Question for Fellow Commishes (1 Viewer)

[bucki4life]

Team A is negotiating with teams B & C simultaneously for Tony Romo.

Team B accepts the trade offer at 7am this morning.

Team B then gets an email from Team A saying that "Team C had accepted their offer last night via email, but Team A hasn't checked his home email address yet to confirm."

The question has now been posed to the commissioner as to which trade is the valid one and what should be done?

Has anyone had this happen in their league before and how was it handled. We don't have anything in our rules specifically dealing with a situation like this.

 

[JohnnyU]

Nothing should be official until someone hits the accept button at the league hosting site. End of story.

 

[Road Warriors]

If trades are negotiated off the league site, then its up to Team A as to which he prefers ( although I expect he'd impact his future trade partners )

If trades are negotiated and accepted via the site, the 1st to accept wins.

It sounds like the former is true, where the offer is made and accepted outside of the league management software. FWIW, if this is the case, it should fall to Team A to figure out which accepted trade is valid, and the Commish should have no input, other than to process the agreed upon trade.

 

[LionsFan78]

Basically everything the guy above me said.

This is also an excellent example of why an "Acceptable Trade" section must be included in all League Bylaws. It sounds simple, but situations like these will always arise unless it's spelled out exactly how a trade must be accepted.

 

[Neil Beaufort Zod]

Basically everything the guy above me said.

This is also an excellent example of why an "Acceptable Trade" section must be included in all League Bylaws. It sounds simple, but situations like these will always arise unless it's spelled out exactly how a trade must be accepted.

I have to disagree. The solution to these things is fewer rules, not more. The more you try to cover every possibility, the sillier it gets. You have a phonebook-size rulebook for a game, nobody reads it, and it still doesn't cover everything. You drown yourslf in technicalities.Common sense should win the day. If team A screws over team B or C...too bad. That happens in business (and fake football games). They'll get theirs later. If the commish got a trade, then it's done. You can't change your mind and make another trade because you don't have the guy anymore. Team A can say whever he wants to whoever he wants, but until the commish gets notification (or the site shows a trade was offered and accepted) then there's no deal.

 

[GregR_2]

Nothing should be official until someone hits the accept button at the league hosting site. End of story.

If someone hits the accept button on the web site of a valid offer, the first acceptance is it.If you allow trades to be consumated outside of your website, then BOTH owners must independently confirm the trade to you including listing the parameters of the trade and having them match exactly.That means that both owners must initiate an email to you from their account, or must call you. I can't take an email from JohnnyU saying he agrees and forward it to you and say that is proof of both of us. I'm not allowed to speak for Johnny, including claiming his correspondences to someone other than the commish constitutes a valid transaction. JohnnyU and I must both send an email saying we agree to the trade.

 

[LionsFan78]

Basically everything the guy above me said.

This is also an excellent example of why an "Acceptable Trade" section must be included in all League Bylaws. It sounds simple, but situations like these will always arise unless it's spelled out exactly how a trade must be accepted.

I have to disagree. The solution to these things is fewer rules, not more. The more you try to cover every possibility, the sillier it gets. You have a phonebook-size rulebook for a game, nobody reads it, and it still doesn't cover everything. You drown yourslf in technicalities.Common sense should win the day. If team A screws over team B or C...too bad. That happens in business (and fake football games). They'll get theirs later. If the commish got a trade, then it's done. You can't change your mind and make another trade because you don't have the guy anymore. Team A can say whever he wants to whoever he wants, but until the commish gets notification (or the site shows a trade was offered and accepted) then there's no deal.

Don't get me wrong, I agree 100% that too many rules can be bad. But I've learned from personal experience that it's a good idea to have something on paper breaking out what constitutes an acceptable trade. It takes up approximately 1 single line on our league rules section, and leaves much less room for error IMO.

 

[yellowdog]

Why wouldn't team C just hit the accept button rather than sending an email?

 

[Liquid Tension]

If trades are negotiated off the league site, then its up to Team A as to which he prefers ( although I expect he'd impact his future trade partners )If trades are negotiated and accepted via the site, the 1st to accept wins. It sounds like the former is true, where the offer is made and accepted outside of the league management software. FWIW, if this is the case, it should fall to Team A to figure out which accepted trade is valid, and the Commish should have no input, other than to process the agreed upon trade.

If nothing is in the rules ...Team A chooses which deal he wants. the only change I would say is if team A said that the team that gets back to me first has a deal and then it is up to HIM not the commish to do what is right. if I were commish I would stay out of it, however, I would use this as a lesson to update your rules and also let everyone know what happened.