What Is The Commissioner's Role In Organizing A Fantasy Football League
The Commissioner’s Role in Organizing a Fantasy Football League
Brent Collinson
Peirce College
Author Note This paper was prepared for Production and Operations Analysis, MGT 204, taught by Professor Len DeBona
Fantasy Football and the Commissioner
Can 35 Million people be wrong? That’s currently how many people are enjoying one of our nation’s most popular hobbies. Fantasy Football has grown exponentially from a New York hotel room to the money making machine it is today.
“At its most basic, fantasy football is a game in which football fans use their knowledge of the sport to compete against each other in formats that relate to the actual performance of professional football teams. The goal of the fantasy player is to select which athletes or teams will have the most impressive performances during a given week.” (Hunt, 1998)
You may be asking yourself how does a fantasy football league get started and how does it run smoothly throughout the season? …show more content…
There is a commissioner for every fantasy league. The league commissioner is essentially the operations manager of his/her fantasy league. “The duties and responsibilities of the league commissioner are numerous and important to the successful completion of your season. The single-most important component to any fantasy league is the commissioner” (Lewin, 2010).
League Inception
When a commissioner decides to create a fantasy football league, he needs to find other people to join. There can be anywhere from 8 to 14 members in any given league. The most common format is a 12-team league. This means the commission has to find 11 other owners to take part in the league. Most fantasy football leagues are comprised of friends, family, or coworkers. This is a great place for the commissioner to begin his search. A good commissioner must remember “the owners you choose for your fantasy football league will reflect your league as a whole. Choosing dedicated and responsible owners early in your fantasy league 's existence will go a long way toward creating league unity, encouraging active participation, and retaining your sanity” (Perniciaro, 2013).
It is important to try and create the league early, possibly months before the NFL season starts, to get ahead on finding people to join. This will avoid the commissioner from clambering around and trying to get owners at the last minute. After getting commitment from all owners, the league rules must be established.
Rules and Scoring
Making the league rules is an integral part of being league commissioner. There are many different types of leagues and scoring systems a commissioner can choose from, and he must have all of these rules in place before the fantasy draft (which we will cover a little later). The commissioner must decide whether to create a redraft or keeper league. A redraft league is when all of the NFL players are redrafted every year, and a keeper league is when some of the NFL players are kept on each owner’s roster every year. These are two most popular types of leagues. The most popular scoring systems are the standard scoring and point-per-reception scoring (PPR) league. The standard scoring league puts the emphasis on touchdowns scored and yardage gained, while a PPR league also gives a point per reception for wide receiver and running backs. When the league rules and format are in place, it is time to start planning for the fantasy football draft.
Draft
Just before the start of the NFL’s regular season, the commissioner must organize and coordinate for all league members to participate in the draft. This is no easy task, since it is very difficult to get twelve people together, for six hours, because of everyone’s busy schedules. It may take a couple weeks for the commissioner to get everyone to agree on a time and place for the event. All members get together at the predetermined location to officially start the fantasy season.
The fantasy draft is very similar to the one the NFL has in Radio City Music Hall, in New York City. In the NFL, each team selects a player that they think will be the most productive for their team. Each member of a fantasy league does the same, after the commissioner reveals the draft order. The commissioner will randomly select names from a hat to establish the draft order. If there are 12 members, the picks go 1 to 12 and then 12 to 1. So the person with the first pick does not pick again till the 24th pick. This draft style is known as snake drafting, and its intent is to make it as competitive and as fair as possible. The draft runs about 15 rounds depending on the desired number of players from the commissioner.
Once the draft is complete, the commissioner must manually enter each team’s players into the fantasy website so it can track and compute all of the scores. He must them determine the divisions and schedule for all of the 12 teams to follow, during the season.
When the regular NFL season begins, that’s when the fun starts. Every week you play another member of your fantasy league, based on the commissioner’s schedule, and submit your starting lineup to play your best players vs. their best players. Your main goal is for your team to score more points than your opponents team to get a victory for that week. Your players receive points for a number of different reasons. They get points for yardage acquired, receptions, and touchdowns scored. Just like in the NFL, wins and losses are the most important stat. The more wins you acquire determine whether you qualify for the playoffs. You can only win the award money if you are a playoff team.
Winnings/Awards
The winnings can vary from league to league depending on how much money the commissioner decides to set the entry fee at.
