Are You A Commissioner? (1 Viewer)

[Gally]

Hardest part of the job is finding a draft date that can accomodate everyone.

I have found the best way to do this is to start a tradition of always having it the same day every year. That way everyone knows a year in advance when the draft is and can plan around it.

One league is always the Saturday before the first Aunday games of the year. It's like Christmas Eve. Draft, drink, play poker go to sleep and wake up and its opening Sunday. It's awesome.

The other league is the Saturday before Labor day weekend. This keeps labor day weekend open for the last summer family vacations and keeps families happy.

It has worked great for the last 40 yrs and 20 yrs respectively.

 

[Gally]

My biggest complaint as a commish are owners that search for ways to circumvent the intent of rules. It is near impossible to close every loophole and the intent is generally obvious most of the time of a rule but there are shady owners that try and exploit loopholes to circumvent the intent of a rule.

That is the second worst thing. Worst is collecting league fees.

 

[J Giles Band]

Hardest part of the job is finding a draft date that can accomodate everyone.

I have found the best way to do this is to start a tradition of always having it the same day every year. That way everyone knows a year in advance when the draft is and can plan around it.

One league is always the Saturday before the first Aunday games of the year. It's like Christmas Eve. Draft, drink, play poker go to sleep and wake up and its opening Sunday. It's awesome.

The other league is the Saturday before Labor day weekend. This keeps labor day weekend open for the last summer family vacations and keeps families happy.

It has worked great for the last 40 yrs and 20 yrs respectively.

Exactly the same for our league which started in 2006. The Saturday before Labor day weekend removes that conflict... and the fact everyone knows when it will be every year has taken care of the rest.

 

[B Maverick]

My biggest complaint as a commish are owners that search for ways to circumvent the intent of rules. It is near impossible to close every loophole and the intent is generally obvious most of the time of a rule but there are shady owners that try and exploit loopholes to circumvent the intent of a rule.

That is the second worst thing. Worst is collecting league fees.

I have found that happens with newer owners. Your core group that has been around the longest understand the intent and don't try to exploit. Some of the newer guys will use the "its not written" defense. I have started closing these loopholes post discussion and ruling on the issue. Helps that we do have a rule allowing that too!

Early in the league, we had a couple owners who were lawyers and a commish who loved to argue. What came out of the dispute was the following:
Lawyer's Commissioner's Coverall Clause (2001):
The commissioner is a volunteer position usually held by an individual with extraordinary interest in the league. The position is granted and agreed to by all league owners. In so doing, the position holds the trust of the league owners and empowers the commissioner with the privilege to enact rules on the spot during the season as is deemed necessary.

I do not use this for general rule changes or significant league changes. Just to write down the generally accepted intent or unwritten rules we have all followed.

 

[B Maverick]

Hardest part of the job is finding a draft date that can accomodate everyone.

I have found the best way to do this is to start a tradition of always having it the same day every year. That way everyone knows a year in advance when the draft is and can plan around it.

One league is always the Saturday before the first Aunday games of the year. It's like Christmas Eve. Draft, drink, play poker go to sleep and wake up and its opening Sunday. It's awesome.

The other league is the Saturday before Labor day weekend. This keeps labor day weekend open for the last summer family vacations and keeps families happy.

It has worked great for the last 40 yrs and 20 yrs respectively.

Exactly the same for our league which started in 2006. The Saturday before Labor day weekend removes that conflict... and the fact everyone knows when it will be every year has taken care of the rest.

Add another to this. Always the weekend before Labor Day weekend.

I am in one league that is a full redraft and part of the requirements are being available to draft on Saturday night of Labor Day weekend. I don't usually have plans that weekend so its fine.

Both leagues know when the draft is so there is no question.

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

I have found the best way to do this is to start a tradition of always having it the same day every year. That way everyone knows a year in advance when the draft is and can plan around it.

One league is always the Saturday before the first Aunday games of the year. It's like Christmas Eve. Draft, drink, play poker go to sleep and wake up and its opening Sunday. It's awesome.

My group has a lot of folks with kids, which means a lot of kids sports, which means a lot of scheduling. On top of that some of the wives are marathon runners and such - definitely challenging.

Also a few league-members (3) come in from out of state now, which also presents challenges.

So our answer to that is to start talking about it in like, April/May, and nail down a date. It’s usually around the 3rd week of August (3 league members have Aug 20th birthdays, so it usually turns into a draft/birthday party.

We’ve been pretty successful at nailing it down every year. But it would be much cleaner to have a set date. I’m envious.

