DISCORD Channel link: International League on DISCORD - chat room
Each of my leagues has their own dedicated room to discuss things about that particular league but there is a general chat area for anyone who partakes in any BLM fantasy games I run here:
BLM Fantasy Games general chat room on DISCORD
I welcome all who enjoy fantasy gaming to join - come build the community.
Keeper Deadline Date: Sun, Jul 27th @ 12:00 AM BST
Slow Draft Start Date: Tue, Jul 29th @ 12:00 AM BST
(Snake style draft - 24hrs per pick - may be shortened as season approaches if does not look like draft will complete in time for start of regular season)
Bold & Boxed text always means new for this season (to aide returning GM’s to quickly find internal rule changes or new rules).
In the International League each GM manages their real country. Your team’s name in the league must be your country spelt in (English and in) CAPITAL LETTERS (to bring some uniformity to the league). Also, your team logo/picture must be your countries current official flag as used by said countries national sports teams. Also, no fake names please or 1 letter initial - first name must be used - failure to comply will see you replaced. This is to make the league owners list have some uniformity.
I wish for serious players that won’t quit during the season as it’s national pride at stake. I am ENGLAND and going nowhere so pointless going on the waiting list for. All other current countries in the league can be seen above. If you qualify and are interested to go on the reserve/waiting list then post on this thread telling me which country or countries you qualify for (and wish to manage). To qualify you must be born in or have at least one parent from that country.
You will then go on the waiting list. As and when people are removed from the league due to the *strikes rule (*see later), or opt to leave, then the next person that meets the criteria on the waiting list will be invited to take over that place/team. It can and may be renamed to a completely new country depending on the new incoming owner.
Each team is able to keep 1 player from their previous seasons finishing team. If a keeper is kept, he will fill his draft round spot from the preceding season. If he was an undrafted player then he will fill the last round spot on your roster (Round 15). You do not have to keep a player in which case you will draft as normal each round in your designated position.
Furthermore, a keeper will count against your original pick in the applicable round (should you have more picks due to draft pick trading). If you no longer have your original pick for the round your keeper is due to be allocated to then he will take your next highest pick going upwards - so could be the same round (if you have traded for more draft picks in that round) or the next round(s) going upwards. If you don’t have any higher draft picks then you can not keep that particular player and I will override your keeper choice to ‘no keeper selected’ after the keeper lock deadline before the live draft takes place.
Long term keepers (that being players or team defences that were keepers the previous season) will increase their drafted round by 1 round regardless of whether they were your teams keeper or another teams keeper. Naturally Round 1 keepers just stay round 1 (for obvious reasons).
All other keepers just count as your rounds pick for the round they were drafted in the previous season regardless of team that drafted or kept them originally.
Due to a misinterpretation of the rules regarding keepers in another league of mine in a past season I felt I needed to try and make the Keeper rules more precise and offer clarification on how I apply them. If you are ever in doubt about how a rule will work or be applied please contact me - the best way is to message me on Discord but other ways are available.
My keeper rule was originally thought up to put some strategy and skill in to finding or lucking out with a rookie gem or player that fell way below their normal ADP (Average Draft Position) due to injury or suspension etc., the year you drafted them so that you could then keep them at great value for season after season with them just raising by +1 round a season if you continuously keep them. The rule is now clearer - if the player was a keeper the previous season regardless of which team kept them, they will bump up by 1 round draft pick wise if selected as a keeper again in consecutive seasons (even if being kept by a different team).
It is not about free agents you pick up during the season, but only completely undrafted players - so just those players that went undrafted in the previous seasons draft - that will count as last round selections under the keeper rule. All other players whether you drafted them or picked them up later in the season off the waiver wire, or traded for them it matters not. In all those circumstances their actual draft spot in the previous draft determines their keeper cost (the draft round they will be awarded against if being selected as your keeper). The rule is this way because it is something that is tangible and I can check because the last drafts results can always be accessed on Sleeper. So I am able to go back through every round and see when a player was drafted, in what round or if they were not drafted at all.
Another caveat is if you have traded away your original draft picks during the previous season (or prior to this seasons draft) and no longer have your original draft pick for the round a keeper you selected is due against then the keeper will go against the next highest pick you have going up from where your ORIGINAL PICK should be. If you don’t have a higher draft pick then you can not keep that player and I will override said player selection to ‘no keeper selected’ after the keeper deadline. So people need to be aware of this when draft pick trading and planning their keeper for the following season. Just having a pick in the correct round might not necessarily be good enough as it needs to be a higher one from your original pick in that round (not lower) if you don’t have your original pick anymore.
