Fantasy Football Cheaters

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit in the wind. You don’t pull the mask off the ol’ Lone Ranger, and you don’t cheat in Fantasy Football.

You can cheat on your taxes and on your wife, but cheating in fantasy football is un-American.  If you plan on hanging on to your “cash and prizes” in my league then I suggest you not do this crap.

A while back I was talking to one of my loyal customers, John, and he was telling me about how bothered he was that a couple of guys in his league had cheated. The guy in first place had Tom Brady and with one minute to go before the trade deadline he ends up getting Jason Witten from the guy in last place. And all it cost him was a running back on injured reserve. As the COMMISH he was able to reverse the transaction but what was really bothering him was the fact that he spent a lot of time and money organizing a good league only to have a couple of jerk offs disrespect him. If John, like most COMMISHES, doesn’t organize the league then it doesn’t get done.

John asked me for some advice so I told him to get rid of those guys. They’re as useless as a stripper at a funeral. The COMMISH  has to have some balls. He can’t be afraid to upset anybody especially his friends. A couple of years ago, my girlfriend was on her way to winning her league when, days before the playoffs started, the last place guy decided to drop Edge and everyone on his roster since he was bored and out of contention. Edge gets picked up by a guy who also had Curtis Martin and he ends up beating my girl in the championship game. She was upset that the COMMISH didn’t do anything about it. He said “It’s just fantasy football.” She said, “Not when there’s money involved it’s not A-hole.”

It goes both ways.  I was once in a league where the COMMISH was e-mailing a couple of guys saying let’s make this trade and we’ll split the cash at the end of the year. That was my one and only year in that league. So here’s a list of my rules to stop the cheating:

Rule #1.) Get good character guys. Don’t let just anybody in your league just so you can have a bigger cash prize. Find out if they only do online drafting or if they get together for a live draft. That’ll tell you a lot.

Rule #2.) COMMISH has to have some balls. Don’t be afraid to kick some guys out of the league even if they are your friends.

Rule #3.) Have weekly prizes like highest scoring team gets $$$. This keeps everyone interested and fielding the best squad they can.

Rule #4.) Have a small $$$ tournament for the non-playoff teams. The winner of our non-playoff tournament gets a guaranteed top 5 lottery pick.

Rule #5.) Lock all playoff teams’ rosters as soon as the season ends. That prevents the Edge fiasco. Baron Davis can’t join the Lakers for the playoffs when the Warriors’ season ended just because he’s a free agent, right?

Rule #6.) Don't go changing the rules as the season goes along. Whatever rules the commish makes in the rule book and on draft day should stay in place all season long. If only the top four teams are supposed to make the playoff don't go asking for the league to vote and let eight teams in instead. To see an example click here.

Rule #7.) This is the most important rule.  Find another league that runs the same scoring system as yours. None of their players can be in your league and vice versa. When a trade happens give both rosters to the other league with the trade proposal. The other league has no clue who the owners are. It’s fair and impartial. This way no one can say the COMMISH is biased. It’s worked out pretty well for us the last seven years.

These are just a few rules to help you out.  If you have any other ideas please e-mail us at commishkit@aol.com

By Eddie Frias

Here's a suggestion from one of our customers:

Dear Eddie,

I have been a Fantasy Football commissioner for 12-years and over that time, I have run into just about every rule violation, dispute and or gripe that a commissioner could run into. As a result of this, I have continually refined my league and it's rules over the years until I have finally got it running like a well oiled machine. All of my owners love my league and my ownership turnover is very low. I liked all of your suggestions for the prevention of cheating in your fantasy league and I have actually used a lot of them. I have a few other suggestions to add to your list that may help other commissioners out there in keeping their league under control while also keeping it fun for everybody. Please note that our league is a VERY "High Stakes" League with Entry Fees of $300 per team, transaction fees of $10.00 per player per transaction and total end of year pots well over $3,000. The following rules were needed in my league because a lot of money is at stake.

