Live in person draft, what do you do if someone cant be there? (1 Viewer)

[intrinsic]

This is the first year my work league is gathering and drafting in person. Previously we have all been at seperate locations drafting online in a custom yahoo league.

The draft is Tuesday, and just today i have heard some grumbling that 1 or 2 people may not be able to attend.

Do any of you have experience with this happening?

Is it as simple as making everyone provide a personalized draft order ahead of time incase they cant be present?

 

[brednbuddah]

This is the first year my work league is gathering and drafting in person. Previously we have all been at seperate locations drafting online in a custom yahoo league.The draft is Tuesday, and just today i have heard some grumbling that 1 or 2 people may not be able to attend.Do any of you have experience with this happening?Is it as simple as making everyone provide a personalized draft order ahead of time incase they cant be present?

have them provide a rankings list.

 

[ipljeff]

I had this fear also. So I put the following rules into effect:

Draft Day Absenteeism

If an owner is unable to attend the live draft, comes in late or has to leave early the following are to take place in order of preference:

1) He will appoint a substitute not in the league to attend the live draft in his place.

2) He will be able to phone in his picks live

3) He will submit a ranking sheet and a draft preference to the Commissioner. Example of preference: RB, RB, QB, WR, WR….. is the order he wants the positions drafted.

4) We will draft for him from a set of rankings found here: http://msn.foxsports.com/fantasy/story/6901974. If the link is broken the Commish will print them out bring to the draft.

The top player available will be chosen until the required starting line-up is filled. After that we will draft the top player until his complete roster consists of 2QB, 5RB, 5WR, 2TE, 2K and 2Def.

Hope this helps.

 

[AnonymousBob]

Rankings list and/or have them on speakerphone.

Congratulate them on the marriage.

 

[Captain Hook]

1) NO lists (you have enough to do already if you are running the draft)

2) They could get a partner; or

3) They arrange for a surrogate drafter with their list or on a cell hookup with them

Of course the other alternative is just to replace them with someone who will be there.

 

[MarcO]

We have this every year with at least one owner and an auction draft. He calls in and we put him on speaker phone - if there are more than 1 we use someone's work conference bridge line. - only ever had a minor problems. With a standard draft it should be a piece of cake.

 

[Prof. Chaos]

They will take what you give them.

 

[jbz]

we've had guys supply lists and do well, though i kind of don't like it that way because it can't make selections based on team needs and trends of the draft. it's possible for a guy to end up with all WRs if he doesn't specify what he's targeting in what round and what not. i've also had guys on phone/texting and this can be a hassle because they want you to repeat everyone that's been selected. if possible, i found the best way to deal with a guy not there is instant messaging. they key though is the guy not present do his homework and either give you a very detailed list and instructions or is ready to pick via phone and is prepared.

 

[brednbuddah]

Rankings list and/or have them on speakerphone.

Congratulate them on the marriage.

 

[Swamprat]

We've had this happen a few times. They've sent a list and a position priority and a couple of people not in the draft picked for them. One of these guys actually won the league. Others have drafted by phone.

We had one team have to leave early and told the league to fill out his roster for him....(insert evil laugh here)

 

[Reality Football]

Wireless internet and having a chat room open during the draft? Works for us, isn't that bad a distraction if its just 1-2 people.

 

[mbuehner]

Best way is to send a representative, even if they are calling- that way someone is looking out for their interests if they get called away or a technical glitch. But the draft must go on, so there must be either a list or a confederate as a backup. You can always have a list present in a sealed envelope to be broken in case of emergency, someone will still have to weed through but it beats everyone sitting there waiting.

If they are a FBG have them put the draft dominator on a laptop tweaked out with their projections and position weightings- then even a trained monkey or girlfriend can draft for em.

 

[mozzy84]

phone, thats what we do anyways, if no phone find a person to draft for them

 

[jimmoser]

12 team league...about half attend in person. The others are in Philly and Chicago, so we open a chat room w/ a phone backup. I have convinced one of my friends who is not in the league yet to run the chat room for me (I'm the commish) so that I can focus on keeping things running smoothly. We have done this the past few years and have had no problems.

Also...this year we have a guy who can't attend live because he will be at a Pirates/Phillies game at PNC park this Sunday...he is going to use the city's wireless and draft from the game. I look forward to this, because I told the people he's at the game with to keep buying him beers...

 

[moosebrew13]

The only drawback to the phone idea is it takes forever. We had a guy not there who wasn't on the phone all the time so everytime the draft got to him we had to call and go through each pick. It sucked. We did a 36 round draft and it took FOREVER. Be polite, just show up. Everyone else did.

 

[The Kansas Comet]

We've had this happen nearly every year in my league. We've done the phone, but that just sucks. It takes a long time and hearing the list of recent picks said over and over again is just . We used a live chat room last season, and that worked much better than the phone. Of course, a surrogate drafter (one of the league members is sending one this year) is the ideal solution.