I have created videos explaining the keeper rule and how it works. It also explains how you can find out for yourself what any player on your roster from last season will cost you draft round pick wise:
From the Sleeper app:
From the full website:
Please be aware to facilitate having to manually adjust the draft board (i.e. entering in the keepers at the correct positions before we draft) their will be a deadline to choose your keeper by - you can change your keeper choice as often as you wish up until the deadline but once the deadline is reached it will lock and then you will be stuck with your choice or if you have not selected a player you will not have a keeper for the forthcoming season. It is each owners responsibility to find out when the keeper deadline locks and once it is reached no more changes can be made.
For those teams that make the playoffs proper (teams finishing 1st-8th) draft order will be a reverse of the previous years finishing positions as decided by Sleeper - so the previous years champion will draft last in round 1 (*20th) and the team finishing 8th (*13th). [*excluding draft pick trading]
However if you’re not in the running for the title (i.e. in the playoffs proper), there used to be nothing to play for except next years draft position - and the way it was the worse you did in the dead games, the better your draft pick position the next year. This encouraged GM’s who were out of the playoffs not to try and win, actually often hoping to lose by starting their worst players (just to avoid falling foul of the strike rule, as there’s nothing else riding on those results).
So to address this some seasons ago I amended the internal rules to make the dead games worth winning because from then onward this part of the draft order involving the 12 non-championship contending playoff teams is inverted - to reward post season wins, however pointless they may seem at the time. The 8 proper playoff teams will still keep their draft positions (20th - 13th).
However the rest will now go like this…
The team finishing 9th (i.e. best of the non-qualifiers) will have pick #1
The team finishing 10th (2nd best non-qualifier) will have pick #2
And so on, down to the team finishing 20th (worst non-qualifier) will have pick #12
I think this has proved good for the league as now tanking for a better draft spot will not fly as the dead rubber games have something riding on them. This was also partly to help with the also ran GM’s trading away their better players with late round draft picks to the playoff bound GM’s who are willing to sell their next seasons chances on winning this year by agreeing to trades involving their bad players but with much higher round draft picks from the following season - which is skewing the integrity of the league and so I’m trying to clamp down on this.
I have changed the default scoring from 4 points for a thrown TD to 3 points - half what the scorer of a TD (6pts) gets.
All other current league settings including Scoring Settings can be viewed by going to the league itself here: Sleeper
Some owners in almost any non-money fantasy NFL league I have been in do not pay enough attention with regards to setting their line ups especially when they are out of the running. So to combat this in free leagues I am commissioner of I have a Strike rule. It boils down to a three strikes and out policy.
However I do listen to my fellow league GM’s and after careful consideration I eased the strike rule (just a tad) in all my leagues many seasons ago. The rules were amended slightly - call it an extra chance to get away with your error(s)… meaning you will only be issued the due strikes if you do not win your match up. So in effect if you still win your game you have not affected the overall outcome of the league in a detrimental way so therefor no strikes will be issued. This I feel helps those who trip up periodically with more chances to not get struck out of the league without truly deserving it.
To check any of your players statuses just click on their name when on your team page and it brings up their player card with information about them - sadly on Sleeper the website and app differ from this point. Scrolling down on the app will show you recent news and below it, if you scroll down more, past updates with dates/times that info was published. Alas on the full website the player card only shows you the latest news - not any previous updates. So for strike checking purposes I will be having to use the app more and going back to NFL.com itself to see when news was published - and I will use both of these sources Roto wire player card updates for checking on players that appear not to have played in owners starting line ups and what I find is how I make a judgement on whether or not a strike is justified.
Further more if a person hits 6 strikes in a single season I will do my best to find an owner to replace that owner mid-season and have the offending non serious owner removed ASAP! Anyone hitting 6+ Strikes also gets added to the permanently banned list!
STRIKES WILL CARRY OVER TO THE NEXT SEASON - I have decided this to give new interested people the chance to get in the league should people hit 3 strikes and to make sure serious owners continue to pay attention. However I also realise everyone has unforeseen circumstances that cause a mistake etc., resulting in errors that earn a strike. So each year an owner returning to play in the league (if not struck out) will automatically have 1 strike removed (if on any) - so in effect if you were on 1 strike end of the preceding season your be clear the next season - if you had 2 strikes - your be back down to 1 etc.,. Call it probation and for good behaviour you come off of probation.