1. Establish a "Toilet Bowl" for teams that do not make the actual playoffs:

My League is a 10-team league where only six teams make the playoffs. In past years, the other 4-teams who did not make the playoffs stopped appearing on the web site's message board and stopped setting weekly line ups near the end of the year when they knew that they would not make the playoffs. Some even dropped big players on their roster for others to pick up. To solve this problem, I started a "Toilet Bowl" in which the 4 non-playoff bound teams compete over a 2 week period which starts at the same time as our regular 3 week playoff season. The prize for winning our Toilet Bowl is the first pick in the next year's draft. This system prevents cheating, roster dumping and disappearing owners, by giving non-playoff teams something to compete for at the end of the year. Most importantly, it keeps all of the owners on our message board and keeps the trash talking alive, which we feel is the most fun thing about fantasy football. It also solves the problem of being accused of "rigging" the first pick in the draft for the commissioner.

2. Division of Power/Responsibility
A. Assign an Assistant Commissioner:

After 12 years, I was starting to get frustrated by all of the work that was needed to run a league. I was also frustrated by owners who would call me 5-minutes before game time or at odd hours of the day and who would then complain that they couldn't get a hold of me to make roster changes. I was also frustrated at being called to make roster changes while I was out of town on business or on vacation. As a result, I came up with the idea of appointing an assistant commissioner who had all of the roster access and power that I had to do transactions and make roster changes while I was out of town or when owners could not get a hold of me. This system worked so well, and my assistant commissioner was so good, that we decided to make him the "full time" transaction person as assistant commissioner and to make me the "back up" for transactions. I still hold all of the power of the commissioner, but he does all of the transaction work, which makes my life easier and makes my owners happier, because he is more readily available for them. The other unexpected positive bonus of this system, was that it provided a "checks and balances" function for our transaction system. The owners stopped complaining about bogus transactions and stopped accusing me of favoring one owner over another, because there was now a second person involved in transaction approvals who they felt was checking my decisions to make sure they were fair. Our transactions are now checked much more closely now, because the Assistant Commissioner really only has one job and that is transactions. I know a lot of guys don't like to give up power, but trust me, you should try it. It works great and everyone is much happier in our league now.

B. Assign a League Treasurer

The job I hated most as commissioner was that of collecting money. I just didn't have the aggressive personality to bug guys for their money. As a result, I was still trying to collect entry fees and transaction fees for a week after our Super Bowl. The guys were complaining that I didn't make owners pay up front. They were griping that I didn't pay out in a timely manner, and they were fighting amongst themselves over who hadn't paid yet. This also lead them to accuse me of playing favorites and making exceptions for certain owners. Then the solution to my problems hit me like a lightning bolt. I assigned a league treasurer. We have one guy in our league who is not afraid of confrontation and is not afraid to speak his mind. He is also a bit of a control freak, especially when it comes to money. He is the kind of guy who says the things that you wish you could say. I decided to make him the treasurer and put him in charge of all collections and pay outs. They collections and pay outs are now all on time and everyone is happy. The unexpected positive benefit of this system is that there is no way that my owners can accuse me of any type of misconduct with the money, because there is now a "checks and balances" system in place between myself, my assistant commissioner and my league treasurer. I never even touch the money anymore because it is all handled by my treasurer.

C. Establish Checks and Balances

With my new 3 branched system of Fantasy Football government in place, I then put together a system of checks and balances to utilize this system to best prevent cheating and to keep everyone happy and at peace with each other. Now, my league has the following governing rules that use the 3 branches of our league's government.

- Any one of the three league officers can "veto" or block a transaction if he does not feel it is fair or right
- Any one of the three league officers can do a transaction vs. league funds reconciliation to make sure that all of the books are balanced and in order
- All League Rule changes and owner disputes are put to a democratic league owners vote. However, if a vote is tied, a 2nd vote is held only by the 3 governing league officers to break the tie. Since there are 3 officers, there is never a tie on this vote.

The system works much like our US government and everyone is very happy in our league. It is successful, prevents cheating and keeps everyone happy because no one person has too much power and is always being double checked by another person. I hope it helps other commissioners.

-Jim Dallos
Wyandotte, MI