of that the larger community isn't, Ben is aware and it is relatively minor (we'll see if he even remembers).

The other part you have to be careful of with trades is collusion - you need to watch out for 2 or 3 owners colluding to share the prize money.

I think the key would be coming up with a prize structure that both rewarded individual season results (like we are used to in a fantasy football league) and kept people interested in a long game. Maybe that's not stated exactly correctly. What I'm getting at is the FOF netherland that can happen if your team is "good" enough to avoid top draft picks, but not good enough to really make a deep play-off run. Or a situation where someone comes in with a below average team after the league has been around for a bit.

How do you keep all owners interested? Maybe some prizes based on season expectations?

Or set up the league similar to a keeper fantasy league, where you can protect x number of players and the others are cut by the commissioner (or only signed to one year contracts to avoid past injustices)?

Or prizes awarded over some longer cycle?

Pros are obvious of increasing interest by putting some skin in the game. Agree with many of the comments on the independent simmer and the tight rules on trading.

My pain threshold on entry fee would be probably $100.00.

$50.00 sounds like a good number. With $50a pop you could still pay the simmer say 10% and have a nice prize pool.

I'm stumped on this one.

I don't know that I would want to motivate Ben or some of these other top players to go all out. ;)

Well, since cons are being discussed after all, I think that once 10 or so teams are established as "good" and the rest are established as "bad" through lack of talent, it'll take a couple seasons to get competitive, which means no one will want to take over those 22 teams.

Also, what constitutes winning? All prize money goes to the FOF Bowl winner? Some money for teams that make the playoffs, or win playoff games? Some money for each regular season win? Some money allocated to teams that are profitable in the game?

Well, I suspect the discussion get terribly bogged down into details, but here's what I might set up if I were running the show:

-$100 a team per season to play, with a range of discounts offered to new owners that lessen the overall prize pool (if it became a clear consensus that this number is way too high to get a critical mass, then lower it... but I don't think there's any point in playing for $10 a season to try to win $60 or so).

-Most important decisions vested in Board of some sort, with appeals to full membership - all the attendant process spelled out and must be accepted to join league

-League admin(s) paid something like $200/season for efforts and web hosting costs

-100% of remaining entry fees go into prizes, if we assume there's $2000 to hand out then I'd want something like $100 to each division winner (possibly some additional sweetener based on the regular season, as I'm a sucker for that sort of thing), and the rest doled out as prizes for playoff success... off the top of my head, something like $600/300/150/150

-League setup would be closer to CCFL than anything else I know of... big cap crunch, game-generated draft files, and quick pace.


So, I do realize how this works now. I offer some reasonable-to-me suggestions as a starting point, and then the attacks begin that $X is too much, or that 1.5X for a conference semifinalist is unfair, or that the discount system is unreasonable, of the Board cannot be trusted, or that hackers would quick their day jobs to get their hands on a good draft pick, or what-the-fuck ever. Have at it.


Anyway... given the discussion, I really think that the best way to frame the current debate is more "if executed reasonably, is this idea workable?" Some people clearly would want no part of it. Some might. If enough might, is it possible to then move to the specifics of making something happen?

so not to pump a league that is full but CYFL does a pay league. This is a little different as one guy *applaud to Bode* pays out to teams per how they do better then the 10 seasons simmed and the bowl number.

Here was the payout from last year-
Wins over AI

ten +4 -> $220
chi +3 -> $110
NO +2 -> $55
jax +2 -> $55
hou +2 -> $55

500/9 = $55


Bowl teams



Tenn got $286
Nos got $500
Next year's pot will be $2500


Just FYI

Quik's structure makes a ton of sense to me. I'd be inclined to say it's a great place to start and see what the market says.

My only other addition on the theory front is some kind of "franchise license" or something that people pay up front to get a team. Ideally it's enough to keep someone interested in sticking around for awhile, but I'm not sure how well it scales with a $100/season structure. It could be as simple as a minimum four or five season commitment or something, but understandably, might be some sticker shock there. (I'd certainly have my own hesitations.)