 

[gobrowns33]

We do it by phone...I am the only one that hasn't attended the live draft the last two years (I moved about 14 hours away from everyone). I am the commish with my brother helping me out since he is local and in the league. We stay on the phone the whole draft (he has an ear piece in and it kind of works like speakerphone). I hear all the draft picks as they happen over the cell phone and keep track of them on my computer. It works great except your ear starts to hurt after about 6 hours of having a headset around it. Also it helps that we both have verizon so we aren't wasting about 400 cell minutes.

 

[David Yudkin]

Make the non-attendee send a surrogate drafter. And make sure the replacement is an exotic dancer. I've never had a complaint in any of our drafts when this has happened.

 

[intrinsic]

sadly one drafter wont be in touch and there is no one left in the office to take his spot. he is actually the least knowledgable on FF. He knows the NFL but not FF, so i think it would be in his favor if we draft for him and this is what irks me. (although i dont feel he is doing it on purpose, he mentioned something about picking a brother in law up from hospital and this guy wouldnt lie)

So i think i will require him to provide a preranked list and then tell us how we should fill his positions with the highest ranked player according to his preranks.

 

[Fantasy Girl]

We have had to do this a few times. If someone who is already in the league is willing, have them draft 2 teams. (Not knowing which team they will end up with at the end) After the draft is over flip a coin to see who gets which team. It would suck though if the person drafting has a lot more knowledge than the person they are drafting for.

 

[DLeo]

best you can do is get him via cell and tell him who is gone..and who he wants

 

[chief of staff]

in the league i run we require a list be submitted and then we pick someone in the league to draft for them who draft far away from them. Obviously if we can get the guy on the phone, that works out better for all involved. We almost always have one guy who can't make it (he's a doctor) and in the past we've run it successfully with three guys out.

it can be done. it depends on how far you're willing to go to accomodate the absentee owner. but you don't have to go far to make it work

 

[NinerK]

12 team league...about half attend in person. The others are in Philly and Chicago, so we open a chat room w/ a phone backup. I have convinced one of my friends who is not in the league yet to run the chat room for me (I'm the commish) so that I can focus on keeping things running smoothly. We have done this the past few years and have had no problems.Also...this year we have a guy who can't attend live because he will be at a Pirates/Phillies game at PNC park this Sunday...he is going to use the city's wireless and draft from the game. I look forward to this, because I told the people he's at the game with to keep buying him beers...

Missing the draft for a Pirates home game? 2 years ago an owner missed the draft cause he was at the A's (home) /Yankees game. It was a big game cause they had faced each other in the playoffs the prior 2-3 years. But he still gets killed at the draft for that one. Pirates/Phillies? Really? We almost kicked the owner out for the A's/Yankees game, he woulda been kicked out for sure if he missed the draft for a Pirates/Phillies game.

 

[4 - Digit Shark]

12 team league...about half attend in person. The others are in Philly and Chicago, so we open a chat room w/ a phone backup. I have convinced one of my friends who is not in the league yet to run the chat room for me (I'm the commish) so that I can focus on keeping things running smoothly. We have done this the past few years and have had no problems.Also...this year we have a guy who can't attend live because he will be at a Pirates/Phillies game at PNC park this Sunday...he is going to use the city's wireless and draft from the game. I look forward to this, because I told the people he's at the game with to keep buying him beers...

Missing the draft for a Pirates home game? 2 years ago an owner missed the draft cause he was at the A's (home) /Yankees game. It was a big game cause they had faced each other in the playoffs the prior 2-3 years. But he still gets killed at the draft for that one. Pirates/Phillies? Really? We almost kicked the owner out for the A's/Yankees game, he woulda been kicked out for sure if he missed the draft for a Pirates/Phillies game.

I'd rather attend a WNBA fantasy draft then a Pirates game. That owner should be gone for good.If you live near the live draft location, and are not attending a family emergency, you should be at the draft. If a meaningless MLB game is more important then your leagues draft, you should get out of the league. We had the same owner no show for about 2 - 3 years, but he always sent some real clueless fill-ins to draft for him. He never did good when he showed, so it really didn't hurt his team when he was not there. He finally gave uo his spot last year.

 

[JaxBill]

Kinda the opposite here. We normally always draft in person. We have two folks who are traveling for business and can't make the draft. We're drafting in a bar with wireless. The commish is going to enter the in-person picks on MFL's draft room and the other two will draft online. So instead of an in-person draft, we're doing an online draft with most of the owners together.

 

[jbz]

sadly one drafter wont be in touch and there is no one left in the office to take his spot. he is actually the least knowledgable on FF. He knows the NFL but not FF, so i think it would be in his favor if we draft for him and this is what irks me. (although i dont feel he is doing it on purpose, he mentioned something about picking a brother in law up from hospital and this guy wouldnt lie)So i think i will require him to provide a preranked list and then tell us how we should fill his positions with the highest ranked player according to his preranks.

that'd be the best then. he should make a list of each position, then have a list that says 1st round - RB 2nd round - RB 3rd round - WR or QB if so and so is there and what not.

