Ideas on how to run a LIVE Fantasy Football Draft

[Butter]

So, I got this sprung on me at the last minute...

My boss wants me to run our Live in person draft via the internet somehow. Normally, we have done the big paper board with the stickers on the wall in the past, but I get the idea that he wants it all electronic this year. We usually have 2-3 owners out of 12 that are out of town, which will be the case this year.

We normally run our stuff through CBS Sports site. Do they have a live app for the draft that displays all the picks in such a way that I could project?

Are there any other ideas to do this that anyone could suggest? I've got about 4 hours to figure this out. Anything free and that looks like a regular ol' board with the stickers would be ideal. In the 10 minutes I had to research before I have to run off to a meeting, I found some decent looking paid software, but nothing that looked super-functional AND free.

Any ideas would help. Thanks.

[Suburban Rhythm]

Haven't played FF in about 5 years.

But IIRC, Yahoo has a free live draft. You'd have to setup, and have everyone sign in and join before you can begin the draft.

Other than that, if you wanted to go low-tech, I guess a conference room with a speaker phone, a laptop, and a Google doc to list the selections that everyone can continually refresh?

[Logan]

The best thing to do would be to use two laptops, one that you're actually drafting with, and the other one where you can update the spreadsheet with the picks and project that out. The live draft software is aimed at making the player selection process easy...seeing available players, last year's stats, projections, custom queues, etc. Having a massive draft board takes up too much valuable screen real estate.

[PackerFanatic]

I haven't been able to find anything free, which is why I started using the FanDraft program a couple years back. It's only $35 and worth saving me the hassle. Plus they added a web feature this year to allow remote drafters to make their own picks while your draft is running (costs them $5, but totally worth it).

[Butter]

I agree with Logan, but the league is a mix of older players and younger ones, and some guys just don't bring their computers in while others bring in both computers AND paperwork.

I think the idea is to get beyond having to get up and do the whole "sticker" thing on a big board, but I get the feeling that some people find that to be fun and we may get pushback.

Not to mention that by doing this, I won't be able to pay any attention to who I want to draft, and this is my only money league.

[dubb93]

The bar we do our FF "live" draft at uses FanDraft. It is amazing. Didn't realize it was only $35. They hook it up to a big screen TV and one of their employees runs the draft. I would highly recommend it. They make a killing off beer sales while the draft is going on.

[PackerFanatic]

Originally Posted by dubb93

The bar we do our FF "live" draft at uses FanDraft. It is amazing. Didn't realize it was only $35. They hook it up to a big screen TV and one of their employees runs the draft. I would highly recommend it. They make a killing off beer sales while the draft is going on.

And that is only for the first time - only $15 each subsequent year for updates.

[korme]

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

So, I got this sprung on me at the last minute...

My boss wants me to run our Live in person draft via the internet somehow. Normally, we have done the big paper board with the stickers on the wall in the past, but I get the idea that he wants it all electronic this year. We usually have 2-3 owners out of 12 that are out of town, which will be the case this year.

We normally run our stuff through CBS Sports site. Do they have a live app for the draft that displays all the picks in such a way that I could project?

Are there any other ideas to do this that anyone could suggest? I've got about 4 hours to figure this out. Anything free and that looks like a regular ol' board with the stickers would be ideal. In the 10 minutes I had to research before I have to run off to a meeting, I found some decent looking paid software, but nothing that looked super-functional AND free.

Any ideas would help. Thanks.

Sorry I didn't see this yesterday. We used clickydraft.com on Sunday, and it was great. Looks just like a regular board on a projection screen.

[Butter]

No problem... it went ok. Had the 3 people call in, and just ran via CBS Sports and had them refresh often to keep up with who was / wasn't on the board.

Used the old fashioned sticker system with the 9 people who were present... but I will definitely bring up these pay apps for next year.