Fantasy Football Auction Strategy
We have learned about various kinds of auction and thought about which strategy is the best based on conditions of auction. The easiest and most popular real-case example of auction is in sports. In the past, when people play sports game, the success of draft is determined by a luck and good strategy sometimes. However, there are some games which have a nice auction system in game, and people enjoy many sports game. Among various games, we picked the Fantasy Football as an example of auction strategy. The reason is that it is very famous across the United States and has pretty long history. Moreover, the game is well-organized because each user is able to be a manager of one team or whole leagues with other people. Let’s take a look what the Fantasy Football is first. Fantasy football, like other fantasy games, puts you in the front office and on the sidelines as General Manager and Coach of your team. You select from a list of the best players in the NFL and they compete on a weekly basis for your team. Their on-field performance drives your fantasy point total and overall success. Specifically, fantasy football works like this: You decide what type of league you want to participate in, acquire a roster of players (either through a draft or through auto pick assignment), then set your lineup each week during the season and watch as touchdowns, field goals, yards gained, sacks, interceptions and much, much more generate fantasy points for or against your team. Whether you win or lose and climb or fall on the leaderboard all depends on how well you maximize the talent on your roster each week.
As we see the rule, the total budget is already set, so we have to make a nice plan for drafts. Here, auction is not simple like examples in text book. We have to think several possible cases, not only first-price sealed-bid but also second-price sealed-bid. Also, the strategy sometimes needs to be combined. In order to create nice team, there are some strategies to keep in mind.
- Set the market early – If you see a player you want, consider going against the grain, throwing his name out at the beginning, and attempting to set the market at that particular position.
- Budget your positions – Do not, under any circumstances, enter an auction without at least a general sense of how much you’re willing to spend to acquire talent at a specific position.
- Address kicker quickly – This runs counter to a serpentine draft strategy, where you should never select your kicker until the final round. The thought process is that if kickers are interchangeable, they should all sell for $1.
- Track rosters – This might seem an overwhelming exercise, as you’ll already be juggling your own budgetary concerns mid-auction, but one of the primary reasons is that during the auction, it’s critical that you track where not only you stand, but where your competition stands.
- Don’t get caught up in bidding wars – In certain cases, bidding wars make sense, but only when you have a clear sense of your limit before engaging. Allowing yourself to get hooked into a quick-fire bidding process might take you beyond your comfort zone before you even realize you’re there.
- Don’t get attached to specific players – Everyone has “loves” and “hates” among individual players. Personal preference is fine, and encouraged. But there’s a definitive difference between love for a player and out-and-out obsession, and it’s the latter that can lead you down a straight path to busting your budget.
There are more strategies for auction, but I choose the 6 strategies above.
When users create their own teams, they have to think what kind of team style we will have. Also, it is very clear that the better player has a higher market value, but the player is not necessary in our team if he has a different position in our team style. So, we do not have to pay a lot of money for useless players. There are some example teams the links below. [3], [4] For example, if some people prefer to play with passing strategy, they want to have good wide receiver (WR) and Quarterback. Others may prefer to play with running strategy, so they need to have strong guards and good running back (RB). Moreover, users need to think that a team have to be 12 – 15 players. Once users started the season, they are playing like real NFL. They are able to trade or sell own players during the season. By doing these acts, people earn points, and they may get a reward for best playing. Thus, they should make a best strategy for themselves.
People try to bid real players and compete with other people. The Fantasy Football is a little different with other games because it is reflected more close to the real draft and has a strict budget limitation. Once all people finish pre-draft, they would be able to see the results of values and check the actual price and estimated price. People could check the results, know how their strategies were for the season and run the season matches with other people. Since there are tons of strategies to make people’s own best team, this virtual auction is a really interesting and educational to even students.
Source
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_football_(American)#History
[2] http://www.espn.com/fantasy/football/story/_/page/auctiondraftstrategy/tips-tricks-dominating-your-fantasy-football-auction-draft
[3] http://www.nfl.com/fantasyfootball/story/0ap3000000685829/article/analyst-mock-auction-draft-paying-up-for-top-wrs
[4] http://fftoday.com/articles/orth/15_pma_art_auction.html