 

[ryankj]

My dad's keeper league is today and one of the members can't make it to my house. He's sending along a cheat sheet for me to use and I'll be drafting in his place.

 

[code]

We always draft live in person and unfortunately every year we've had 1 owner who couldn't attend...in the first year we had the owner provide a draft list and let our draft mistress track available players and make his picks...the second year the absent owner had just quit the league so we drafted based on prior years scoring with everyone tracking his picks...this year, finally, we got it right and used MyFantasyLeague's My Draft List and My Draft Preferences features so the owner could define his picks and position preferences per round...just finished the draft today and it was fantastic...

 

[intrinsic]

Hey guys, any advice for finding a list of preranked players? Im only now discovering that you cant print Yahoos top 500 pre ranked players, or atleast it seems that way...

Any help would be greatly appreciated. It doesnt heven have to be Yahoo's list, just a list of preranked players would be really helpful.

Thanks in advance.

 

[SKIDMARK]

We've had 1 owner not present for quite a few years now. This year we are going to do his by live draft over the net. The commish will have to be in the draftroom with this one owner. The commish will obviously have to enter the picks of the other owners who are present. Has anyone ever tried this and is it better than the telephone?

 

[cjack]

Last few years, we have had 2 or 3 people not able to attend in person, because they live in faraway places. In earlier years, we would do it via phone and that worked okay, but it does take a while since you're recapping each pick.

Last year, we moved to chat room, and that worked very smoothly. Everything is recapped in one place and the 3 absentee owners could keep track of everything.

This year, we're going to take advantage of CBSSportsline's on-line draft. As commish, I'll designate someone to enter all of the picks for people at the draft on the website and the 3 absentee owners will enter their own. There's also a chat feature on the CBS Draft room page, so you can chat and make comments as necessary.

The only concern I have with this, not having done it before, is whether the draft room site will be really slow or crash since we're doing it this Saturday, when I expect a lot of other people to use it as well. Worst case scenario, we set up an AOL chat as a back-up. It works fine.

Personally, I wouldn't participate in a draft if I had to have someone select off of a rankings sheet. Totally ignores the dynamics of the draft. That owner will not be happy with his team. And, yes we did this years ago, didn't work well at all.

 

[heckmanm]

We're in a similar situation this year with one (and maybe 2) owners. One will have a new baby at home (plus a 2-year-old), and I guess wants to have sex again sometime in his life, so is staying at home to help the wife. Another was admitted to the hospital today; don't know if he'll be out and able to attend.

For guy #1, we're going to try and find a surrogate who can be in chat with him, relaying the picks. For guy #2, if he can't be there, hopefully he'll be well enough to be online and do the same.

Our website (Synsport) has "live draft" capability this year, but it's brand-new and we don't know if we want to trust it yet. We're also considering a speakerphone as a last resort.

 

[intrinsic]

Hey guys, any advice for finding a list of preranked players? Im only now discovering that you cant print Yahoos top 500 pre ranked players, or atleast it seems that way...Any help would be greatly appreciated. It doesnt heven have to be Yahoo's list, just a list of preranked players would be really helpful.Thanks in advance.

anyone?

 

[delusional]

Few ways already mentioned work

Over the phone.

Have him get someone to draft for him

pre draft list

phone works out though, grab a head set for a cell phone and just have him on the phone the hole time, this way he can hear who is being taken, etc etc

 

[intrinsic]

does anyone ever read the end of a thread anymore? haha

Anyone help with a location of a list of pre rank players?

 

[Doovz]

Kinda the opposite here. We normally always draft in person. We have two folks who are traveling for business and can't make the draft. We're drafting in a bar with wireless. The commish is going to enter the in-person picks on MFL's draft room and the other two will draft online. So instead of an in-person draft, we're doing an online draft with most of the owners together.

Ditto here. Using RTS live draft function. Drafting at a lounge with Wi-Fi. I am the commish and am going to put in the picks for everyone manually as they go. The other person is travelling in Europe and is going to be doing it there. As long as the connection is ok it should go quick. When it gets to him his timer starts. He can see everyone that is picked and even enter his own list into RTS or use their ranking. It crosses off the picks chosen. The good aprt is I don’t have to go home after and enter all the teams picks either. I t will update as I go.

 

[knuckles]

Check out btfsports.com. Their software also does snake drafts. All you would have to buy is the player updates for about $15. You can have up to 4 people draft remotely with high speed internet. If a couple of guys can not make it, just connect the computer to the internet and they will see the same draft board you are looking at. They have a chat screen, so when it is their turn to draft, not a problem.