I'm thinking that they key is to create a financial structure where you don't have to ante up as much after the initial buy-in. You can do that by adding in a "per-regular-season-win" bonus payout. I've worked up a couple of spreadsheets at $50 per season and $100 per season. The numbers can be moved around, but where I have it sitting right now

$50 PER SEASON

• 14-2 bye week Bowl Champ earns $411 (clears $361, $50 applied to next season if he doesn't quit)
• 12-4 division champ/bye week/conf champ/bowl earns $228
• 11-5 division champ/win WC round/lose to #1 or #2 seed in the division round earns $89
• 10-6 WC team, wins WC round--earns $65
• 8-8 no playoff team earns $32...because below $50, it's not paid out, but the team costs him $18 for next year

$100 PER SEASON

• 14-2 bye week Bowl Champ earns $715
• 12-4 division champ/bye week/conf champ/bowl earns $445
• 11-5 division champ/win WC round/lose to #1 or #2 seed in the division round earns $210
• 10-6 WC team, wins WC round--earns $165
• 9-7 WC team, loses WC round--earns $105 (In other words, you make the playoffs, you play for free next year)
• 8-8 no playoff team earns $80...because it's below $100, it's not paid out...but team costs him only $20 for next year

In short, create a system where every team that makes the playoffs can play for free next year by simply deducting from their earnings, and I think it's very doable.


Here's the spreadsheet: Welcome to Google Docs

Dola:

I'm thinking that with such a structure, you might want to start out at the $100 per season option, since you could sell it as "it's $100 for the FIRST season, but all you have to do to cut that cost in half moving forward is win 5 games per year."

I don't think a quick pace would work, if you are going to play for money missing one sim could screw everything up and alot of GM's can not upload 6 days a week.

I'd hate it to be a cap crunch league, if a GM is good enough to find gems in the lower rounds of the draft or trade well then that GM should not be penalized for being good at it and have to trade off studs due to the cap crunch.

Big Balla sounds like a fat chick!

Double Dola: You'd want to throw in 8 bucks a head the first season to purchase the latest version of vBulletin.

Oops. There are 256 regular season wins per year, not 128. All spreadsheets updated to reflect that.

I didn't really pay much attention to the other payout ideas (other than that they all look decent enough) but wanted to throw my own thoughts out there and it kind of needed a re-iteration, I guess.

I'm personally a fan of a "winner take as much as possible" strategy on payouts but would like to see discounts for ALL returning owners. I'd also think we could pool money over time for some sort of a progressive jackpot (if you will).

(Assuming $75 entry fee and a $2400 pot)

30% League Champion ($720)
13% Championship Runner-up ($312)
13% Other Final 4 Teams (6.5% x2) ($156 ea.)
16% Other Playoff Teams (2% x8) ($48 discount OR added to The Jackpot if team quits)
20% All other teams (1% x20) ($24 discount OR added to The Jackpot if team owner quits) (NOTE: Teams that finish with 1 or 2 wins forfeit their discount if they return to the league to the Jackpot. You gotta pay to tank!)
8% Administrative Fees for Commish/Web-site ($192)

The Jackpot Progressive Pool: This progressive pot would be paid out based on some criteria being met: For instance, a team that goes 19-0 hits the progressive jackpot.

The Tankers (aka The Jokers): Teams that win less than 3 games DO NOT receive a discount for sticking around. If you genuinely suck...well...suck it.

KEY RULE: ZERO trading. Trading enhances individual enjoyment but tends to degrade overall league enjoyment. This will probably have to be the sacrificial lamb to make this idea a success.

KEY RULE #2: Season doesn't start until the league is fully paid for.

I agree there would have to be zero trading, and the league would need to be simmed slower than most leagues. Ideally, there would be lots of extra data available on the league site that might make people more likely to gameplan for each individual opponent to some degree. Something like tendencies on down and distance offensively and defensively, and team play calling histories separated by owner.

If there was a way, I would hope that all coaches and finances could somehow be leveled out. If there was a way to make all coaches the same, I think that should be considered, otherwise some teams are going to get shit on by being given crap coaches to start with. Cities, stadiums, and ticket prices should all be normalized as much as possible (if possible) as well.

Not to get too far off track, but if those things could be normalized, I would think we would have seen it before now. Hell, these are things that Jim probably should've thought about when creating FOF2k7. But yeah, normalization would have been so awesome for start-up leagues.

All teams should start with no players, the same amount of cap, and do a random draw for draft slots. This way everyone starts on equal footing.

I'd be pissed to pay the $100 and start with a shitty team that gave me little to no chance of winning.

