Anyone have some expert advice on running an auction draft? This will be our first try at this and will appreciate any help. We have decided to have a cap of $200 and use $1 min bid. I thought about having the last bid winner make the new nomination but am not sure if that is best or just going in a random order. Any thoughts on this? Any secrets for making the auction go smoother. I was thinking about some kind of 10 second timer that we could hit to reset if a bid was made but not sure if there is such a thing. Or should we change it up and just do the auction on the site?

Now, the important part. What is the best strategy to use. 1 or 2 studs and then wait till the end to try and get value for the rest of my players? Wait till most teams use up their money and hopefully get alot of good players for value? Buy as many studs as possible and fill in with scrubs??

Thanx in advance for your expert advice.

We just go round robin for the order. Everyone usually sits in around a table, find last year's winner/loser, and then go to the left from there.

Definitely have some sort of a timer. Also, it's best to have some impartial person that can #1 keep track of things for you, and #2 decide who calls the bids out first.

As for the strategy, well that is up to you. Mine is to get my kicker and D for a $1 right off the bat, then work on the rest.

1. Last bid/random order. First I'm not sure what you mean by random order. Having done many auctions, picking who to put up for auction when is one of the finer strategy points of the auction. I assume this is a startup and/or redraft auction. If so, then I strongly suggest that you draw for "draft" order and use a serpentine order for proposing who to put up for auction. Serpentine is very important because the end of the "auction" when almost everyone is out of money becomes almost a regular draft. Bid winner going next would be disasterous as teams would basically get to draft several players in a row.

2. As for ending each auction, it's best if you can find a neutral person not in the draft to be your auctioneer. That's not easy to find, however, as you need to find someone willing to put up with all the owners for several hours. Other than that, the leagues I've been in have just had the commish do a standard "going once, going twice, sold" bit as the bidding slows down. If the commish is going to fast or to slow then the owners just prompt him to speed up/slow down. One note though is that you have to give the commish a little leeway, especially for players he is considering bidding on. Speaking from experience, it's tough keeping up with both.

As for doing the auction "on the site", I seriously could not imagine doing an auction on a web site. Live and in person it will take about 3 to 5 hours or so. On a web site would take forever I would think.

3. As for best strategy, that's a very open ended question. A few basic items are:
a. Spend most of your money on your starters.
b. Players will go for more money early in the auction when everyone has money to spend and at the point that the talent is starting to run out but several players have money left over.
c. The best bargains will best be found after the first few big names have been bought and after everyone is out of money.
d. Have a realistic expectation of how much you think EVERY player should go for. So, figure out total amount of cap space available ($200 * # of owners = total amount to spend). Then take your spreadsheet of players and allocate money to every person you expect to be drafted.

Move the money around until all the cap space is allocated in a way that you feel comfortable is "fair market value". Then stick to this list in the auction. If a player goes above your price, let him go. Every dollar spent higher than your expected price on a given player means that someone else will be available for a bargain.

Take all this with a grain of salt. Every auction will be different - more so than a regular draft. How much a player goes for will really depend on 2 things - when he comes out and how much owners want him. It only takes 2 owners really liking any given player to make him go for much more than you think he is worth.

We never used a random order to nominate. We simply went in a circle around the room. Once an owner had a full roster, they could no longer put up a nomination. The nomination included a minimum bid.

Auctions should be done in person. I have had enough drafts fail trying to do them online when someone has a slow or inconsistent internet connection.

As to strategy, I never nominate the best players. I prefer to nominate kickers early in the going. If they go over the minimum, I don't bother to bid. I will target players that I want and am willing to spend as much as possible on my starters. But I don't nominate the players I want until very late - and usually when money is thin for most owners.

The more players you can put up early in the going who are not the top players at the position, the better. You want a Barber, for example, to be nominated before LT. Barber is going to go very cheap if he is up for bid before the bigger name backs, despite being a top 10. Owners will be a little more shy and will hold back their money for the AP or LT. And don't be surprised when one of them goes for $100. In my experience, the elite backs will go for 40-50% of total salary.

Overall, try to get some studs. At least 3, more if you can. Don't waste money on your backups. There will be plenty of quality costing you $1 near the end.

As far as strategy, I've been in a couple live drafts and here are some things that worked for me.

When nominating, I usually throw out a big name stud who will fetch a lot of dollars, but I have no interest in. I want people to spend their money on players I'm not interested in before I start spending my money on my guys.


Keep track of how much money everybody else has. It's not that hard to do, take a calculator if you need to, you want to know what everybody has to work with so you know where you sit. Go a step further and keep track of everybodys roster and you'll be even better off, it will help you know which players to nominate to fill out other owners rosters and take them out of the running for players you want further down the road.

Don't save your money. You need studs, not a slew of cheaply priced 2nd stringers. Spend most of your money on your starters, as Iggy said.

Its good to have a cheatsheet with values for each player, but don't be afraid to overbid that, things change during an auction.

Some owners like to bid up players they don't have an interest in to get another owner to pay more, but I wouldn't do that. You don't want to risk getting stuck with a guy you don't want, I've seen it happen.

Thanx for all the helpfull advice. Iguana, I hadn't thought of that angle about winner nominates but you are right. That is why I came here to ask. When I said random nomination I just meant generate a random order and stick to that all the way thru.

As for the online auction, I have done a few mock online (espn) and they went smooth (except for the losers dropping out early but the computer took over) and that was why I was considering it. Definately will be quicker than live.

Ten, luckily, I will be running it if we do it live and will probably be the only one keeping track of everyones team and remaining cash.