I have been in leagues where the commissioner has set a $500 dollar entry fee, and 1st place takes home $5000. The more common/casual commissioner would probably set the entry fee at $100, and you could win $1000 for 1st prize. Guess who is in charge of collecting the money from each league member?
Unfortunately, this award money does not collect itself, so the league commissioner must be diligent in his efforts to collect this money from each league member. This is a very tedious task, because many league members promise to pay at a later date. When these owners realize they are not going to win any awards, because their team is not producing like expected, it becomes increasingly difficult to collect their entry fee. Commissioners have to sometimes harass members with annoying phone call, text-messages, and e-mails.
Fantasy Business
Evolution
The evolution and landscape of the game itself has come a long way. Today we can get up to the minute stats on our televisions, cell phones, and computers. “A worldwide network of computers made it possible to automatically aggregate sports statistics and instantaneously distribute them around the globe” (Clapham, 2012). Back before computers, leagues had to calculate the weekly statistics to fantasy points on their own. To call this an arduous assignment would be an understatement. The league commissioner would be responsible for this task. He would have to get a reputable source, like a newspaper and convert the stats to points by hand. This process was done one player at time and would take hours to complete. “We would have to get together every Sunday night and spend hours pouring over all the box scores and everything in USA TODAY from the whole week, so that we could update every team’s stats and try to keep up with it” (Clapham, 2012)
Fantasy Football is literally changing the way fans watch football. Before the explosion of fantasy football, you would be lucky if you were able to watch more than three games on cable on a Sunday Afternoon. Television networks would televise a game at 1pm that was usually your local team. At 4pm, you would have two other games on and, you would have to flip back and forth from game to game, likely missing a lot of action, in the process. This was until a company advantageously used positioning strategies to corner the market.
Positioning Strategies
Direct TV came out with “NFL Sunday Ticket,” in 1994, and it was groundbreaking at the time. It is an out-of-market sports package that broadcasted every game, every Sunday. Direct TV used Differentiation strategy to offer a service that was unique to the market, and they used Focus strategy to carve out a niche. “The package liberated fans from watching only the games being shown on local channels in their market” (Flint, 2014). The “Sunday Ticket” was an excellent play for DirecTV, as it gave the displaced NFL fan an alternative to watch their team in the comfort of their own home and not be forced to go to the sports bar. It also fueled growth for Direct TV, while many cable subscribers were switching to satellite to take advantage of the unique product. Two million of the broadcaster 's 20 million subscribers pay as much as $250 a month to receive the extra football programming. At the time, no one else offered such a thing.
Then, in 2009, the NFL partnered with Comcast and created the “NFL RedZone.” It is a channel that broadcasts, commercial free, on Sunday afternoons from 1 to 8pm only. It whips from game to game showing all of the touchdowns scored and all other important plays that are pertinent to fantasy football. They have the capability to show you all the important plays almost in real time and you can follow your players and their production. .” The NFL knew that they could use positioning strategies to be competitive with Direct TV’s Sunday Ticket. The RedZone significantly undercut Direct TV prices by charging customers only $10 per month. This secured the NFL’s Cost Leadership strategy. This channel is religion to avid fantasy football players like myself. It gives you the benefit of knowing all the up-to-the-minute progress of your players without having to change the channel. This was way different from Direct TV’s formatting. You could only watch one game at a time with the “Sunday Ticket”. For this reason, the NFL cemented a solid Differentiation Strategy. They showed up to four games on the screen at the same time calling it a “quad-box.” Just recently they have upgraded to the “octo-box”. This is 8 games on the screen at the same time!
Works Cited
Clapham, Kyle. (2012). Fantasy Sports Becoming Big Business as Popularity Continues to Rise.
Medill Reports. Retrieved from http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=205473
Flint, Joe. (2014). NFL TV Package May Be Fair Game. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/01/business/la-fi-ct-nfl-sunday-ticket-20140101 Hunt, Matt. (1998). How Fantasy Football Works. HowStuffWorks Inc. Retrieved from http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/fantasy-football4.htm Lewin, Mark. (2010). Hail To The Commissioner. FantasySharks.com. Retrieved from http://www.fantasysharks.com/artman2/publish/Hail_To_The_Commissioner.htm Perniciaro, Brad. (2013). Fantasy Football League Recruitment. Cheat Sheet War Room.