I am willing to be a non-owner commish for a league like this:

• $75 per person initial buy-in.
• Payouts may only be taken above the initial buy-in cost. You pocket your earnings above $75 and play the next season for free. You're essentially paying a $75 franchise fee to get in. If you're an original owner and still around if/when the league goes defunct, you get your $75 back at that point. If your earnings are less than $75 for a season, they're all applied to next season's fee.
• I am paid $150 per season. That will cover web hosting plus league administration.
• The remaining $2,250 is earned by the league owners based on performance
• Roughly 2/3 (~$1,500) of earnings will be based on regular season performance, and roughly 1/3 ($~750) on postseason performance.
• Specific earnings/payout structure may be found in the "PROPOSAL: $75 Buy-In" tab of the Google Spreadsheet I created, but in brief:
  • The champ will take a payout in the $350-$395 range, depending on how he did in the regular season.
  • The runner-up will take a payout roughly in the $200-$250 range.
  • Conf. Championship game losers pocket roughly $50-$100.
  • All other playoff teams basically get next season free or pay a minimal amount ($15 or less.) Some will earn minimal payouts ($15 or less.)
  • Every regular season win is worth $5.
  • Finishing 8-8 cuts the cost for next season to $35.
  • Just a 5-win season cuts costs to $50 for next season.
• Cities, stadiums, and finances would be leveled out in-game. Coaches cannot be equalized.
• 25% Cap Reduction, no franchise tag.
• Schedule would be a bit slower than the CCFL, but not much. Mainly I'll spread out staff hiring, do preseason in two sims instead of one, and drop to five sims per week.
• Definitely want a league Board of Directors working with me to make decisions, mainly on trades.
• Initial owner group would pay an initial $8 per person one-time fee for a purchase of the new version of vBulletin.
• Best startup option would seem to be BFL-style: snake draft, 20-ish live rounds, AI the rest of the way. If the initial owners want me to do a full 53-round draft and manually enter all those guys, you're going to have to pay me a one-time fee for that headache, probably 10 bucks a head. ;)

Most of this is negotiable, but I thought I'd go ahead and get this ball rolling with something concrete.

I think that basic structure is very viable.

Yup, I think it's pretty solid too. I also think giving people a chance to draft each of their potential starting players is enough to get started. So 20-25 players would be a good intial draft. Players 25-53 on the roster typically won't factor into your success afterall. Injury setting should be below 100 or less.

To go over the pro's and con's of a no-trading clause.

PRO'S

• Forces owners to drop good players that don't fit their team into free agency with no compensation.
• Avoids gray-area trading
• Removes need for competing members to sit on a board and nix other competing members trades
• Removes social engineering as a major determing factor of FOF MP skill.
• Forces playoff teams to draft from the bottom
• Allows teams that paid more for the upcoming season to draft from the top

CON'S

• Not as fun
• Not as realistic

I tend to suspect that the major "con" of a no-draft clause is being overlooked there:

CON

• Would cause a significant percentage of potential owners to refuse to even consider joining. ("NO TRADING????? NOT INTERESTED!!1")

Meh, I think there are just as many on the opposite spectrum, particularly with need to police trades in a pay league.

Problem with limiting trades or trying to police trades lies in defining the gray area. Going blanket no trade eliminates the headaches.

Dola, personal preference would be ban on trades of future draft picks. Any other trades being subject to review.

Double dola, I suppose I wouldn't even mind future 2-7 round pick trading if the owner pays for the future season in advance.

+1

I don't know, now granted, I'm not the right one to know which crowd is more abundant so I have to go with what I know causes the most headaches in "For Fun" leagues.

I just can't imagine a scenario where the same 5 or 6 owners make amazingly beneficial trades over and over again by preying on the new owners. The "middle class" of the league may not remain enthusiastic about their chances, particularly veteran middle-class players. I foresee frustration from that bunch, who ultimately leave because they don't feel they can compete and they are replaced by the 3rd-tier of owners. I believe that trading generates more league imbalance than any other aspect of the game. Granted, these are just my observations and my opinion and both have proven incorrect before.


That's a good observation, you probably should not be able to trade assets you don't "own".

I don't disagree with that one iota. But the fact remains that the people that trade restrictions would help the most are very often the ones who push back against them the hardest.

That said, I'll bet a "no future pick trading" clause would take care of the worst situations and allow people enough ability to trade that they're not turned off to trading entirely.

TRUE THAT.


