AF's Fantasy Circus

Tournament Rules

I     General

A.   These will serve to be the official rules for AF’s Fantasy Circus Tournament

B.   For anything not covered in these rules, please refer to the League Settings page at hosting website;  tournament will be hosted on NFL.com

C.   All arbitration of League Rules to be arbitrated solely by Tournament Coordinator (TC)

D.   TC may maintain their own team in the tournament, OR may be listed as a “Co-Owner” of a team, in the event TC is listed as a “Co-Owner” it will only be for the purposes of running the tournament and TC will have no actual control over the team they are Co-Owner of

E.   Should any unforeseen event arise not covered explicitly in the rules, TC will exercise final judgment

1.    Any TC judgment made outside of specified rules that involves TC’s team will cause TC’s team to be removed from Championship eligibility

2.   This rule applies ONLY if TC is a team owner.  If TC is a Co-Owner, that team will not be effected by this rule

F.   Tournament rules are subject to adjustment before entry fees have been paid, and will be marked ‘LOCKED’ once any changes are final

G.   If, for any reason, there is a discrepensy between rules listed in these rules and settings listed on the League Settings page of the host site, settings page will supercede

II     Format

A.   AF's Fantasy Circus is a 16 team, three-stage guillatine/elimination tournament

1.   Teams will be grouped into two, 8 team groups (divisions) for Round 1 (Wks 1-7) at the end of which the bottom 4 teams from each group will be eliminated from the tournament and the top 4 teams from each group will advance to Round 2

2.   Advancing 8 teams will be placed into a single, common group for Round 2 (Wks 8-14) at the end of which the bottom 4 teams will be eliminated from the tournament and the top 4 teams will advance to Round 3

3.   Final 4 teams will be placed in a final, 4 team group for Round 3 (Wks 15-17) from which the Tournament Champion will emerge

III     Fees/Payout

A.   Entry fee for AF’s Fantasy Circus Tournament will be $35.00(US) per team.  This will create a $560.00 (US) prize pot

B.   Payout will be:

• 1st Place (Ringmaster/League Champion) = $250.00(US)
• 2nd Place = $140.00(US)
• 3rd Place =  $100.00(US)
• 4th Place = $70.00(US)

C.   Entries and payouts will be handled through LeagueSafe.com

D.   TC will set deadline for payment prior to the draft

E.  Prize money will not be disbursed until the Friday following Week 17 of the NFL Regular Season

IV     Scoring

A.   Offensive Scoring Settings

1.  AF's Fantasy Circus will utilize the AF Milestone Offensive Scoring Package

B.   IDP Scoring Settings

1.   AF's Fantasy Circus will utilize the AF Warrior IDP Scoring Package

V     Rosters

A.   Roster make-up for the Tournament 

1.   Rosters will be 14 players in total

2.   Position minimum/maximums will be in effect

3.  Starters: 

• • • 1 RB
    • 1 WR
    • 2 RB/WR/TE FLEX
    • 1 QB/RB/WR/TE FLEX
    • 1 K
    • 1 DL
    • 1 LB
    • 1 IDP FLEX
    • 5 BENCH

4.   Position Minimum/Maximums

• • • QB - Max 1
    • RB - Max 3
    • WR - Max 3
    • TE - Max 2
    • K - Max 1

VI     Draft

A.   2020 draft will be held live, online on a date/time TBD

B.   Draft will be auction with a budget of 200 units

C.   9 players must be drafted per team, corresponding to the individual starting positions - bench slots are not added until the post draft period

D.   Nomination order will be randomly generated by draft client 30 minutes prior to start of the draft

E.     In order to make it easier for all teams to follow the draft in progress, ALL TEAMS are required to post logos to their team prior to the draft

1. 1. Logos may be custom or NFL default
   2. Teams that do not post their own logos will have logos posted for them by AF

VII     Free Agency

A.   5 Bench slots will be added to roster immediately following draft auction, to be filled through waivers or free agency

B.   League will utilize a Waiver Auction Budget (WAB)

1.   Seasonal WAB Budget starts at zero (0) units unless team has draft budget dollars left over after draft auction, in which case they will be added to that team's seasonal WAB budget immediately following draft

a.   Total points scored are converted to budget dollars weekly every Monday night/Tuesday morning

b.   Unused WAB units roll over weekly,

c.   2 day waivers will be in use

d.   Players lock at individual game time

NOTE:  The points totals used for adding to teams' WAB are the points totals as they appear on Monday night immediately following each week's NFL games and therefore may not reflect any scoring adjustments that happen on Thursday after stat corrections.  Stat corrected adjustments DO NOT affect WAB points and teams will have their WAB adjusted only by the amount of points showing on the scoreboard as of Monday night. 

