An all-year, multi-sport, keeper-enabled fantasy sports league

[QuikSand]

I have had this idea for a long time, have kicked it around with various friends, and ended up never really getting things off the ground.

I thought I'd toss the idea out here, and see what might click. If nothing, no real harm done.


I'd like to play in a never-ending fantasy sports league. The general concepts I have in mind is:

-a pre-defined number of different sports, at least 4 and preferably more like 6-10

-some system of rewarding points to GMs based on performance of their various rosters (I think it might be to unwieldy to manage week-to-week matchups, but some sort of season-long system seems reasonable to me)

-a system where there's a reasonable incentive to hold on to players who have value not right away, but for the next iteration of their particular sport (like Adrian Peterson would be a guy worth keeping for next football season, even though it's months away)

-a system where an owner has a reasonable incentive to "load up" to compete for some overall year-long prize (ideally, at the expense of particular players that would otherwise be contributing long term)

-I'm open to the rosters including teams, rather than players, for sports where that might make more sense (college basketball, college football, or even hockey, soccer, others)


That's what I have been carrying around for years.

Most of the time, I tend toward thinking that a system of "dividends" is the way to make this work best and stay administratively manageable. In football, rather than tallying up points for every single week's stats, we might award a dividend to specific things -- the rushing leader, 30 passing TDs, league MVP, whatever works at the scale the league sets up.

A simpler system would be something like 1 point per TD scored, but then I think you have to set it up where the player pays off at season's end rather than each week -- just to avoid accounting catastrophies.


Anyhow... thats the germ idea. I'd like to play. For money. Preferably enough money to care about. But finding a set of rules, a system to run it, and enough committed people to play seems to be the hurdle.

So, maybe tossing the idea around here could help overcome one or more of these obstacles.

Yours to discuss.

[stevew]

It's a really good idea, unfortunately I've found that playing any other sport than football just isn't very fun. I would think that the biggest hurdle would be in setting it up on the web. I suppose you could use something like ESPN and just have to log into a bunch of different sub-sports. I dunno if the move is to score it rotisserie 1-10 style with the overall points leader for that specific week garnering a 10. I think the ability to use sports like Tennis and Nascar, and even like Track and Field would be pretty cool as well.

[Toddzilla]

In college I tries to operate 4-sport fantasy universe. Each owner would pay into the league and draft teams for baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. Teams would win cash for winning an individual sport and then yearly a larger prize went to the owner of the best performing owner of all 4 teams.

It only lasted one season as teams got burned out pretty quickly.

[Toddzilla]

To that end, I think the key to success would be limiting the time and effort required to play. In everything but football, daily transactions are the norm, but that would have to be softened to weekly at a minimum. Also, trading across sports was always contentious - I'll send you Shaq and a football scrub for Barry Sanders and a basketball scrub - and only served to piss other owners off.

[QuikSand]

In theory, if the league were set to operate in a specific documented location (like a thread here) then that could serve its purpose fine. Just have a thread that's perpetually open as a waiver wire or trade announcement location. Maybe.

The problem overall with this whole idea, I fear, is that anything that is manageable (10 GMs fielding a roster of something like 25 slots) ends up becoming really, really shallow for any given sport. And if all I need to have is two NASCAR drivers at the end of the season, there might not be a ton of incentive for me to do much beyond waiting until it's 2/3 of the way through and then just loading up on the best of the rest (in fantasy football terms, this is the major peril with things like individual defensive players... too many inseparable guys make the marginal decisions pointless). In theory, I'd like to play where I needed a good core of maybe 5 baseball players and I'd really have to root for them... but if my guy is Pujols and your guy is Cabrera, there's not really a lot for us to do there.


What I would really like is to take the occasional tactics of a rotisserie baseball league and turn them into a cross-sport league. In baseball, I think it's really fun to sort out that you really need stolen bases, and that it's time to trade HR/RBI power to get them... that sort of thing. I like the idea of, in a game like this, feeling that I really need to pick up points from golf or college basketball or whatever, then I'm willing to trade off my football anchors to get there.

Plus, I'd just like to have a rooting interest in a wider array of sports than I currently do. In my mind, I sort of like the idea of looking through the leader board after Friday of the Masters, checking out who is still available, and then deciding whether it's worth cutting my 25th best guy to lock up one of the players in the hunt there. And knowing that if I wait too long to do so, someone else might get in ahead of me. But if I move too soon, I may end up losing something valuable for other purposes later. (Like if I really want the dividend from being the Masters champion, then I might want to load up 5 golfers that weekend... but by doing so, I'm cutting Justin Verlander and Ray Rice to clear out the space)

...hmmm...