Okay, you got me here, this seems much better. I will admit though that my secondary desire for a complete restriction on trading is to ensure that the "haves" don't have access to the rest of the league's triple-affinity leadership base (YOU WANT TO TRADE A TOTALLY AWESOME 5TH ROUNDER FOR THAT BUM...I THOUGHT YOU KNEW HOW TO PLAY THIS GAME! FKINGLOL!). :)

It's harder to find all those guys if you have less than half of the leagues roster fill to choose from. I think it would add to the league balance and overall enjoyment.

However, I completely get what you are saying. At the end of the day, this this game doesn't exactly lend itself to creating the perfectly balanced league enviroment to begin with.

No future pick trading would do a great job of policing lopsided deals. I like that idea. Now we just have to settle in on the speed at which things would be simmed.

interesting

In FOF some GM's are great drafters, some are great gameplanners, some are great roster builders and some are great at trading . Each GM uses his strengths to try and build his team and win. So by limiting a GM's ability to trade I feel is unfair on the better traders in FOF.

If the worry is people will tank and stack picks, I can't believe any one is stupid enough to pay money and then tank for a year or two, (well actually i bet one or two may!!!)

So the idea of making GM's pay for future seasons if they want to trade future high picks I feel would be a great idea.

As for bad deals. If one or two GM's make a reasonably bad deal then sorry that's life, if you're playing for money then i'd hope people know what they are doing, if not they're going to lose money quick which should make them learn very quickly about player value. If the deal stinks and suggests that some sculdugary is going on between GM's then it will be spotted and the rules council can act.

Lastly I still really don't like the cap crunch idea. This is going to hurt the succesful GM's more, if a GM ends up 12-4 one season that guys top players are going to cost a fortune to re-sign and if that GM is putting in his hard earned cash in I don't see why they should be penalized for being good at FOF.

The vast amount of FOF leagues are not cap crunch leagues and they are not cap crunch for a reason, that reason is the vast majority of FOFers prefer the normal cap rules.

You can only trade picks from future seasons you've paid for is a great idea.

In a perfect world where we all are at the computer non-stop, I agree. But in an inperfect world where some of us have to work non-stop during the day and don't have as much access, I think their is a fair balance to help people out.

Drafting: Many of us already are stuck drafting from utilities and if we are AFK for too long, those long lists start dishing out poor results. However, the big aid here is the draft utility. It at least gets you by.

Gameplanners: We all have the ability to put time into gameplanning if we want to. We are all essentially on our own here.

Trading: This is the big unequalizer. Not all work enviroments (assuming a vast majority of us are working-class folks) are created equally. If, by chance, a core of 5 or 10 players can camp in front of FOF MP/chat while at work, they gain a significant advantage against those who may not have such opportunities.


People will still tank, my only suggestion here is that we make them pay additional financially for losing a significant portion of their games. If you go 0-16, 1-15, or 2-14, you either have a horrible team and are getting ready to quit.............or you are tanking. Make them pay extra for that.


You may not know us vets very well, but I can assure you that NOBODY is concerned about the victim in the bad trade unless you consider the entire league the victim. The SuperStar MP owner "did it again" thing that sets him up for long-term success while the rest of us pay to watch him start crushing people is the issue.


Another vet observation (and I'm not really that good at this, mind you, I just have seen a lot) is that you don't need to keep every single last one of your amazing players to remain successful. Know your core, keep them and fill in when money becomes available. Cap'n Crunch has yet to really "crunch" some of the primary vets around here.

If people are paying to be in a league with prizes, I have a hard time seeing people making silly lopsided trades.

EDIT: Although, I used to be heavy into online poker until Black Friday, and I have seen some outrageous shit done with lots of money.

You have way too much faith, my friend. :) And besides, time is money and we all invest gobs of time into this already.

There is basically zero chance of this working long-term without a significant cap crunch. People will leave, and they will need to be replaced. And the people most likely to leave are the ones with bad teams, because they don't want to pay again. Without a cap reduction in an environment where owners are paying to play, there would be basically nothing of value in FA, making it somewhere between "extremely difficult" and "impossible" to get someone to sign up, because you're asking a new owner to pay $40-$60 a season for several seasons with basically no hope of winning anything back for a while.

That's why there must be a significant cap reduction: because there needs to be a quality FA class every single season, or this thing falls apart completely in 6-8 seasons, maybe even less.

Also, I hope everybody sees my concern about trading as an effort to make this appealing idea a long-term success. I honestly believe that unlimited trading will derail the league and limited trading is a wildcard (and perhaps just a neccessary evil to ensure the league gets off the ground).