Creative Ideas to Increase Competitiveness

[stevegamer]

This is all really helpful guys! Thanks for taking the time to respond. REP spread around
Pulling it all together, these are the ideas I’m thinking of taking to the GMs. I don’t plan on using them all, but want to get a sense of what people in my league are interested in:

Activity:
- Increase the annual buy in from $10 to $15 / $20
- Set a minimum participation limit. If you fail to roster x% of your total games per a week 3 times, you get booted from the league
- Get an actual trophy with winner’s names on it

Parity:
- Winner can only keep 7 & runner up can keep 8 from their season ending rosters. These teams can keep up to 9 through acquiring new players via off-season trades.
- Limit the number of free agent pick-ups per season to 20 (we get 60 a year, and by far and away, I’m the most active).
- Simplify the scoring categories (get rid of +/- and SHP, maybe more aggressive ideas too)
- Drop the # of keepers from 9 to 6.
- Create 2 rookie keeper spots
- Full re-draft

I'm open to other thoughts / ideas!

I was in a football league with some great features.

1. Weekly prizes down the stretch: Top player at a rotating position won some small amount of cash: QB, WR, RB, TE, D, K. These ran through the playoffs, so even teams eliminated in the consolation bracket would set lineups and have a shot at winning stuff.

2. All-Star game. In fantasy football week 17 is rife with team sitting players, so many leagues end in week 16. Week 17 has the division winners pick all-star teams making up a lineup from teams in their division. Wining division gets bragging rights, and they split some cash. All-Star division winners are tracked, like league champs. You can run this whatever week you like, but near season end makes sense.

3. Combined head to head, and total points scoring. The league standings we based on league points. You have a head to head each week which is worth 2/1/0 for a win/loss/tie. Additionally, Scoring in the top/middle/bottom third is worth 2/1/0. So you get the best of both head to head, and total points. Having opponents put up fluke weeks won't kill anyone. One year I had 3 of the 5 highest scores on the season, and was 1-2 those 3 weeks.

[Referee3083]

A couple of you recommended WhatsApp. I’ve never used it before so how is it different from group texting within iMessage?

[dh2k]

Hi, here are my suggestions:

Put the keepers on a cycle - in my league, I have it on a 3 year cycle so no one gets to keep anyone for too long, and there is a re draft every so often to keep things interesting. It's going to be a lot less fun for people if/when they drive their teams into the ground.

If that isn't your style, another keeper option may be to re draft and then have keepers selected based on where they were drafted the year before. So for instance, I draft Panarin in the second round. The next year, if I want to keep him I have to give up a first round pick. First round picks can't be kept and you have to give up one pick earlier based on where the player was drafted. FA players could be x pick, and after additional years the pick could go up by whatever.

I think the thing with your type of pool to keep people engaged is to make sure everyone isn't stuck with the same players year after year, so anything you can do to change things up in that way should help.