I’ve been a fantasy football league commissioner for 10 years now and have found that our fantasy draft is the most important day of the year.
(Before I go any further I must share the most important piece of advice you’ll ever receive as commissioner--DO NOT let your responsibilities as the Commish ruin your draft); it’s easy as the commissioner to lose sight of why you’re at this draft in the first place; to build a Championship team of your own! I know for a fact how hectic the draft can be, your trying to keep up with writing down the past five picks that were just rambled off, a couple of owners are shouting out a trade they just made, while another owner is bitching about something or other, the beverages are running low, and all of a sudden your on the clock. At this point, if your rules allow it, call for a short break, grab a cold beverage, write down the trade, get everybody else up to speed, take a deep breath, and then your ready to make a solid pick.
Draft day may be the only day of the year that you see some of the owners, hell it might be the only day you get to talk to one or two of them. It’s the day with the most work to do, the most information to collect, and is in general just the most difficult day to prepare for. This is the day that separates a quality commissioner from just another run of the mill commish.
The first thing you should do is create a list of items that you will need to give each owner at the draft. I have found the following items are both useful and the owners will think your “the man”.
- Updated Rosters—this of course is only useful for keeper and dynasty leagues
- Rules—especially helpful for new owners, also avoids any conflicts
- Transactions—providing a list of trades that have occurred during the off-season (this is likely only for Dynasty leagues)
- Owners info—a list of phone numbers, addresses, email, etc for each owner. I have found that even if nothing has changed since last season there will still be a handful of owners that find a way to lose this info since last year.
- Rule Change Ideas—this is a list of ideas your league may have collected throughout the year since your last draft with scoring change ideas, new rules, etc, that you plan to vote on.
- DRAFT ORDER—if there is only one sheet of paper you bring to the draft for each owner this would be it. If the commissioner shows up to the draft without this then it’s time to find a new commissioner!
I also supply a folder and pen for each owner with the following sheets: Accounting sheet—what each owner owes and has paid for the season. Bye Weeks—supplying a list of the NFL bye weeks is just something I do to be helpful, Rankings—I have a list of every weeks scoring from the past season(s), Player Rankings—just a list of every FFL player to score a point from the previous season, & League Records—if you keep track of league records, providing a list is just a nice little extra. These are not a necessity; I’m just a little anal I guess. Obviously you don’t NEED a lot of the above items, a lot of leagues won’t even find some of the above items relevant, but I have found as Commissioner it is better to be over prepared than vice versa. The last thing you want to do is show up to the draft without any beer, er; I mean the last thing you want to do is show up without your commish goodies.
The year before I became Commissioner, we had a Commissioner forget all of his stuff one year and it delayed our draft well over an hour, which of course just threw the whole day into a tailspin. All of a sudden the drinkers were an hour ahead on drinking, the perfectionists were having panic attacks, the studiers were 2nd and 3rd guessing all of their cheat sheets, and the laid back losers were ready to just take off. I know it’s cliche but be prepared.
Robb Perkins
|
