Trading Equity in Fantasy Winnings (1 Viewer)

I know there's been many topics in the past around championship weekend regarding teams splitting the championship pot to mitigate risk. Some people agree, some don't.

It got me thinking this morning whether it would be ethical to trade an equity stake in your fantasy team's potential winnings earlier in the season.

This is actually a practice that occurs in business. Companies might trade assets and in turn equally trade equity stakes in each others company to diversify and mitigate risk, and also play on each others potential upside.

Fantasy Example:

Team A is undefeated after 2-3 weeks but there QB is their weakest point (RG3, Brady, etc), but the rest of their team and their depth is on fire.

Team B has zero wins and needs help everywhere, but has a top QB (Brees, Manning) and a very serviceable backup (Wilson, Cutler, etc).

Team A trades a solid RB and a solid WR to team B for Brees. In turn, they also trade a 25% equity stake in each others potential winnings. If team A were to win it all and the pot for 1st was $1000, he would give $250 to team B. Same goes for Team B.

Team A sweetens the pot for Team B, while still having the outside chance that if his two players he traded bring Team B into contention, he's got a side bet at winning a portion of money.

The biggest question would be regarding whether this is collusion, or just a smart way of getting more skin in the game and improving your team?

It's collusion and it's not ethical. NOTHING outside of players should be included in any fantasy trades. Your example was probably one of the more reasonable examples. Now take the other extreme.

Team A is 6-0

Team B is 0-6

Team B gives up all his studs for garbage and 40% stake of the winnings.

How is that fair to the rest of the league?

I think you just attempted to justify collusion. With all due respect--the world of business is not an equal playing field. There are mom and pop restaurants that are trying to compete with multi-billion dollar corporations. The fantasy football world is different---same entry fee for every owner in a league. The only thing that should separate winners from losers is an owners knowledge of players and their values and sheer luck. Side deals with other owners to effect the competitive balance of a league are collusion--no matter how eloquently one wants to state it.

Yep. You are selling players. And that is just wrong and will destroy a league.

They have a word for that. It's called collusion.

Just a lesser version of "hey let's just combine all our good players on one team and then split the winnings.

Collusion.

It's not even a question.

Craig_MiamiFL said:

Collusion.

It's not even a question.

Click to expand...

Yup. Owners should not be interested in improving teams other than their own.

Collusion.