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Pros & Cons of Auction Draft (1 Viewer)

T

TX Steel

Footballguy
Hope this is the right spot for this--I normally only post in the Asst. Coach forum...

I REALLY want to move our league from serpentine draft to auction, but I have zero experience with auction drafts. I need to sell the idea to my league as effectively as possible. 

Aside from the fact that every owner gets their shot at every player on the board, what do I need to know about auction drafts? Don't they take longer? Are they easier to do online or offline?

I'd love to hear positive and negative thoughts from owners who know more about auction drafts so I can be armed with more knowledge when I make my case.

Thanks!

 
Pro:   Way more fun.   Cons: Getting people involved and not missing the auction.

I've done live hosted and online.

Live hosted, in person:   Pro:  once you have people there it's on.    Nothing to worry about.   Tons of fun.   Con:  Getting people there.

Online:   Pro:  Getting it kicked off is easy.  Pick a date, harass the league.  Much easier to maintain long term as co-location for the draft becomes less of an issue.   
     Con:  Some people may miss the kickoff or be inactive and fall behind.

Final thoughts:   Do it.  You will never go back.   Maybe start a second league just for people who want to do auctions.

 
One more thing.   In person requires an auctioneer to be most effective.   It makes things move much quicker.      With a well run auction you can expect 3-4 hours for a 10-12 team league at a minimum.  

You will have the most fun of your life doing an auction draft live, but the coordination is much harder.

Pick your salary cap, your roster size, and your starting lineups and start the auction.

 
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There are not many cons with auction. It's just better all around. Everyone is involved from the start. It is more thrilling. Instead of waiting your turn and checking off a player, you're in (if you chose) every moment of the draft.

 
Keep the process and math simple:

1. A common template is a $200 total cap for 16 roster spots. Make sure owners fill all 16 slots. Bid in $1 dollar increments.

2. Have a set order- defending league champ nominates first, then rotate clockwise around the table.

3. Designate an auctioneer- someone who is NOT in the league. Give them the power to keep order and determine who may have bid first.

4. Allow people to bid freely- some systems I've seen go in a set bidding order and if you pass, you are out. Don't make this mistake. Allow people to jump in and out of the bidding as they please, so long as they have the cap room.

5. Have the auctioneer track how much money each owner has to avoid overbidding.

6. Define and disseminate your rules before the auction- maybe even to a practice auction.

7. If you define the rules and set an outsider to be the auctioneer and budget tracker- this is FAR and AWAY a more fun way to allocate players.

 
Cons: Can take a while.  Recommend using an online site with a timer to help speed things up.

Pros: The most fair way to construct a team.

          If you enjoy strategy this is by far the best way to draft.

          I say it's more fun but that's more personal opinion.

 
One con can be if some guys are experienced in an auction and others have zero idea what they're doing ... the experienced guys are likely going to wail on the others.

But, as others have said, once you do an auction you'll never want to go back.  It's tremendous, but it takes a while, and it can get really annoying even with timers with the online systems.  Some guys wait until the 10 second timer is down to 2 seconds and then bid, and it's 10 more seconds ... and all of that takes time.

An auctioneer can reallly speed all that up, but you've gotta all be together.

 
You can do an auction in about 2.5-3 hours.

The time literally flies.

As I stated earlier- if you have clear rules and an outsider dedicated to enforcing the rules fairly, it is a great experience.

 
We only auction for the first 10 rounds.  The last 6 rounds are snake in order to help speed up the draft.  Still takes about 3 hours.

 
Hawkeye21 said:
Cons: Can take a while.  Recommend using an online site with a timer to help speed things up.

Pros: The most fair way to construct a team.

          If you enjoy strategy this is by far the best way to draft.

          I say it's more fun but that's more personal opinion.
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+1 - seeking out mostly auction drafts only this year but unforunately they're not super common.

 
The best way we've found to do it is to have a draft online, but have everyone get together. It allows for the best of both worlds. Smack talk, but also you don't need people to track who's left, how much money is left, and to judge who buzzed in first at a specific $$ value.

Cons:

  • Takes longer
  • Can be overwhelming for first timers (Tell everyone to try at least 1 mock to practice)
  • Seems complex (even though it's not really)
  • Requires a modicum of effort
Pros:

  • More interesting and fun
  • More competition over players (Bidding wars are more exciting than having someone draft in front of you due to a lottery)
  • Allows for more tailored roster construction (Stars and scrubs, or balanced)
  • Benefits fantasy footballers who put in effort. You can target specific players who normally get swept up in snake drafts. So if you really want 4 players who normally go in the 4th round of snake drafts, and you always only get 1 or 2 if you reach, now you can get all 4.
  • It's much more fun to watch autodrafters. If anyone doesn't show, they'll usually push bidding to the ADP so you can nominate a roster full of players you don't like and watch them scoop them up.
 
