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Pros & Cons of Auction Draft (1 Viewer)

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!

 
In a snake draft slots at the top have an advantage over everybody else. In auction nobody starts with an edge. Plus, you have more flexibility with your draft.

But it might take longer, and people don't have the familiarity with auction. Some people might resist as they don't like change.

 
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Pros:

- You have every opportunity to get whichever players you desire

- The auction bidding is much more exciting than waiting between 12-24 picks during a serpentine draft

Cons:

- Participating in an auction draft makes you a racist

 
Auctions are harder to do online or if you have league members scattered all over the place. If all 12 are in the same place, they are vastly superior.  So much more strategy and so much more ability to think on your feet when things go differently than expected.  They can take quite a bit longer.

 
Snake drafts are easier to manage, more straightforward and levels the playing field for people who aren't as knowledgeable/skilled. Which is nice is a good thing for home leagues with buddies who just want a reason to see each other more than actually care about fantasy drafts.

Auction drafts are better for competitive causal and higher level leagues. 

 
Auctions online are a piece of cake with good software.  I left the league a number of year ago but we had one on CBS and even back then it was excellent.  I am not a fan at all of anything else CBS does so for me to admit that means a lot.  MFL looks to be a solid option as well.  In person you want to have either a very experienced auctioneer if they are also an owner or, far more preferably, the first year or two have a non-owner run it.  There's a certain groove/focus you need to maintain keeping up with the auction tasks and while that part is easy enough, it's also very easy to ruin your team because you aren't able to balance your attention properly. 

Auctions are a ton more fun in person than snake because they are much more immediately interactive.  When team 3 makes their first round pick, they immediately grab their tablet, make a phone call, go for a smoke, whatever.  They come back in 15 minutes - am I up yet?   No?  Browse 4chan.  Now?   You can't do that in auction   Nearly every player is in play for every owner, at least for the first 4-5 bids.  You may hate early QB's but I bet my last dollar you'd take Brees for 5%.  Once a guy gets priced out for you you're busting ### to get to the john to take a leak because if they nominate your key sleeper next you need to be there to get your 2% bid in.

Auctions are exponentially more strategic than redraft and heavily favor better owners.  Bad owners get abused in these things, especially if it's a salary league where the salary is tied to the bidding process.  My homer has a couple guys pushing for auctions but we have a bunch of very casual owners that, while not entirely bad, would still get abused by a few of us more hardcore owners so I have never really endorsed the idea.

I wouldn't say they take any longer but the only live draft I do now is a semi-casual homer league in our 21st year and the hanging out and chatting part is at least 40% of it for us, so there's no urgency for us to get it in.  We don't have a pick clock and some guys take 5-6 minutes to make a pick.

If you want to do a litmus test, do your standard snake draft as normal for 10 rounds then do the rest as an auction.  Give everyone a $50 pool and that money means nothing after the draft so they may as well spend it all.  There are enough meaningful players and sleepers at that point that they will get a very realistic idea of the nuances of it.

 
I hate snake drafts. It's night and day. Auctions are sooooo much better.  There's nothing worse than getting stuck choosing between a couple of players depending on your draft spot. Unless you want to reach, you pretty much have a good idea of who is available in every round.  With auctions, everyone starts out evenly and everyone can draft whomever they want as long as they pay the price.

Cons - It's harder I guess. Less predictable and prices vary depending to the supply and demand in your league. Every auction is different. What you may learn from one draft one year may be different the following year. You'll have the natural tendency to wonder about your roster afterwards and try to compare it to the roster if you had drafted a snake draft.  Lots of different strategies, too. Stars and scrubs, depth & no stars, etc.  I look at these things as positives, not negatives.

Yeah it takes longer, but so what. Online it may take 2 hours. It's better in person, but there is a lot of great software out there for online leagues. I use Prime Time Draft even for local auction leagues instead of using a spreadsheet.

 

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