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Draft Software for a Live Auction Draft (2 Viewers)

Toomuchnv

Footballguy
Hey guys, both my fantasy baseball and football leagues that I run have a live auction draft where the whole league gets together and uses a draft board.

I was searching for some software that I could hook up to a laptop with a projector screen to eliminate the sticker mess that is draft boards...

While searching the internet I found this website:

www.btfsports.com

I was wondering if anyone has used their software. I know the initial fee for the equipment is kind of pricey but after that it seems pretty cheap to just pay for the player updates. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks

 
Don't buy anything. Just create your own spreadsheet in Excel. It's really not that hard. If you want the one we used last year PM me and I'll send it your way.

 
Hey guys, both my fantasy baseball and football leagues that I run have a live auction draft where the whole league gets together and uses a draft board.

I was searching for some software that I could hook up to a laptop with a projector screen to eliminate the sticker mess that is draft boards...

While searching the internet I found this website:

www.btfsports.com

I was wondering if anyone has used their software. I know the initial fee for the equipment is kind of pricey but after that it seems pretty cheap to just pay for the player updates. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks
Big Time Fantasy Sports, whom you've linked to, has a very cool device for having a live auction without an auctioneer. My fellow league members who have been exposed to it are showing increased interest in taking the plunge, despite its rather heady price. I've talked to those guys on the phone and they seem to be a very down-to-earth bunch of Chicago fantasy geeks who built this thing for themselves and have only now started to market it nationally.
 
Big Time Fantasy Sports, whom you've linked to, has a very cool device for having a live auction without an auctioneer. My fellow league members who have been exposed to it are showing increased interest in taking the plunge, despite its rather heady price. I've talked to those guys on the phone and they seem to be a very down-to-earth bunch of Chicago fantasy geeks who built this thing for themselves and have only now started to market it nationally.
the fat box where owners can select their players with the touch of a button looks awesome! i'm tempted to try this. it can take time and concentration away from an owner if he has to run a draft/auction and draft a team at the same time. the fat box looks like it serves to run the draft all by itself.
 
Big Time Fantasy Sports, whom you've linked to, has a very cool device for having a live auction without an auctioneer. My fellow league members who have been exposed to it are showing increased interest in taking the plunge, despite its rather heady price. I've talked to those guys on the phone and they seem to be a very down-to-earth bunch of Chicago fantasy geeks who built this thing for themselves and have only now started to market it nationally.
the fat box where owners can select their players with the touch of a button looks awesome! i'm tempted to try this. it can take time and concentration away from an owner if he has to run a draft/auction and draft a team at the same time. the fat box looks like it serves to run the draft all by itself.
Yeah, that fat box seems like a brilliant idea. The reason I brought it up on this forum was to see if anyone has actually used it. While the initial price for the box is pretty high, after that you only have to buy the updated player list each year which very reasonable. If you do a fantasy baseball league as well then it works for both leagues. Anyways, I will ask again...has anyone actually purchased the fat box and used it? If so how reliable is it? Any unbiased info would be great from all you experts out there. Thanks
 
Big Time Fantasy Sports, whom you've linked to, has a very cool device for having a live auction without an auctioneer. My fellow league members who have been exposed to it are showing increased interest in taking the plunge, despite its rather heady price. I've talked to those guys on the phone and they seem to be a very down-to-earth bunch of Chicago fantasy geeks who built this thing for themselves and have only now started to market it nationally.
the fat box where owners can select their players with the touch of a button looks awesome! i'm tempted to try this. it can take time and concentration away from an owner if he has to run a draft/auction and draft a team at the same time. the fat box looks like it serves to run the draft all by itself.
Yeah, that fat box seems like a brilliant idea. The reason I brought it up on this forum was to see if anyone has actually used it. While the initial price for the box is pretty high, after that you only have to buy the updated player list each year which very reasonable. If you do a fantasy baseball league as well then it works for both leagues. Anyways, I will ask again...has anyone actually purchased the fat box and used it? If so how reliable is it? Any unbiased info would be great from all you experts out there. Thanks
BTFS is a pretty new outfit so I doubt if there's much of a track record for them. So from that standpoint, you run the risk of dealing with any unknown quantity. From my conversation with them, the system tracks money and won't accept a bid from someone who has surpassed their available funds. However, they have no positional programming; you're pretty much on your own for policing roster requirements if you're one of those leagues that have them. It's actually a very simple system, using pushbuttons to register your bid instead of your voice.If I could get a second league to go in on it with us and get the price down to about $15 a head, I think my league would jump at this thing. It's very cool.

 
Got the Commish of my local 16 Team Auction to purchase this, and we'll be taking it out this Sunday for it's inaugural 'test drive'...

...I got an Auction Model DraftKit, which is what we've used in the past, to have on hand just in case things don't work out as planned, but I'll be back to post a first-hand account of how things worked out with this doohicky afterwards, in case anyone else is interested in purchasing...

 
Got the Commish of my local 16 Team Auction to purchase this, and we'll be taking it out this Sunday for it's inaugural 'test drive'......I got an Auction Model DraftKit, which is what we've used in the past, to have on hand just in case things don't work out as planned, but I'll be back to post a first-hand account of how things worked out with this doohicky afterwards, in case anyone else is interested in purchasing...
I also purchased the Fatbox for my league and we just happen to be drafting this Sunday as well. From the looks of it when I set everything up it looks like it is going to be a welcome addition to our auction for football and baseball for years to come. I will post a reply on how it went after our draft as well.
 
