For many years McBear (Douglas Hay) and myself - bluelionman (Noel Symonds) ran a live offline Premier League Football drafting game in a local pub to us. Over the years the numbers dwindled to finally last year I decided to switch to an online format as I was not getting the numbers offline. I doubled the entry fee from £25 to £50 and got 9 paid teams in last year. The site we used wasn’t perfect and cost £5 a team. However this year there are more and more sites popping up offering a draft type Premier League fantasy football game experience. One of the guys from my league last year pointed one out to me that is free to play so have decided to give them ago for this season instead of RFF. They also offer two types of leagues - Classic (snake draft) and Auction Draft. For this reason I have decided to try and run both types of leagues as couldn’t decide which one was better. I have decided to go back to the original entry fee of £25 per team in each league - that way anyone from last year who joins both leagues is only paying the same as they did last year - and hoping those who felt £50 was to much last year can just decide to join one or the other league this year at the cheaper price of £25. I am hoping if both leagues can attract the maximum number of teams - 16 - then the prize pot total will be the same as my £50 league was last year. However both leagues will run regardless of numbers that sign up - it will start at the times advertised regardless of how many teams we have. The game site even allows for an odd number of teams to if that happens.
I will decide the prizes after I know how much we have to play with - so most likely between the draft and the start of the actual season - but I learned a lesson last year that it wasn’t very fair on the regular season leader getting knocked out first round of the playoffs and picking up diddly squat when had it not been a play-off style league he would of walked it (& then some) points wise.
So for this reason I plan to have a regular season prize of some kind - hopefully at least equal to the entry fee if not more. I plan both leagues to finish with play-offs - again as this is a new site to me am not sure if its fixed at just top 4 go into play-offs or this can be adjusted (I don’t think it can) but what ever site allows think will stick with that unless we get a full 16 team league and then if it allows might adjust this to more teams.
Any way as time is short and times will not suit everyone have decided to pick 2 separate weekend days for both leagues - you can auto draft by setting up a rank list but far more fun to live draft. Am hoping at least one of the days will suit you and you sign up - however each league can only have a maximum of 16 teams so as I am already in both leagues it’s the first 15 others to sign up in each league who are in.
I would kindly ask that everyone pays as soon as they join and before the draft takes place please.
Contact me by PM here on TFP to discuss best way to pay entry fees (should you be new to my games or not played any for a while).
So please check out all the info for this game site here:
Only thing I’m not keen on is the “Kante Points” rule. For the uninitiated it is described in the website like this:
If the league uses this rule, players receive:
1 bonus point for every combination of 4 tackles won and/ or interceptions the player makes in a match.
1 bonus point for every 4 recoveries the player makes in a match. Goalkeepers do not receive recovery points.
Seems to me like we are entering the murky world of invisible stats, giving points for achievements that don’t show up on a scoreboard or in a match report and can’t be seen by watching the highlights on Match Of The Day.
I’d wager that most people who have watched a full 90 minute match couldn’t tell you how many Kante points each player had scored, and the joy of winning a fantasy match up with a last minute “recovery” in the final match of that Gameweek seems a little hollow. In my opinion if rule isn’t easy to follow with the naked eye and you can’t say at any one moment how close you are to getting a point for it then it shouldn’t be used.
On recoveries, a quick check on the official Premier League website gives last seasons player statistics for tackles and interceptions, but recoveries are nowhere to be seen. So I’m picking blind, attempting to guess which players will score highly in a metric that I had to google the very definition of this morning, with no previous season data whatsoever to help me and hoping to gain points from perhaps the least exciting passage of play in the sport itself - a player taking control of a loose ball.
I’m not particularly enthusiastic about sitting there as the scores come in on a Saturday praying for an injury time tackle / interception / recovery to win me the game.
Separate to the Kante Points option is the Bonus Points system that seems to be a halfway house, essentially rewarding the Opta stats based Man of The Match with 3 points, runner up with 2 points and 3rd with 1 point. Personally I believe that the average viewer of a Premier League game would have a fair chance of working out who would be the contenders for MoTM and this could often be seen to at least some degree in a highlights show. Also it should be clear to somebody reading a match report which players played well and who is likely to recieve these bonus MoTM points in future.
This Bonus Points system gets my vote and can reward defensive midfielders too. I’d imagine Kante himself would pick up a few of these bonus points fairy regularly, but as you can tell I’m not a fan of the rule that shares his name!