Pro:  You can ensure you get Finley on your squad.  Sky's the limit!

Con:  You have Finley on your squad.

 
There are no cons.

No one who is serious enough about FF that they regularly read/post on this Board, or invest in a subscription should have any issues with how long a Draft takes. Draft Day is the best day of the year! It's Christmas in August/September, and if it could go on forever, I'd be the happiest man alive. Really, I would...

There is no single better method of Player Allocation than an Auction-style Draft, hands-down, IMHO:

Each and every Owner has the ability to acquire any Player they want, and to dictate how much of an opportunity cost they place on the rest of the collective Ownership to acquire every prime asset in play. Which, in turn, affords every Owner the most fluid opportunity to construct their Team in any way they see fit, employing their own unique blueprint dependent solely on how they choose to invest in the Player Pool.

Then again, I'm very much a free-market guy. As are pretty much all the folks I compete with. YMMV.

 
Pro:  Watching people get stuck with players they didn't want but tried to bid up

Cons:  Getting stuck with players you didn't really want but tried to bid up

 
The only con I can think of is that players with multiple bids generally take way longer than it takes in a serpentine draft.  My typical serpentine draft takes about two hours, maybe three if it has a ton of rounds.  Meanwhile, the drafts for the auction leagues I'm in can take significantly longer, with three hours as a minimum and up to four hours.

Having said that, if the commissioner is on top of things and manages the selection and bid clocks well, you can keep things from running too long. 

 
Ironman2131 said:
The only con I can think of is that players with multiple bids generally take way longer than it takes in a serpentine draft.  My typical serpentine draft takes about two hours, maybe three if it has a ton of rounds.  Meanwhile, the drafts for the auction leagues I'm in can take significantly longer, with three hours as a minimum and up to four hours.

Having said that, if the commissioner is on top of things and manages the selection and bid clocks well, you can keep things from running too long. 
Click to expand...
If time is a major concern then the draft should be done using a website and a timer.  Drafts done that way should take no longer than 2 hours.  When done in person they can take at least an hour longer.  I do a live snake draft as well and that one still takes over 2 hours so I really don't see it being a big deal.  If you love fantasy football, love drafting and especially love doing auctions then time should be the last thing on your mind.  For me and the guys in my leagues it's a yearly event that we look forward to.

 
i've been doing both a live draft auction that i run as commish, and an online auction for my 2 leagues.

Live Auction Tips:

  • you need a 3rd party auctioneer who is not in the league to run the auction. it's too much to ask the commish to do or even to take turns doing.
  • the auctioneer needs to be assertive and keep things moving. the draft will probably take 1-2 hours longer than a snake draft. ive had auctioneers who knew nothing about football but did a good job keeping things on track.
  • make sure you have as big a draft board as possible. im lucky to have access to a large scale plotter and CAD software so i designed my own draft board in CAD that is 3' x 7' for my 12 team auction draft.
  • having large and easily readable player label stickers that are color coded by position and have bye weeks listed are a huge help. it makes it easy to quickly scan the draftboard and make quick judgement calls on draft strategy and you can see who still needs what position wise quickly. you generally can find them online for less than $20. it's worth the expense.
  • make sure you keep track of the maximum amount of $$ a person can spend on a single player on the draft board or via a spreadsheet, not how much money they have left in their budget. in short. it will require a math formula and having an old school calculator will help the auctioneer avoid making math mistakes. it also prevents owners from accidently overspending their budget
  • everyone has to show up to the draft, or they need to send a drafter.. you cant league draft a team via auction draft with best available. i'm kind of a jerk and i require league fees paid in advance of the draft, so if a person doesnt show and doesnt send a replacement drafter they get zero players and have to scrap together a team from the waiver wire... luckily i have never had the situation come up but that is the league rule if you no show.
online auction drafts:

I can only speak for ESPN's online auction draft app, but it works quite well. very easy to use, easy to pause the draft if the league needs a 5 minute break. it's functional for people who cant be at a computer and can only draft on their phone.  it's also very efficient as drafts are usually over much quicker than a live in person auction draft.

long story short, i say you take the plunge... the skeptics will come around after the draft and agree that it is the superior draft format.

 
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For those wish to do an in person live auction I recommend having a spreadsheet with each team with their roster spots.  If you know someone that's good with excel you can have them create a formula so when you input the player name and amount they sold for it automatically shows how much money they have left.