From the 2020 season onwards strikes also became issued for not being seen to vote in an official poll posted within the league and this rule will continue on Sleeper. The good thing is I can set up polls on Sleeper to show who has voted. It’s been the hardest thing for me as a commissioner to get people to engage with me on rules and proposals to do with the league like having a trade deadline, or changing a flex spot etc., so now it’s mandatory to partake in polls - and you only pick up a strike if you have not voted after 28 days - so no excuse really if your an active player! I dislike having to do this but for many seasons people have just not been engaging enough to help me shape the league by voting in polls so felt I had to do this so I can weed out and replace non committed GM’s with ones who buy into the ethos behind this custom International keeper league and make it fun and engaging for all of us.
Sometimes as we go along things come up and I as the LC (League Commissioner) have to make a ruling. So this is where I clarify and make the rulings on things that crop up over time so people can look up the answers going forward at any time just by coming here to see if it has already happened before and what the ruling is. It is also a reference point for me to see what I did previously so as to be consistent in actions I undertake.
1) The LC has the right to reorganise the Divisions each season prior to the draft. This is only done when new teams / nations have joined the IL. I do this trying to make divisions firstly regional as best I can and secondly put natural rivals in the same Divisions.
THIS WILL BE GOING TO A POLL AS SOON AS I HAVE FILLED THE LEAGUE FOR 2025 TO SEE IF PEOPLE WISH TO CHANGE THIS AS SLEEPER ALLOWS DRAFT PICK TRADING FOR UP TO 3 DRAFTS AHEAD.
So depending on poll result #2 rule here could change but for now the current rules are as follows:
2) Draft pick trading - currently draft pick trades can only be swapped for the very next draft (not multiple seasons in advance). I know the real life teams can but I have made this ruling for two reasons. One it will be very hard for me to keep track off and two a GM could pile up trouble for years down the line and then just leave and I’d find it almost impossible to get a replacement as they would have no chance due to so many early picks being traded away for possibly seasons to come.
Since the move to Sleeper it allows out of season trades - which I am all for pre and during our slow draft with this caveat (& warning). Players can be traded prior to the Keeper Deadline but bare in mind you can only keep 1 player (all the rest of your roster from last season or players traded for before the keeper deadline will go back into this years draft). So if you trade for a player it only makes sense if that player will become your keeper before this years keeper deadline, as you will lose all players except your one chosen keeper player. Once this years draft is under way then player trades with draft picks are fine to be exchanged as long as the Sleeper system allows this.
3) If during a season a GM trades away his same draft pick to 2 different teams whether by accident or deliberate planning then instead I will take away their next highest pick instead to cover the trade. If we are talking about a round 1 double deal where there is no higher pick I can take away to cover the trade I will then swap there next 2 picks going down to whoever they traded with for a further round down pick from the cheated party. Basically being detrimental to the owner who made this error as punishment so be careful (I am unsure if this is even possible on Sleeper but it was on NFL.com as I discovered in the past when someone did it).
Example: Team A trades his next years Round 1 pick with 2 different teams - only one team can get it so the other team has been screwed. In this case I will take team A’s 2nd and 3rd Round picks and give them to the cheated team in return team A will still get whatever pick(s) was part of the trade plus the cheated teams 4th round pick. What ever happens the cheated team will be compensated at the expense of the guilty team regardless of the offending teams mistake being genuine error or deliberate malpractice.
Last Years Final Standings
KEEPERS
(below is last seasons keepers - to help people know the players that will go up by +1 round if kept again this season)
This list will be replaced by this years keepers once the keeper deadline has passed.
INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE - Records & Super Bowl Results - 2024
HOUSE KEEPING - 2025 Poll Results
Polls Run in 2025 that will apply going forwards (either immediately or from the 2026 season onwards).
Placeholder - Polls to run
WEEKLY STRIKE COUNT 2025
WK1 -
WK2 -
WK3 -
WK4 -
WK5 -
WK6 -
WK7 -
WK8 -
WK9 -
WK10 -
WK11 -
WK12 -
WK13 -
WK14 -
WK15 -
WK16 -
WK17 -
Link to previous years table: IL 2024 Strikes
Additional Strikes (for not voting in polls):