[stevew]

25 slots with like a max of 10 per sport or something? What about an offseason keeper taxi squad where you can stash guys. Maybe like 5? I would think waiver procedures would need to be limited/cost $$$.

I think it would be sweet to trade like Venus Williams, Phil Mickleson and Jimmy Johnson for LeBron, Mike Trout and Usain Bolt.

[Toddzilla]

then the problem becomes you need to have a computer for a brain, which leaves your potential pool of owners at Quik, Watson, and Big Blue.

[QuikSand]

...well, this is why I think the way to set it up is to base is on what I'm calling "dividends." Payouts of certain points, at certain times, based on certain conditions.

In football, something like:

-ends season with 30+ TD passes = 5pts
-ends season with 40+ TD passes = 10pts
-ends season with 50+ TD passes = 15pts
-ends season with 1200 yards from scrimmage = 5pts
...and so forth

Aid with something like NASCAR:

-wins Daytona 500 = 5 pts
-top 10 finish in Daytona 500 = 1 pt
-wins (other big race) = 3 pts
-Qualifies for end-of-season cup thingie = 1pt
-Wins cup = 10 pts

..or whatever. The payouts are in full at the conclusion of the season or event, not day by day or week by week. So, in football, you see a RB start off well in September (say Alfred Morris from 2012) and you need to decide whether it's worth it to cut one of your golfers or drivers or baseball players to go be the first guy to pick him up.

[albionmoonlight]

I don't know if I like the cliff aspect of things if you use cutoffs like "30+ TD passes."

The difference between a guy who throws for 29 TD passes and 30 is negligible and a function of luck. So if that is the difference between 5 pts and 0 pts, then luck ends up playing a larger role than people would like.

That said, I totally agree that trying to keep track of stats on a more graduated level would be a nightmare.

[albionmoonlight]

dola:

You would also have to think that a league like this would involve rule tweaking as you figured out the best system. But if money is involved from the beginning and it is a keeper league, you might run into problems.

Let's say that the league scoring over-weights basketball players and under-weights tennis players. And John Smith figures that out and dumps a ton of tennis players and stashes as many basketball players as he can. And, a season or two later, everyone figures this out, but John has built a superteam.

If you were to change the rules at that point, it seems unfair to John. And it would also dis-incentivize people from trying to maximize value under the rules if the response from the league would be to change the rules.

If you don't change the rules at that point, however, you are basically all continuing to play under a rule set that everyone agrees is pretty crappy and makes the entire game pretty much irrelevant if you don't, say, have one of the three best NBA players on your team.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

I don't know if I like the cliff aspect of things if you use cutoffs like "30+ TD passes."

The difference between a guy who throws for 29 TD passes and 30 is negligible and a function of luck. So if that is the difference between 5 pts and 0 pts, then luck ends up playing a larger role than people would like.

That said, I totally agree that trying to keep track of stats on a more graduated level would be a nightmare.

Well, that's why I lean toward a clear payoff at one specific point. the action on the QB ideally isn't going to be when he's sitting at 28 with 4 games left to go... the action should be on Andrew Luck when he's sitting on 10TD through 4 games, and he starts to look like a legitimate play to make 30 for the year, or maybe even 40. I see it being a bit like a futures market -- your "sure thing" guy should be a priority in the league year-round (you want to keep Tom Brady even through the football offseason) but then you marshall resources as seasons and specific payoff events unfold -- that's what's supposed to keep you interested.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

dola:

You would also have to think that a league like this would involve rule tweaking as you figured out the best system. But if money is involved from the beginning and it is a keeper league, you might run into problems.

Let's say that the league scoring over-weights basketball players and under-weights tennis players. And John Smith figures that out and dumps a ton of tennis players and stashes as many basketball players as he can. And, a season or two later, everyone figures this out, but John has built a superteam.

If you were to change the rules at that point, it seems unfair to John. And it would also dis-incentivize people from trying to maximize value under the rules if the response from the league would be to change the rules.

If you don't change the rules at that point, however, you are basically all continuing to play under a rule set that everyone agrees is pretty crappy and makes the entire game pretty much irrelevant if you don't, say, have one of the three best NBA players on your team.

All very fair.

[Toddzilla]

what is this "season or two later" you speak of?

[Comey]

I think it'd be fun, especially if you could trade across sports.

[Danny]

Originally Posted by Comey

I think it'd be fun, especially if you could trade across sports.

I think this would be bad. Two people could easily set each other up to win two respective sports (one each)

FWIW though, I have no interest in doing this unless it was relatively cheap and didnt require that much time.

[murrayyyyy]

I know this may sounds over simplistic but if I was going to do it I would do it one simple way. Scoring is based off wins. Who cares is a guy scores 25 pts or scored 10 with 9 assists and 5 rebounds. The difference is wins have different values in this game.

