Fantasy Football League Design, Ideas and Philosophies Thereof

What follows is a series of articles that explore my various thoughts regarding setting up a complex fantasy football league.  This is not intended for the casual player.  Instead, this is for the true degenerates out there.  I, personally, favor salary cap leagues, but I will address all types of leagues that are available.  And before I even get into the nitty gritty details, I should explain why my opinion is worth your consideration.  If you just want to skip into my thoughts, click on the links here. 

My name is Ryan Early, and in addition to playing fantasy football ("FF") since 1988 (yes, that's not a typo and yes, I'm old), I was also a sportswriter for a period of 7 years, including 3 years working for ESPN as a "pro football analyst" for their ESPN Insider pay site.  I have been a FF league commissioner since the first year I began playing and convinced my then-fellow high school classmates to try this crazy game out.  I have played in, set-up, and acted as commissioner for redraft leagues, auction leagues, keeper leagues, best ball leagues, dynasty leagues, and salary cap leagues.  Basically, every type except daily.  Back in the mid '90s, I decided to make a go of writing about fantasy football as my full-time occupation.  I saved up some money, rented a room from a friend, and wrote about football.  At the same time, I started my first complex salary cap league.  The first article I received compensation for was about setting up that league ($5 plus a year's membership to the site that posted it. I don't think I'll ever be as excited for any other compensation in my life than I was for that first measly sum).  I did freelance work for about two years and then joined up with a brand new sports media start-up company called NFLtalk.com.

At that time, it seemed as if everyone was getting rich by starting new websites and selling out to large, established companies for millions, and that was our dream as well.  We shortly relaunched as Sportstalk.com (in order to cover other sports though I stayed focused exclusively on the NFL) and worked obsessively to grow the business.  After two years of 100-hour workweeks (not an exaggeration), we were getting more monthly traffic than long established media companies such as Sports Illustrated or The Sporting News.  The only problem was a recession was starting, the advertising revenue was drying up, and the internet startup bubble was bursting.  We had many heated debates about how to survive.  I was in favor of making us a pay site. I was overruled.  And we missed out on the timing.  By holding out for millions, we missed out on the chance to at least make several hundreds of thousands, and ended up declaring bankruptcy.  ESPN came along and bought us, but I think the final sales price was a six pack and a bag of Doritos.  On the plus side, a few of us got hired by ESPN, primarily so they could capture and monetize our loyal readers.  I worked at ESPN for 3 years, putting 2-3 articles a week up on the Insider page.  And then I got married and realized I needed more money in order to start a family, so went back to school to become a lawyer.   

You may recognize several people in the sports media industry who got their start at Sportstalk.  Mike Florio was a lawyer who wanted to be a sportswriter, and was one of our feature writers.  He made the cut in being hired at ESPN but after a year he left to start his own site called Profootballtalk.com.  He now appears on NBC’s Football Night in America as well as his own cable show.  Chad Ford stayed on at ESPN for over a dozen years as their NBA draft expert while also working as a professor at BYU-Hawaii.  Drew Lawrence has been a sportswriter at Sports Illustrated for many years, Mark Wimer is a long-time employee at Footballguys.com, and John Taylor is a sportswriter at collegefootballtalk.com.  So that’s me and my 15 minutes (or 7 years) of fame.  Those are my professional credentials as to why my opinion may be worth listening to.  Now granted, I am no longer a professional sports writer, or fantasy football writer.  I am now merely an enthusiast.  An obsessive enthusiast mind you (a degenerate), but if I had been a better sportswriter/analyst, I'd probably still be doing it, so take that with a grain of salt.  That being said, these articles are backed by 30 years of playing FF, in almost all its various formats, and this series of articles is my attempt to boil down all of those experiences into some hard won wisdom that others may find of benefit.