Late-Season Participation

A game isn’t fun to play if there is no chance of winning when the gameplay is only half over.  People will rightfully think it’s a waste of their time.  It is an increasing problem in the NFL as television ratings and game attendance numbers are depressed for teams who are not putting a competitive product out on the field.  In fantasy football, I see the job of the Commissioner as partially being responsible for maximizing the fun for ALL participants.  That means spending some time and effort in creating things for the worse teams to keep their interest and activity in the later portions of the season.

All dynasty and/or keeper leagues have some built-in incentive for looking for players that will be roster-worthy for future seasons.  The problem for leagues with rookie drafts, and for which the rookie draft order is based on prior season results, is the incentive for tanking.  There is really no easy way around it.  I have been in leagues that banned and penalized tanking, and in leagues that embraced tanking.  I have concluded that a) tanking is bad; and b) there is no perfect method of preventing it. 

I have settled on the top picks not being solely determined by reverse league standings as the best method of disincentivizing tanking.  Instead of doing an NBA-style lottery for the top picks, I like the idea of having a postseason tournament in which the winner(s) get the top pick(s).  I then use average weekly potential points (the number of points a team would have scored if they had submitted their best possible starting lineup) to calculate a bonus to the worse teams.  For example, if Team A averaged 90 potential points per week in the regular season and Team B averaged 95, then Team A would get a 5 point bonus to their score, thus creating an “even playing field” for their matchup, and then the winner of their game advances.  This does a number of things.  First off, by using potential points instead of actual points scored in determining the postseason bonus, there’s no reason for them to not submit their best starting lineup, as there is no incentive for them not to, and it’s fun to win games, especially in the role of spoiler against the supposed “better” teams.  Secondly, it incentivizes team owners continuing to improve their roster in order for them to advance in the postseason tournament and earn the better rookie pick(s).  However, depending on the availability of good free agents, it could disincentivize improving the team roster until the regular season concludes, thus minimizing their potential points and maximizing their postseason bonus.  Therefore, I recommend making a maximum bonus amount to weaken that temptation.

An easy method of promoting late season activity is setting aside prize money for awards that even the worse teams can attain if they keep working on improving their roster.  Maybe have a prize for the highest score in a given week, or for the highest scoring team each week, or over the second half of the season.  You can even assign prizes for other things not related to fantasy points, such as “Best Owner Written Article in the Month of December.”  Be creative.  But address this problem.