You would have to find a basic value you want. A win in NASCAR is harder than a win in football. So the points for a NASCAR wins would hold a higher value. So every sport would have ratios. Quick for example.

You are allowed to draft 15 players in any sport that there is scoring for. You must have 1 player in every sport always on your roster(this makes score keeping easier because they have to have 1 NFL player on the roster when they only play for five months really, one less to count). Every player is active. You are allowed 1 waive a calendar season(so 1 in spring, one in summer, etc). Once a season is 80% done you can not trade away that player (so when Week 14 is in the NFL all players are frozen). The player must play in the game to get a win.

Season starts on a certain day and ends 1 year later. This way every season gets it's full play.

NASCAR Sprint win = 25 pts
Match in a Tennis Grand Slam (any round mens or womens) = 1pt
NFL win = 8 pts
NBA win = 4 pts
MLB fielder's win = 2 pts
MLB SP win = 5pts
MLB closers win = 3 pts
NHL win = 5 pts
PGA Event = 15 pts

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by murrayyyyy

I know this may sounds over simplistic but if I was going to do it I would do it one simple way. Scoring is based off wins. Who cares is a guy scores 25 pts or scored 10 with 9 assists and 5 rebounds. The difference is wins have different values in this game.

You would have to find a basic value you want. A win in NASCAR is harder than a win in football. So the points for a NASCAR wins would hold a higher value. So every sport would have ratios. Quick for example.

You are allowed to draft 15 players in any sport that there is scoring for. You must have 1 player in every sport always on your roster(this makes score keeping easier because they have to have 1 NFL player on the roster when they only play for five months really, one less to count). Every player is active. You are allowed 1 waive a calendar season(so 1 in spring, one in summer, etc). Once a season is 80% done you can not trade away that player (so when Week 14 is in the NFL all players are frozen). The player must play in the game to get a win.

Season starts on a certain day and ends 1 year later. This way every season gets it's full play.

NASCAR Sprint win = 25 pts
Match in a Tennis Grand Slam (any round mens or womens) = 1pt
NFL win = 8 pts
NBA win = 4 pts
MLB fielder's win = 2 pts
MLB SP win = 5pts
MLB closers win = 3 pts
NHL win = 5 pts
PGA Event = 15 pts

If you go by wins, what's the difference in drafting Tom Brady or Mesko or Gostkowski?

[Danny]

The difference is Brady has a higher chance of getting hurt and missing games making Ghost the better pick

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by Danny

The difference is Brady has a higher chance of getting hurt and missing games making Ghost the better pick

Yup, so at that point you might as well turn this into a Franchise draft where you draft franchises across the various sports and compete. Actually, that may not be a bad idea, but I don't think that's what this is.

[murrayyyyy]

Originally Posted by Abe Sargent

If you go by wins, what's the difference in drafting Tom Brady or Mesko or Gostkowski?

I momentarily thought about that but I looked at it 2 ways. If the Patriots got shut out, Gostkowski might not have played. If Brady got hurt, Mesko and Gostkowski may be worthless players because New England won't win as often with Mallet.

I thought about franchise but would someone be brave enough to double up on Wade-James.

Also remember there is only one waiver move per calendar season. Brady gets hurt week one may have the teams who took Mesko and Gostkowski burning their one waiver usage at that time also. Would you have kept Indianapolis Colts players when Manning got hurt? That would have been one of the safest teams to hide a player on.

Or just simply change the rules to NFL QB's like I did with the baseball players.

[stevew]

Ok....the big question would be whether this is to function as a federation of 7-8 sport specific leagues, or if it is significantly less in-depth and functions as one conglomeration. Another key point would be how scoring is to be weighted. Are some sports more valuable than others? Are positions within a sport more important than others?

I think fundamentally each week needs to count the same. Say there's 50 weeks in a "season" and it ends for a brief time around the Superbowl or so.


Each specific subset of sports perhaps needs a ranking for overall points. I'm wondering if it comes down to 1-12 rotisserie type scoring. In order to make things more well rounded, the specific "scoring" sports would need to be laid out. At this moment, Nascar, the NBA, college men's hoops, college woman's hoops, tennis, NHL, and soccer are all going on. Do we want all of these to be scorable sports? Or maybe we narrow it down to 3 specific sports you're playing per week.
-for example. I field the best NBA team, the 5th best Nascar team and finish 8th in Mens hoops. I get 25 points(assuming 12-1 scoring) for the week. There would need to be a minimum amount of people playing a specific sport I would think.


I can have the greatest NBA team in history but can only max out 33% of the score per week...keeps you well rounded.



Each individual sport could be scored with regular fantasy scoring for that specific sport.