I’m commissioner of a 64-team 4-league system (16 teams per league) that plays head-to-head or H2H/1-win format in Yahoo. New managers start in A League and play to move up to AA, AAA and Elite League. The season’s top team and playoff champion are promoted over the winter and the 15th and 16th place teams are relegated.
Every level is a little different and more difficult as you move up. There are keepers (2, 3 or 4), custom snake drafts, and 12-14 stat categories.
This is our 21st season and there are always 3-5 retirements this time of year. If you’re interested, reply and I can email you more details and put you in my “on-deck circle” of 2023 managers. Renewal deadlines begin next weekend so the call ups will start right after. There is no fee to play.
I know this is a baseball league, but I find the concept intriguing for fantasy football. I am curious how the league handles the keepers versus the promotion/relegation of teams in the off-season? I assume the number of keepers is based on how high the league is (i.e. Elite has more keepers than AAA, etc.), until you get down to the A league where there are only one or even no keepers at all? Or do you just have all teams working from the same player pool? Are the keepers restricted across all leagues (i.e. a keeper in AA league can’t be held in Elite, and vice versa)?
You said there is no fee to play, but I can see where a fee to play could work, and the Elite league could charge more for their fee, but also have bigger pools. A fee structure could be something like this:
A league: $5 ($50 to 1st place, $30 to 2nd place)
AA: $10 ($100 to 1st place, $60 to 2nd place)
AAA: $20 ($220 to 1st place, $100 to 2nd place)
Elite: $40 ($640 payoff to 1st place only)
The fact you’ve been doing this for 21 years makes me wonder how this league was developed? Were the leagues slowly expanded over time? Or did you just throw people into different leagues at the start randomly?
Please tell me more about this format, as I can see implications for other sports fantasy leagues.
The leagues were built up from one league to four over the first 3-4 years under the founding commissioner. I took over in 2011 and have implemented a “formal” promo/relegation pattern after each season. The two teams that win in A League swap rosters with the relegated teams in AA for the following season. That swap pattern applies all the way up to the Elite League. Keepers are 2 in A League, 3 in AA and AAA and 4 in Elite. The leagues operate independently with their unique roster position requirements, bench size, IL spots and inactive (NA) spots; and two added stat categories at Elite. Pre-draft trading is permitted so to accommodate savvy managers working under a unique keeper draft-round placement rule.
I play for prize money in a local AL-only Roto league I started in 1984. I run the online El Nido Yahoo leagues for fun. Those who play are happy managers. Of the 64, 31 have been playing for no less than 10 years. I write “stories” every week on how the leagues have been performing. Everybody likes to read about how well they’re doing … or not. That Yahoo dumped the Message Board is a bummer but I’ll use email groups as a work around.
I hope that answers your questions.
As I said, there was a founding commissioner who handed it over to me in 2011 when it already had four leagues. From what I can tell, it reached four leagues by the 3rd season in 2005. I was recruited and joined in 2007.