Need an online service for keeper auction league

[Walden warriors]

Hi everyone,

Our league voted two winters ago to move to a auction format instead of a draft. One problem = getting everyone together live is near impossible. One guy is in China, four others are out-of-state. Remote drafting is more doable because of the timing between picks, so that's historically what we've done to make this work.

Can anyone recommend an online service to handle a draft? It seems like this would really be what we need. Thanks!

[etex211]

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread. I am thinking of starting a new league, and I am interested in an online auction.

I really like the auction format, but the one live auction league I am in seems to have problems every year getting everybody to show up because of various scheduling conflicts. I had to miss the auction myself a few years ago because of a death in the family.

[converge241]

Yahoo online auction works really well. I believe you can preload some keepers and their values as well.

I am sure there are a few others that offer this. Good luck!

[HamptonBayardHampton]

OnRoto is the best our leagues have found in last 26 seasons.

[mkultra]

OnRoto is great from a features standpoint, but their interface is really lacking.

Both ESPN and Yahoo have very nice auction interfaces, IMO.

[Dorasaga]

Can anyone recommend an online service to handle a draft? It seems like this would really be what we need. Thanks!

I don't know if your question is directly about a "program" or app. or a tracker-tool other than the server (espn, yahoo) where you play THE fantasy itself, or not?

As a commish who started an auction league with my closer friends, I'm all for Yahoo's interface, which is always upgraded (better features) every year, but not overly complicate or messy (too many stuffs you wonder where to click).

Though, I found a problem with the Yahoo auction "preload" (or whatever they call it). Basically before the draft, you plug in an auction value for all players in your league. Supposedly, if you can't make it to the draft (or a part of it), Yahoo will auto-draft for you based on the value. Now, Yahoo has an algorithm that determines WHAT POSITION is a priority, based on the league settings for positions AND the predetermined "Yahoo value."

Here's where the problem start [I have work so I'm cutting short]... Let's say your league sets for each team may position 5 SP and 5 1B, 2 MI, then benches to round off a 13-man roster. You have a date and ran out, left Yahoo's system to do the job. It would draft Prince Fielder and Miggy C. by, say you placed $ 75 before the draft, for each. Yahoo would bid until that max (75) reached. That's REGARDLESS of how much is left on your draft fund and what other positions you need to fill.

You might end up drafting 8 1B, 1 MI, 4 SP, short of one MI , short of a SP, but TOO MANY 1B... because that's how the algorithm thought the BEST VALUE was. Sorry gotta go. Hope this helps you think about how to manage a preload draft fund for each player you want...

[KoolPapaBell]

OP,

It's not 100% clear what you are looking for, but if you really only want a draft/auction service (and then you would import rosters to your normal site), then I would try CouchManagers dot com.

I know some people find their interface and auctions a little clunky, but my league has been satisfied for 3 years now. The advantage with couchmanagers is that you can also do a slow auction, which is pretty awesome when you have members around the country/world. You can also do a fast auction, of course.

[SecretAgentMan]

Depends on whether you want a tool to do the auction or whether you want one that can support the results. I have used CBS Commissioner for the latter and it works out great. You just enter the offline auction results and you are good to go. Handles budgets, contracts, etc. They support the former as well though we usually get together on a Sat and make a day of the auction, so I have no real experience on how good the auction bidding part of their product is.

[firemedicusa]

I am in my second year running a league and I am looking for the same thing. We use Fantrax as a host site for our league, but as of this posting, their online auction room is not functional yet. I too am looking for a different site to host my draft so I can import the results to Fantrax. I have a couple owners who may not be able to make it to the live draft and I need the versatility.

[mkultra]

We use Fantrax as well and their support confirmed that live auctions will not be ready for 2013.

What I did last year was sign up for a free ESPN league, manually assigned kept players, ran the auction there, and manually put those players on Fantrax rosters. Annoying yes, but not quite as cumbersome as it sounds.