Retrieved from http://www.cheatsheetwarroom.com/blog/post/fantasy-football-league-recruitment.aspx#.UvMgrRuPLDc
Brent Collinson
Peirce College
Author Note This paper was prepared for Production and Operations Analysis, MGT 204, taught by Professor Len DeBona
Fantasy Football and the Commissioner
Can 35 Million people be wrong? That’s currently how many people are enjoying one of our nation’s most popular hobbies. Fantasy Football has grown exponentially from a New York hotel room to the money making machine it is today.
“At its most basic, fantasy football is a game in which football fans use their knowledge of the sport to compete against each other in formats that relate to the actual performance of professional football teams. The goal of the fantasy player is to select which athletes or teams will have the most impressive performances during a given week.” (Hunt, 1998)
You may be asking yourself how does a fantasy football league get started and how does it run smoothly throughout the season? …show more content…
There is a commissioner for every fantasy league. The league commissioner is essentially the operations manager of his/her fantasy league. “The duties and responsibilities of the league commissioner are numerous and important to the successful completion of your season. The single-most important component to any fantasy league is the commissioner” (Lewin, 2010).
League Inception
When a commissioner decides to create a fantasy football league, he needs to find other people to join. There can be anywhere from 8 to 14 members in any given league. The most common format is a 12-team league. This means the commission has to find 11 other owners to take part in the league. Most fantasy football leagues are comprised of friends, family, or coworkers. This is a great place for the commissioner to begin his search. A good commissioner must remember “the owners you choose for your fantasy football league will reflect your league as a whole. Choosing dedicated and responsible owners early in your fantasy league 's existence will go a long way toward creating league unity, encouraging active participation, and retaining your sanity” (Perniciaro, 2013).
It is important to try and create the league early, possibly months before the NFL season starts, to get ahead on finding people to join. This will avoid the commissioner from clambering around and trying to get owners at the last minute. After getting commitment from all owners, the league rules must be established.
Rules and Scoring
Making the league rules is an integral part of being league commissioner. There are many different types of leagues and scoring systems a commissioner can choose from, and he must have all of these rules in place before the fantasy draft (which we will cover a little later). The commissioner must decide whether to create a redraft or keeper league. A redraft league is when all of the NFL players are redrafted every year, and a keeper league is when some of the NFL players are kept on each owner’s roster every year. These are two most popular types of leagues. The most popular scoring systems are the standard scoring and point-per-reception scoring (PPR) league. The standard scoring league puts the emphasis on touchdowns scored and yardage gained, while a PPR league also gives a point per reception for wide receiver and running backs. When the league rules and format are in place, it is time to start planning for the fantasy football draft.
Draft
Just before the start of the NFL’s regular season, the commissioner must organize and coordinate for all league members to participate in the draft. This is no easy task, since it is very difficult to get twelve people together, for six hours, because of everyone’s busy schedules. It may take a couple weeks for the commissioner to get everyone to agree on a time and place for the event. All members get together at the predetermined location to officially start the fantasy season.
The fantasy draft is very similar to the one the NFL has in Radio City Music Hall, in New York City. In the NFL, each team selects a player that they think will be the most productive for their team. Each member of a fantasy league does the same, after the commissioner reveals the draft order. The commissioner will randomly select names from a hat to establish the draft order. If there are 12 members, the picks go 1 to 12 and then 12 to 1. So the person with the first pick does not pick again till the 24th pick. This draft style is known as snake drafting, and its intent is to make it as competitive and as fair as possible. The draft runs about 15 rounds depending on the desired number of players from the commissioner.
Once the draft is complete, the commissioner must manually enter each team’s players into the fantasy website so it can track and compute all of the scores. He must them determine the divisions and schedule for all of the 12 teams to follow, during the season.
When the regular NFL season begins, that’s when the fun starts. Every week you play another member of your fantasy league, based on the commissioner’s schedule, and submit your starting lineup to play your best players vs. their best players. Your main goal is for your team to score more points than your opponents team to get a victory for that week. Your players receive points for a number of different reasons. They get points for yardage acquired, receptions, and touchdowns scored. Just like in the NFL, wins and losses are the most important stat. The more wins you acquire determine whether you qualify for the playoffs. You can only win the award money if you are a playoff team.
Winnings/Awards
The winnings can vary from league to league depending on how much money the commissioner decides to set the entry fee at.
