Anyone have bylaws in place for remote live drafters? (1 Viewer)

[PR Sparty]

For the first time in years I'm gonna have guys that can't make it to the live draft. I'm gonna use Google+ (talked about it in this thread) rather than Skype or just an audio conference. I'm already anticipating problems with the 3 remote guys talking about a delay or connection issues during this auction draft.

My current stance is that it's your problem that you can't be there so deal with it. But I'm wondering if anyone has anything more formal/PC written in the rules that define this.

Thoughts?

 

[rocketsauce]

Curious who your league management website is and if you could simultaneously run a "Live Draft" through them? Thats what we do. We have owners "in the room" on Skype, participating, but everyone is still responsible for being at a computer and making their picks on our MFL website's live draft room. I, as the commissioner, am logged in as commissioner and can pick as any of the owners who are live and do not have a computer handy. This keeps things flowing, and if anyone does have a disconnect, all we're really missing is their chatter as opposed to their pick (I suppose if they lost their internet altogether we'd be screwed -- but hasn't happened yet!)

This year we'll have a disappointing 6 owners in attendance and 6 owners online, so it is going to be a madhouse trying to figure out what is going on most of the time. But I still love draft day!

 

[Short Corner]

I have been drafting remotely for 3 years (going on 4th) and have had no problems. Usually on speaker phone via Google Voice. Use the draft client for your league so the remote drafter is constantly updated thru the site.

 

[Wild Young Billy]

This won't answer your question but we don't allow remote drafting. Out-of-towners must send a replacement to draft for them. As a commissioner you have enough to do with drafting your own team and running the draft you don't need to worry about the guys who make a half-hearted effort to attend the draft in person.

 

[LawFitz]

Much tougher to do a remote auction that a remote draft IMO. One solution we've used in the past (not ideal, but it works) is to assign one live bidder to each remote bidder. Whether via speakerphone or even a regular phone the live person monitors to make sure the remote person is connected and informed during each pick.

Again, this is far from ideal, but otherwise, you're going to have a hard time with remote bidders b/c unlike remote drafters, they have to be connected and informed for each and every pick, rather than once for every ten or twelve picks.

 

[stugnut]

Over the years there has a been a few times where someone couldn't make it. The first time we tried a speakerphone/conference call and it didn't work well at all. Since then, our rule is if you cannot make the draft, you need to find someone to be at the draft who is on the phone with you. That worked out really well.

 

[PR Sparty]

Couple things I should have mentioned in the OP. Our draft is held 2.5 hours again at my cottage in northern Michigan. So sending a representative is tuff. Secondly, this is an auction draft.

My current plan is to hook up a laptop to a 40" tv and hang on the wall. I'll position this above the chair that would be normally occupied by an owner around the draft circle. With Google Hangout I can have all three absent owners on one screen and Hangout's presence technology will do the job of switching between active voices.

What i'm looking for is any advice on bylaw or rule that anyone's written to avoid controversy. I'm close to writing a "swim at your own risk" type of rule. I've established a method for you to get in, if it fails you should have either shown up or sent a representative. Not to sound too selfish, but I wanna draft and have a good time too. I don't want to deal with connection issues and tech support during the draft.

 

[fridayfrenzy]

One great tip which has worked for our league is to set up a draft board on googledocs and have the out of town people logged into the spreadsheet at the same time so that they can see the picks as you are typing them in. This way they can follow the picks along instead of having to repeat picks on Skype or if you run into any Skype issues.

You can use this draft board on a projector for the local draft as well.

 

[SelenaCat]

We've had the misfortune of having to have a remote auction in the past, though never more than one person at a time.

Obviously it's a lot harder on the remote owner, but the way we handled it was to modify the "Going, going, gone." To "Going, going, {owner}?" Basically, we'd check to make sure he'd heard the bidding and wasn't trying to bid for more. In all cases, we used a standard speaker phone, which worked reasonably well.

We did have to deal with lost calls a couple of times, but with only a single person, we were usually back up within 30 seconds and could just ask, "Eddie George for $45, you good?"

 

[travisio]

I made this googledoc for our snake draft. Maybe it will be of some help to some of you.

Googledoc Draft Board

We will have this running on a screen for the live drafters but it allows remote drafters to participate as well.

The highlights to make it work:

1) Copy and paste the latest rankings (we are using ESPN) into the "Data" tab to form the best available list.

2) On the 'Draft Board' tab - set the initials above the player names. You will type the corresponding initials next to a player on the 'player selection' tab to make a pick. The google doc will do the rest.

If anyone has any improvements that can be made, by all means share them.