This is what our league does and it's awesome.  The auctioneer runs the laptop which is hooked up to a projector so everyone can see who everyone has drafted and for how much.  I like to take a picture of the board when the draft is over so I can always see how much everyone sold for.  We also do two separate, full drafts so it's fun to compare them.

 
good ideas..considering the change as well for next year.  Will take some of this feedback to sell the idea.  

 
JFS171 said:
One con can be if some guys are experienced in an auction and others have zero idea what they're doing ... the experienced guys are likely going to wail on the others.
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If nobody in the league has done an auction before and you study up here before hand you will destroy them (in the draft at least). Doing an auction with a bunch of virgins is fun. 

Once you go auction you never go back.

 
There are no cons to doing an auction. It is the way to go. 

I still do a few snake drafts a year, but there is nothing in FF more fun than a live auction. 

 
iamkoza said:
i've been doing both a live draft auction that i run as commish, and an online auction for my 2 leagues.

Live Auction Tips:

  • you need a 3rd party auctioneer who is not in the league to run the auction. it's too much to ask the commish to do or even to take turns doing.
  • the auctioneer needs to be assertive and keep things moving. the draft will probably take 1-2 hours longer than a snake draft. ive had auctioneers who knew nothing about football but did a good job keeping things on track.
  • make sure you have as big a draft board as possible. im lucky to have access to a large scale plotter and CAD software so i designed my own draft board in CAD that is 3' x 7' for my 12 team auction draft.
  • having large and easily readable player label stickers that are color coded by position and have bye weeks listed are a huge help. it makes it easy to quickly scan the draftboard and make quick judgement calls on draft strategy and you can see who still needs what position wise quickly. you generally can find them online for less than $20. it's worth the expense.
  • make sure you keep track of the maximum amount of $$ a person can spend on a single player on the draft board or via a spreadsheet, not how much money they have left in their budget. in short. it will require a math formula and having an old school calculator will help the auctioneer avoid making math mistakes. it also prevents owners from accidently overspending their budget
  • everyone has to show up to the draft, or they need to send a drafter.. you cant league draft a team via auction draft with best available. i'm kind of a jerk and i require league fees paid in advance of the draft, so if a person doesnt show and doesnt send a replacement drafter they get zero players and have to scrap together a team from the waiver wire... luckily i have never had the situation come up but that is the league rule if you no show.
online auction drafts:

I can only speak for ESPN's online auction draft app, but it works quite well. very easy to use, easy to pause the draft if the league needs a 5 minute break. it's functional for people who cant be at a computer and can only draft on their phone.  it's also very efficient as drafts are usually over much quicker than a live in person auction draft.

long story short, i say you take the plunge... the skeptics will come around after the draft and agree that it is the superior draft format.
Click to expand...
I'm the commissioner of my league and act as Auctioneer and the one that keeps tracks of wining bids. It can be done. The first time I did it it felt like a bit much. It got easier with time, but life really got easy for me when I tried out that Prime Time Draft software. I'm really a big fan of it and it costs as much as buying player labels. Just try out the test version and you'll never buy labels again. Plus it announces the winning bid, so you won't have people shouting out, how much did he go for?

 
Pro: Completely even and fair. Great for people who don't like leagues with trading.

Con: Its the Chaos Method. No trading. Takes a long time. Not made for bigger leagues. Tedious.

 
nittanylion said:
There are no cons.

No one who is serious enough about FF that they regularly read/post on this Board, or invest in a subscription should have any issues with how long a Draft takes. Draft Day is the best day of the year! It's Christmas in August/September, and if it could go on forever, I'd be the happiest man alive. Really, I would...

There is no single better method of Player Allocation than an Auction-style Draft, hands-down, IMHO:

Each and every Owner has the ability to acquire any Player they want, and to dictate how much of an opportunity cost they place on the rest of the collective Ownership to acquire every prime asset in play. Which, in turn, affords every Owner the most fluid opportunity to construct their Team in any way they see fit, employing their own unique blueprint dependent solely on how they choose to invest in the Player Pool.

Then again, I'm very much a free-market guy. As are pretty much all the folks I compete with. YMMV.
Click to expand...
This sums it up perfectly. Only thing I would add is put in the extra effort to have it be in person. Its hard to get everyone together with the busy schedules but once you all do it you won't go back to drafting any other way.  We got around this by setting the same draft day every year so people can plan around it.    

My main league auction draft day is far and away the day I look forward to more then any other, holidays included.  

 
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