Draft Day Ideas (1 Viewer)

[Rounders]

Our league will be celebrating it's 15th year of existence and as the commish I would like to change up the usual draft. However I'm stumped on ideas. At our year end get together I proposed the idea of doing an auction as a different method and that was not received well.

So I'm looking for any ideas. Changes to rules, new draft setup, new draft format, new draft venues (usually at a guys house). Anything?

Perhaps sharing your draft day setups would be a good suggestion as well. Thanks in advance.

 

[nephilim]

rent a house on a lake/beach at least 2-3 hours away from most peoples homes (keeps people from leaving for kid events).

make it at least a weekend thing (friday night - leaving on monday morning - that way everyone can watch the 1st set of sunday games together).

make sure the house you rent has directtv so league members with nfl ticket can bring their receivers so you can watch every game (we've found most dtv owners don't have nfl ticket-bring extra flat screens if the house only has one or two decent tvs).

play poker, play golf, play basketball, go charter fishing (nice if you're on the ocean - plus you have one dinner taken care of...).

bring a keg (or two).

my group does a thursday night-monday morning gig. multiple poker games/golf outings. its a blast to have everyone there for the 1st sunday games. plus having everyone there and drinking seems to promote trading... ;-) we call that weekend "man christmas..."

 

[bicycle_seat_sniffer]

strippers and hemp

 

[Grigs Allmoon]

... new draft venues (usually at a guys house).

Do you usually know the guy? If so, I'll bet having at a stranger's house would be quite a shake-up. Maybe just pick an address from the phone book.

 

[mozzy84]

rent a house on a lake/beach at least 2-3 hours away from most peoples homes (keeps people from leaving for kid events). make it at least a weekend thing (friday night - leaving on monday morning - that way everyone can watch the 1st set of sunday games together). make sure the house you rent has directtv so league members with nfl ticket can bring their receivers so you can watch every game (we've found most dtv owners don't have nfl ticket-bring extra flat screens if the house only has one or two decent tvs).play poker, play golf, play basketball, go charter fishing (nice if you're on the ocean - plus you have one dinner taken care of...).bring a keg (or two).my group does a thursday night-monday morning gig. multiple poker games/golf outings. its a blast to have everyone there for the 1st sunday games. plus having everyone there and drinking seems to promote trading... ;-) we call that weekend "man christmas..."

no way could I get 12 people to commit to that amount of time all at the same time. sounds awesome though!

 

[Vladislav Tretiak]

For the draft instead of drafting to see who picks where, you pick the numbers and whomever gets the Ace gets to pick first WHERE they want to draft.

Whoever picked the deuce then has second choice to pick where they want.

In our league the champ gets to pick the theme for the team names. Last year it was animation & cartoons so we had teams:

Great Cornholio

Mojo Jojo

mr Whiskers

Mystery Machine

Pawtucket Pats

Torboto

Voltron

Drawn Together Misfits

Kit Cloudkicker

Mighty Mouse

Scooby-Doo

Hiro Nakayama

It is a dynasty league but the team names are changed every year.

2007: Pro Wrestling: (I was Four Horsemen)

2006: Booze (I was Old No.7)

2005: Rolling Stones Songs (I was Tumbling Dice)

2004: Mythology (I was Thor's Hammer)

It makes for something fun for the champ to think about. Also, our champ gets to pick one team from another division to swap places with a team in his division. The guy who won it is choosing another co-worker to be in his division along with me so that the three guys who work are in the same division. Makes for a lot of trash talk as he reminds us everyday at work that he is the champ for the year.

See if the guys are up for a Dynasty League. They might not. Some people really like having that draft every year. Who can blame them?

If that doesn't fly then make it a keeper (one, two, three, etc...)

I am not sure of your scoring but we did a league where we had a 100 point winner. If any team scored 100-100.9 points they won $5 dollars from every player. What we did was increased the entry fee $5 and that was the prize to shoot for. It didn't happen until the last week of regular season play but we did vote at the draft and majority said that if someone did win it then everyone would pony up $5 and we would do it again until the playoffs started. If nobody won it then it was going to the team with the highest scoring player drafted AFTER the tenth round (not including kickers)

Another league (12 team) had this rule. The losing teams each week had to pony up $1 to the kitty and the lowest scoring team each week had to pony up $2 to the kitty. This money went to the highest scoring team for the week. Gives teams a little something to shoot for each week. $7 a week and I was high scorer three weeks so at the end of the season I got $21 back.

Charge $1 a drop/add and give this money to the highest scoring team on the year

Make the loser of the toilet bowl buy the beer for the draft

Side bets are always a fun thing to do.

Penalty dollars

If your player gets arrested - $5 to the kitty

Your player gets suspended - $5 per game to the kitty

Kicked out of a game (rare) - $20 to the kitty

Use this money for the bar tab at the end of the year or give it to the highest scoring team, split it amongst division winners, etc...