You make valid points - happy to turn that rule off. I didn’t know which way to go myself so as was a new site just went with everything they offered as didn’t have a clue how it would pan out and thought it would be same for all of us.
I’m a bit perturbed to why so few sign ups - is it the draft date/times people don’t like?
Nothing will ever suit every one - Chris said he’s totally lost his love for football so that’s why he’s not returning but no indications from others who played last season - also I thought dropping cost would encourage more players not less.
This is why I tend not to get on to the NFL leagues till after Premier League has kicked off as I really need to spend all the time trying to drum up more interest - if my cricket leagues where anything to go by I’ve lost my mojo as they were my worst supported leagues that I can recall entry pool wise ever - just half a dozen teams in each (county and T20).
I ask everyone please spread the word and tell ya friends, work mates etc. the joy (and frustration) of partaking in fantasy sports money leagues.
I let you know my issues last year. I led the league for all year (38 weeks) finished with the most wins and scored the most points and went into the playoffs with a distinct disadvantage and lost £50 on the year.
It left a bitter taste if I’m honest. That’s why I’m reluctant to join mate.
Hi Noel - apologies, three issues for me.
Firstly in general I am committed to several NFL fantasy leagues over the next month (organising two and playing in two more), and with my new job meaning a commute into London I am not really finding time to cover other sports without skimping on the leagues I am already in.
Secondly, this weekend I am at Sean’s draft day in Northampton, so will be busy Saturday and only due to get home mid afternoon Sunday. So these specific dates don’t work for me.
Thirdly, I have watched so much less soccer these last couple of years as this NFL group has taken off - last year I didn’t know half the players which was pretty embarrassing - if this was the only issue then I would still play in your league, but with the two issues above this one is just the icing on the cake
I have sent a mail to a few fantasy football liking friends to see if they are interested but I will be out for this season
Yeah - I get that Alan, the previous site did have some weird rules with the way it did the play offs - double game weeks for some and not others, as for ending with a play-offs that’s like NFL league and yes you were statisticly the best team all season and hence why I certainly want a prize going forward for the leader (#1 seed) going into the play-offs from now on as that really wasn’t fair. However if we had not had a play-off format league would of been a dead rubber from about Xmas - good for your pocket but no interest for rest of league by turn of the year - at least with a play-offs the league is live till the very last week for at least 2 teams and week before that 4 teams.
My fault there - I should of checked the Beast draft date and that’s on me - totally - I rushed forward the draft dates to this weekend as the Premier League are copying the Championship and kicking off on a Friday meaning this is the last weekend before the Premier League season starts - so my idea of a Friday Night and Saturday Morning draft a week later went out the window. Your other reasons are valid as trying to keep my hand in with the other sports I like mainly cricket and soccer is hurting me time wise with regards NFL so I understand that all to well.
Yeah the beast draft date means I couldnt have played anyway mate. Hope it goes well. Yeah a prize for the playoffs and league winners as it’s a much longer season than the NFL makes sense
DFF’S draft room imho was a shocker - the live draft was over in 15mins - many managers I don’t think were there and I myself found the room unusable - so for those reasons I have made an executive decision to void that draft and cancel this game. I don’t make this decision lightly and it’s not because I ended up with a team I don’t like - it’s the fact these games are meant to be fun and that was not fun at all and not a real competition when players could not pick who they really wanted - I know I couldn’t so I got auto-ed most the way and think it was same for nearly all of us - hence whole draft being over in under a quarter of an hour.
Players will be refunded fully - however I ask if your still interested in a draft Premier League game to wait on that (save monies crossing) in case you wish to do the replacement as I will look to set up one for a late evening draft before season starts - most likely using FPL’s new game. Naturally you are not obligated to join and can have a full refund on any monies paid for these two leagues. Just PM or e-mail me.
Hi guys I wasn’t able to do the live draft so set up my own list and set it to Autopick. Iv got another draft going on using the same site later on tonight so I’d really appreciate hearing what you think went wrong with this draft and if anything I can do to improve mine later
For sure increase the pick time - 30 seconds just wasn’t long enough - if site lets you practice try it as I found the room horrible and didn’t seem to work for me - especially regards filtering players. I don’t think many can give you feed back as only ones I saw in there were Andy Smith and Daniel Nichols I think.
