Associated Fantasy

"Its fine to have ability, but the ability to find ability in others is the true test" -Lou Holtz

AFFL AFFL2024 

AFFL 2024 Auction Guide

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This auction guide will cover everything you need to know about the upcoming auction, particularly anything that’s new.  Let’s go start to finish.

Auction START/FINISH:

  • Auction will start at 6am(eastern) on Sat, Jun 15
  • Auction will end at midnight on Sun, July 28
  • Auctions in progress will be allowed to finish, final nominations made by midnight, July 28
  • Uncertified teams will enter the auction in progress and their players will be ineligible for nomination until then

Auction Budget

  • This one has a new formula
  • Formula is:(Team’s FULL Salary Cap) MINUS (Current Season Commitments) MINUS (League Minimum Salary x Team’s number of draft picks in Upcoming Draft) MINUS (Dead Money)
  • Each team’s auction budget is in their databooks and in the MFL system
  • Beware, the formula sucks, I’ve got to come up with a new one for next year. This one doesn’t really tell you what you have to spend
  • WARNING: You likely won’t be able to spend your full budget and still get across the cut cap. It is each team’s responsibility to know what they can spend
    • I included a rundown of each teams auction budget in their “Your roster has been certified” email….except for the first few teams
    • If you want a rundown of your available spending, before or during the auction, email me
    • A handy way of looking at it is to add up the salaries of all players (not on taxi or tag) you plan to keep and subtract it from your cut cap – that is roughly what you have readily available to spend without finding money by restructuring contracts

Player Pool

  • The player pool is displayed on your FA Auction tab in your team databooks
  • Alternately
  • On each team’s roster, all UFAs and RFA’s are eligible for bidding
    • NOTE: R-RFA and xRFA are EXEMPT from auction and zRFAs go to auction as UFAs
  • All Stallions players will be EXEMPT

Nominating Players to Auction

  • We are going to do this differently this year
  • In the past, I would unload all eligible players from rosters, teams could then nominate those players, and when the auction was done, I would reload the players back onto their rosters
  • This requires a lot of meticulous work on my end…….so, we have a new way
  • PLAYERS CAN BE NOMINATED:
    • Entering their name and your opening bid amount in the pink boxes on your FA Auction Tab in your team databook
    • OR
    • Emailing me with the player’s name and your opening bid
  • All nominated players received for each day before midnight eastern will be entered into the MFL system together before 6am eastern
    • If I should miss a day, entries will go in the following midnight to 6 period along with any new ones
  • This allows me to only have to unload players that are actually being bid on (instead of 200 random ones) and no reloading which takes twice as long
  • Once players are nominated, ALL BIDDING WILL HAPPEN ON MFL

Minimum Opening Bid

  • !IMPORTANT NEW RULE!:
  • The Minimum opening bid for players is now Scheduled Salary + 10%
    • (Old formula was Scheduled Salary + $1.0m)
  • The MOB’s for each player is automatically calculated and displayed on the player pool lists on the FA Auction tab of your team databook

BIDDING

  • Bidding can be made in increments of $500k (must be at or above MOB)
  • Bid timer is 120 hours (5 days) resets on new high bid

RFA High Bid Negotiation

  • The RFA Rules have some much improved and very needed changes, namely to compensation
  • The high bid -> match/waive -> final bid -> match/waive process is ALL STILL THE SAME
  • For Draft Pick Compensation
    • The RFA tier system is gone
    • Draft pick compensation is now BASED ON FINAL HIGH BID of RFA
    • It’s tied to a percentage of league minimum (league minimum being 10% of the highest league salary)
    • The chart of compensatory picks has been reworked as well
  • See chart for the new system

Signing Players

  • Players won at auction must be signed to a 1 year FA Contract with winning bid as base (NOTE: account for the year in your contract count)
  • These players are on the Can’t Cut list for the remainder of the season
  • !IMPORTANT NEW RULE!:
    • Up-Front Bonus: the maximum allowed is now 50% of the difference between high bid and old salary
    • EXAMPLE:
      • Player’s scheduled salary is $20m
      • Player’s MOB is $22m
      • High bid = $28m
      • Max UpFront Bonus is $4m
        • $28 minus $20 = $8 x 50%
      • Bonus would = $4m, Salary would = $24m

The Life-Cycle of an auction player

  • I thought this would be a helpful EXAMPLE…..
  • LB John Smith is on an AFFL team’s roster and not under contract, making $20m 
  • This makes him a UFA
  • This makes him available for nomination and bidding in the auction
  • His scheduled salary is $20m, so his Minimum Opening Bid is $22m (+10%)
  • Several teams are interested, and bidding goes to $32m
  • The high bid of $32m wins him for his new team
  • They now MUST sign him to a 1 year FA contract with a base of $32m
  • They pay him a max Up Front Bonus because it makes financial sense to do that
  • Max is 50% of the base minus original salary, so 32 minus 20 = 12 x 50% = $6m bonus
  • His salary for the year becomes $26m (32-6)
  • BUT his BASE is still $32m
  • He plays that year for his new team on the Can’t Cut list
  • But they don’t want to cut him, because he plays well, scoring 382 points on the season
  • NEXT YEAR
  • Spring Signing opens, and LB John Smith now has an EXPIRING FA Contract
  • His new team has 3 options:
    1. Sign him to a 1 year FA Extension at Base + 15% which would be ($32m x 1.15)= $36.8m
    2. Sign him to a new Standard Contract (2-5 years), Base = lowest of: Base+30% (32×1.3=$41m) or current formula salary minus 10% – he scored 382, so current formula is $38.2 minus 10%=$34.38m……and there’s a 10% signing bonus with this one
    3. Waive him directly to auction
  • Given those options, his new team decides to sign him to a 3 year contract at $34m
  • BUT
  • Before they do, he gets arrested for murder
  • So his new team decides to waive him to the draft pool
  • When they do that, he’s removed from their roster WITH HIS CONTRACT BASE SALARY of $32m set as his current season salary
  • NOTE: during the course of the season you will come across free agent players (waiver wire) with the “FA” designation instead of the normal “UFA” – these will be players like this
  • By the end of Spring Signing, our LB murder suspect john Smith is released to the draft pool with a $32m salary
  • And then a month later, it turns out to be a case of mistaken identity
  • A third team drafts him, and he plays as a FA (UFA) at $32m for the season, scoring 391 points
  • The FOLLOWING Spring will open with him as a UFA with a $39.1m salary and able to be signed to a new contract at either $39.1m (current formula salary) OR $38.2m (his previous formula salary) with a signing bonus
  • Easy, right?