Got the Commish of my local 16 Team Auction to purchase this, and we'll be taking it out this Sunday for it's inaugural 'test drive'......I got an Auction Model DraftKit, which is what we've used in the past, to have on hand just in case things don't work out as planned, but I'll be back to post a first-hand account of how things worked out with this doohicky afterwards, in case anyone else is interested in purchasing...
If our auction wasn't the same day, I'd roll down from Carroll County and watch a little bit of your's.
I also purchased the Fatbox for my league and we just happen to be drafting this Sunday as well. From the looks of it when I set everything up it looks like it is going to be a welcome addition to our auction for football and baseball for years to come. I will post a reply on how it went after our draft as well.
Looking forward to the review. :thumbup:
 
I use Sideline Software's Fantasy League Manager (FLM). You can download the software for free and use it for your draft (and 4 weeks into the season).

I use it to keep track of the draft picks, run the draft clock and to announce each pick. There are sound files that contain all of the player names/positions/teams, warnings about the clock expiring, and which Fantasy team is on the clock and which is next, etc. There are also sound files for clapping, booing, laughter, etc.

I recorded our league's team name .WAV files and replaced the generic Team 1, Team 2, etc. WAV files that come with the software. So now instead of announcing "Team 1 selects Kordell Stewart" it says "The Stooges select Kordell Stewart".

I have been doing this for years and it is great.

 
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Well, we did our auction draft today using the fatbox for the first time. I must say this really helped make our auction even better than before. No need to have an outsider as an auctioneer as the machine did it all. Not only did it do the going once going twice countdown, but it also announced the team name evey time someone bid. The only downside in my opinion was the robotic voice. Maybe they could make it a female voice or something LOL.

The draft screen had everything you need to know about the auction. Every team and their roster, the player up for bid, the countdown clock, the team winning a bid and it even had the maximum amount a team could bid on a player and still have enough to put $1 on the rest of their players. This was nice because it meant there would be no more overbidding because a team was a little off on their math.

Overall a big :thumbup: to the guys over at btfsports. I think they really got a product that could take off the more leagues switch to auction drafts. For those that do auction drafts live and in person, if you can afford to get a fatbox I recommend it 100%. Now that I own the box my draft cost will be next to nothing each year as all I need to do is purchase the latest player list.

One other nice thing, our league had some special keeper rules and some trades so each team had a different amount of auction dollars going into the draft. Initially the program from btfsports couldn't account for this. So one phone call to them and they were able to actually change their computer program to accomodate my league rules.

So, in conclusion...if you do your auction drafts live and can afford to get one of these boxes it is well worth every penny in my opinion.

 
Thanks, Toomuch, it sounds like the real deal. Did you have anybody particpate remotely? I got a couple of guys from way outta state who need to know how it works.

I need to find a big league somewhere in the Balt/Wash area to go halfsies with us.

 
Thanks, Toomuch, it sounds like the real deal. Did you have anybody particpate remotely? I got a couple of guys from way outta state who need to know how it works.I need to find a big league somewhere in the Balt/Wash area to go halfsies with us.
Nobody participated in our draft remotely. Everyone was present. Overall, everyone loved the new draft tool. Although I bet if you called btfsports they could explain how the remote access works. Their customer service was extremely impressive.
 
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Toomuchnv said:
Thanks, Toomuch, it sounds like the real deal. Did you have anybody particpate remotely? I got a couple of guys from way outta state who need to know how it works.I need to find a big league somewhere in the Balt/Wash area to go halfsies with us.
Nobody participated in our draft remotely. Everyone was present. Overall, everyone loved the new draft tool. Although I bet if you called btfsports they could explain how the remote access works. Their customer service was extremely impressive.
Thanks again. I forgot to ask how the system affected the length of your auction. Shorter? If so, by how much? What timer settings did you use?
 
Thanks, Toomuch, it sounds like the real deal. Did you have anybody particpate remotely? I got a couple of guys from way outta state who need to know how it works.I need to find a big league somewhere in the Balt/Wash area to go halfsies with us.
Nobody participated in our draft remotely. Everyone was present. Overall, everyone loved the new draft tool. Although I bet if you called btfsports they could explain how the remote access works. Their customer service was extremely impressive.
Thanks again. I forgot to ask how the system affected the length of your auction. Shorter? If so, by how much? What timer settings did you use?
Our league was 12 teams with a roster size of 24. We started at about 10:30am took an hour luch at 12. Finished at about 2:30pm. So all in all the actual draft lasted about 3 hours. In years past we were drafting for a minimum of 4 hours. I set the timer up for 5 seconds between bids. That was plenty of time for people to decide to push their button or not.
 
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Thanks, Toomuch, it sounds like the real deal. Did you have anybody particpate remotely? I got a couple of guys from way outta state who need to know how it works.I need to find a big league somewhere in the Balt/Wash area to go halfsies with us.
Nobody participated in our draft remotely. Everyone was present. Overall, everyone loved the new draft tool. Although I bet if you called btfsports they could explain how the remote access works. Their customer service was extremely impressive.
Thanks again. I forgot to ask how the system affected the length of your auction. Shorter? If so, by how much? What timer settings did you use?
Our league was 12 teams with a roster size of 24. We started at about 10:30am took an hour luch at 12. Finished at about 2:30pm. So all in all the actual draft lasted about 3 hours. In years past we were drafting for a minimum of 4 hours. I set the timer up for 5 seconds between bids. That was plenty of time for people to decide to push their button or not.
You continue to be a wealth of information, thanks. Man, that's getting a lot of players bought in a short period of time. After keepers are factored in, my league only buys about 160 guys. Next year, we're IN.
 

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