I have been in leagues where the commissioner has set a $500 dollar entry fee, and 1st place takes home $5000. The more common/casual commissioner would probably set the entry fee at $100, and you could win $1000 for 1st prize. Guess who is in charge of collecting the money from each league member?
Unfortunately, this award money does not collect itself, so the league commissioner must be diligent in his efforts to collect this money from each league member. This is a very tedious task, because many league members promise to pay at a later date. When these owners realize they are not going to win any awards, because their team is not producing like expected, it becomes increasingly difficult to collect their entry fee. Commissioners have to sometimes harass members with annoying phone call, text-messages, and e-mails.
Fantasy Business
Evolution
The evolution and landscape of the game itself has come a long way. Today we can get up to the minute stats on our televisions, cell phones, and computers. “A worldwide network of computers made it possible to automatically aggregate sports statistics and instantaneously distribute them around the globe” (Clapham, 2012). Back before computers, leagues had to calculate the weekly statistics to fantasy points on their own. To call this an arduous assignment would be an understatement. The league commissioner would be responsible for this task. He would have to get a reputable source, like a newspaper and convert the stats to points by hand. This process was done one player at time and would take hours to complete. “We would have to get together every Sunday night and spend hours pouring over all the box scores and everything in USA TODAY from the whole week, so that we could update every team’s stats and try to keep up with it” (Clapham, 2012)
Fantasy Football is literally changing the way fans watch football. Before the explosion of fantasy football, you would be lucky if you were able to watch more than three games on cable on a Sunday Afternoon. Television networks would televise a game at 1pm that was usually your local team. At 4pm, you would have two other games on and, you would have to flip back and forth from game to game, likely missing a lot of action, in the process. This was until a company advantageously used positioning strategies to corner the market.
Positioning Strategies
Direct TV came out with “NFL Sunday Ticket,” in 1994, and it was groundbreaking at the time. It is an out-of-market sports package that broadcasted every game, every Sunday. Direct TV used Differentiation strategy to offer a service that was unique to the market, and they used Focus strategy to carve out a niche. “The package liberated fans from watching only the games being shown on local channels in their market” (Flint, 2014). The “Sunday Ticket” was an excellent play for DirecTV, as it gave the displaced NFL fan an alternative to watch their team in the comfort of their own home and not be forced to go to the sports bar. It also fueled growth for Direct TV, while many cable subscribers were switching to satellite to take advantage of the unique product. Two million of the broadcaster 's 20 million subscribers pay as much as $250 a month to receive the extra football programming. At the time, no one else offered such a thing.
Then, in 2009, the NFL partnered with Comcast and created the “NFL RedZone.” It is a channel that broadcasts, commercial free, on Sunday afternoons from 1 to 8pm only. It whips from game to game showing all of the touchdowns scored and all other important plays that are pertinent to fantasy football. They have the capability to show you all the important plays almost in real time and you can follow your players and their production. .” The NFL knew that they could use positioning strategies to be competitive with Direct TV’s Sunday Ticket. The RedZone significantly undercut Direct TV prices by charging customers only $10 per month. This secured the NFL’s Cost Leadership strategy. This channel is religion to avid fantasy football players like myself. It gives you the benefit of knowing all the up-to-the-minute progress of your players without having to change the channel. This was way different from Direct TV’s formatting. You could only watch one game at a time with the “Sunday Ticket”. For this reason, the NFL cemented a solid Differentiation Strategy. They showed up to four games on the screen at the same time calling it a “quad-box.” Just recently they have upgraded to the “octo-box”. This is 8 games on the screen at the same time!
Works Cited
Clapham, Kyle. (2012). Fantasy Sports Becoming Big Business as Popularity Continues to Rise.
Medill Reports. Retrieved from http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=205473
Flint, Joe. (2014). NFL TV Package May Be Fair Game. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/01/business/la-fi-ct-nfl-sunday-ticket-20140101 Hunt, Matt. (1998). How Fantasy Football Works. HowStuffWorks Inc. Retrieved from http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/fantasy-football4.htm Lewin, Mark. (2010). Hail To The Commissioner. FantasySharks.com. Retrieved from http://www.fantasysharks.com/artman2/publish/Hail_To_The_Commissioner.htm Perniciaro, Brad. (2013). Fantasy Football League Recruitment. Cheat Sheet War Room.
Retrieved from http://www.cheatsheetwarroom.com/blog/post/fantasy-football-league-recruitment.aspx#.UvMgrRuPLDc