Worst is collecting league fees.

Fortunately everyone in my league makes it a point to pay up. Our rule is “by the Super Bowl”, but it’s usually earlier. And if it’s 1-2 stragglers, I’ll usually pay out and they just owe me the $.

 

[darksideofoz]

All but one of my leagues have the same live draft (or slow draft start) day every year.

Unfortunately, the one that isn't is by far the hardest to schedule. It's a guillotine league so there's 18 teams. The only thing as close as stressful as scheduling that is stressing over possible (likely?) live draft software issues (MFL) and/or live draft drama.

 

[MikesVikes]

I’m the commish of a league that started from another FF forum. The guy that started the league has left and I took over. There’s still lots of original owners from 29 years now.

I also commish another local that’s been running just as long.

I started a large Guillotine league that has two drafts that I commish as well.

 

[nirad3]

Co-commish a few leagues, gave up full commish rights to another this season.

I'd be willing to bet a lot of commissioners take the job to keep the league from folding. I know that was the case in two of the leagues I took over. That's not the case in two others.

I assume the league I gave up commish rights to would have just folded. Last year was its first year and is a really casual league w/ ex-schoolmates. I mean, I might have been roped into renewing and re-running the league... it was just on Yahoo and woulda been easy to do.

I hate dealing with the money aspect and always have another leaguemate handle it.

 

[JohnnyU]

Co-commish a few leagues, gave up full commish rights to another this season.

I'd be willing to bet a lot of commissioners take the job to keep the league from folding. I know that was the case in two of the leagues I took over. That's not the case in two others.

I assume the league I gave up commish rights to would have just folded. Last year was its first year and is a really casual league w/ ex-schoolmates. I mean, I might have been roped into renewing and re-running the league... it was just on Yahoo and woulda been easy to do.

I hate dealing with the money aspect and always have another leaguemate handle it.

I might be wrong, but I view leagues with schoolmates having a high probablity of folding. As people graduate, get new jobs, get married, have children, move to other states, their focus on fantasy football dwindles They have nowhere near the free time they had when in school.

 

[wlwiles]

In 5 leagues this year but only commish in one - my oldest redraft league where I've been the commish since the inception. If you've got a good group of owners then commish is almost autopilot. Hardest part of the job is finding a draft date that can accomodate everyone.

A lot of dynasty leagues require configuration changes between off season and in season. Different settings for blind bid waivers vs first-come-first-serve between off season and in season. Calendar events such as waiver runs might have to be adjusted because of games played on Christmas and New Year’s Day. Other changes are roster maximum changes between off season and in season. Setting up seeding for the playoffs. Other duties include finding new owners and setting up dispersal drafts, running the regular draft, possible pick adjustments, collecting fees, answering questions, even those already spelled out in the rules, creating rule change discussion threads and polls, adjusting the rules constitution after a rule change is made. Creating custom players in DEVY, removing or hiding custom players in DEVY. This is just a few of many. So it’s hardly on auto pilot.

I meant the "autopilot" comment strictly for a "standard" redraft league where you have a core group of good owners. Dynasty is of course harder for all the reasons you mentioned plus more. But the majority of folks aren't playing DEVY or IDP or making offseason roster maximum changes or playing with contracts and franchise tags or switching from FAAB to FCFS waivers mid-year or adjusting mid-year schedules or hand-setting playoff matchups. The more complicated the league is, the more complicated the job of course. Even in redraft there's going to be things that come up when a new owner comes in, or decisions to make when a game gets cancelled late in the season like the Demar Hamlin event.

I just meant that in a long standing redraft league , where the rules have been set for years, with a core group of owners that rarely turnover, of course there's little things to do here and there but it ain't a hard job...

 

[Pip's Invitation]

Co-commish a few leagues, gave up full commish rights to another this season.

I'd be willing to bet a lot of commissioners take the job to keep the league from folding. I know that was the case in two of the leagues I took over. That's not the case in two others.

I assume the league I gave up commish rights to would have just folded. Last year was its first year and is a really casual league w/ ex-schoolmates. I mean, I might have been roped into renewing and re-running the league... it was just on Yahoo and woulda been easy to do.

I hate dealing with the money aspect and always have another leaguemate handle it.

I might be wrong, but I view leagues with schoolmates having a high probablity of folding. As people graduate, get new jobs, get married, have children, move to other states, their focus on fantasy football dwindles They have nowhere near the free time they had when in school.

My main redraft league was founded in 1990-ish by a group of friends in high school. Still going, obviously. About half the teams are from that original group of friends. I joined in 2001.