 

[nephilim]

rent a house on a lake/beach at least 2-3 hours away from most peoples homes (keeps people from leaving for kid events). make it at least a weekend thing (friday night - leaving on monday morning - that way everyone can watch the 1st set of sunday games together). make sure the house you rent has directtv so league members with nfl ticket can bring their receivers so you can watch every game (we've found most dtv owners don't have nfl ticket-bring extra flat screens if the house only has one or two decent tvs).play poker, play golf, play basketball, go charter fishing (nice if you're on the ocean - plus you have one dinner taken care of...).bring a keg (or two).my group does a thursday night-monday morning gig. multiple poker games/golf outings. its a blast to have everyone there for the 1st sunday games. plus having everyone there and drinking seems to promote trading... ;-) we call that weekend "man christmas..."

no way could I get 12 people to commit to that amount of time all at the same time. sounds awesome though!

we only have to deal with 10 guys - 3-4 show up thursday, most show up friday (golfers show early - other may be late afternoon, one guy shows up saturday (satuday night is draft night), one usually leaves sunday after the 1st set of games. every so ofter we have one guy phone in (twice in about 10 years).perhaps you have the wrong 12 people??? ;-)at least give it a try - you might be suprised (or disapointed). we used to do it at a guys house (rotating hosts). wives/kids/bs were always interferring. your group should be able to committ to a least a friday night - sunday afternoon ff weekend (or why do they play??). the draft weekend is truly man christmas - indulge...

 

[Beau Tocks]

Rounders- you need to pound away on selling the auction draft format. I've commished my league for the past 13 years and about 5 years ago I installed the AUCTION..best thing we ever did. We can't imagine ever going back to a serpentine style as a group. Most older leagues are usually adverse to change but sometimes the curmudgens need a push, you are gonna hear the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" nonsense but be strong and forge ahead. I mean where would we be if we had to go by what the traditionalists declared like playing football only on Sundays. Can you imagine man life without Monday night football !!!!!

Good Luck, it can be done.

 

[gcoast3]

Rounders- you need to pound away on selling the auction draft format. I've commished my league for the past 13 years and about 5 years ago I installed the AUCTION..best thing we ever did. We can't imagine ever going back to a serpentine style as a group. Most older leagues are usually adverse to change but sometimes the curmudgens need a push, you are gonna hear the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" nonsense but be strong and forge ahead. I mean where would we be if we had to go by what the traditionalists declared like playing football only on Sundays. Can you imagine man life without Monday night football !!!!! Good Luck, it can be done.

Very similar here...Auction is the way to go. Much better way to select teams.

 

[mrbing73]

We do our(12 year old dynasty) first round in the morning prior to the NFL draft, and the remaining rounds 2-5 the week or so before the season begins. The first round (spring draft) is usually done online, with guys gathering as they wish, the fall draft for the later rounds is our annual get together.

Controversial yep, even still a few owners are quick to give up their firsts, but it was certainly a shake up.

 

[albino]

My league has been around for a while now too and we’ve done the following things over the years as we’ve evolved:

1. Open up a period right after the season ends for rule change requests. We then vote on them and those with majority votes get passed.

2. We now use a KDS system for determining draft order.

3. We conduct our drafts at a local sports bar that has a private room that we can reserve. This year we used Fandraft software (www.fandraft.com) and ran it through one of the big screens there and it was great. The software really adds to the draft experience. Each team has a logo and song and a Stephen Hawking type voice announces each pick. I just run one tab for the whole thing and then get reimbursed after the fact to make it easy.

4. I collect all money prior to the draft. That way when the season is over I can immediately pay out without having to chase guys down.

5. We now keep 4 players each year but they have to have been drafted in the 7th round or later in the year that they were drafted.

Hope this helps. Good luck next year. I love the idea of renting a house and making a weekend of it but don’t think it would fly in my league. I will suggest it though.

 

[Go Pack]

I was also going to say auction. Keep pushing that idea. I finally got my league to convert last year and it was well received as owners like being able to bid on every guy instead of sitting around hoping there guy falls to them.

 

[Dbbr]

Count me with the guys who suggested prodding your League to an auction. Same thing happened in our League after about 12 years. We finally got enough guys to say auction or bust, and we went with it. Now I hear the comment "I'd never go back to a draft" all the time. 15 - 20 years ago, drafts were fun because there was some degree of unknown. Nowadays, with all of the free online information the first 2 -3 rounds are pretty much easily predicted. It becomes boring, especially if you are that 1-3 or 9-12 "end of the round" teams and you have to sit through pick after pick.

Auctions bring excitement to every "pick", as each owner needs to decide what/if to bid on the player.

If your League is serious about spicing it up again, an auction is the best solution.

Good luck!

 

[Beef Ravioli]

Here is another vote for an auction draft! Our league changed two years ago and everyone loves it! There was a little hesitation from about half of the guys (12 team league) but now we would never consider going back!