C.   Trading is allowed and opens immediately following the conclusion of the draft

1.   There is no Trade Deadline

2.   Trade Review is by team vote

D.     After teams are eliminated at the end of Rounds 1 and 2 (see Section IX Eliminations) the rosters of those eliminated teams will be placed on waivers and surviving teams are free to bid on the players or to pick them up once they've cleared waivers into free agency

VIII     Schedule

A.     Tournament Season will be divided into three rounds

1.    Round 1

a.    Weeks 1-7

b.   Teams in each Group/Division will play a round robin schedule within their Group/Division, playing all teams in their Group/Division once

2.     Round 2

a.   Weeks 8-14

b.   The 8 teams that advance to Round 2 (see section IX "ELIMINATIONS" below) will play a round robin schedule against each other, playing all other teams once

3.   Round 3

a.   Weeks 15-17

b.   The 4 teams that advance to Round 3 (see section IX "ELIMINATIONS" below) will play a round robin schedule against each other, playing all other teams once

B.     Divisional/Group Alignment for Round 1 will be randomly generated

IX    Eliminations

A.     At the conclusion of Round 1 (end of Week 7),  the four last place teams in each Group/Division will be eliminated from competition

1.   'Place' will be determined by overall W-L record (Wks 1-7) (see Section XI Tiebreakers)

2.   Once eliminated, the tournament is over for those teams and they will be locked out of roster moves

3.   Teams that have been eliminated will have their rosters cleared to waivers where surviving teams may bid on them through the WAB process or pick them up once they have cleared waivers to free agency (see Section VII Free Agency)

B.     At the conclusion of Round 2 (end of Week 14),  the four last place teams in the round will be eliminated from competition

1.   'Place' will be determined by overall W-L record for the round (Wks 8-14) (see Section XI Tiebreakers)

2.   Once eliminated, the tournament is over for those teams and they will be locked out of roster moves

3.   Teams that have been eliminated will have their rosters cleared to waivers where surviving teams may bid on them through the WAB process or pick them up once they have cleared waivers to free agency (see Section VII Free Agency)

X     Round Three/Championship

A.    Round 3 will be considered the Championship Round and will be held in Weeks 15-17

B.    The teams participating in Round 3 will be the 4 teams that advanced from Round 2 (see Section IX Eliminations)

C.     Round 3 will consist of a 3 week round robin schedule in which each of the 4, Round 3 teams will play each other once

D.     Final W-L (Wks 15-17) record for Round 3 will be used to rank the teams 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, in which 1st place will be considered the Tournament Champion (see Section XI Tiebreakers)

1.   Rankings (1st-4th) from Round 3 will be used to determine the Prize Payouts to the four, Round 3 teams (see Section III Fees/Payout)

XI      Tiebreakers

A.     Individual Match-ups are allowed to end in ties

B.     Order of tiebreakers for standings' ties within individual Round standings is as follows:

1. 1. Total Round Points (defined as total points scored within the round in which the standings tie is to be broken)
   2. Total season points
   3. Total Season Record (All Rounds)
   4. Total points at the Kicker position within the Round within which the standings tie is to be broken
   5. Total points at the kicker position through entire season
   6. Total, combined points at all defensive (IDP) positions within the Round within which the standings tie is to be broken
   7. Total, combined points at all defensive (IDP) positions through the entire season
   8. Total, combined points at all offensive positions within the Round within which the standings tie is to be broken
   9. Total, combined points at all offensive positions through the entire season
   10. Coin Flip (Rounds 1 and 2 ONLY, Round 3, see Section XI.C below))

C.     For determining payouts at the conclusion of Round 3, if any pair or set of teams are still tied after tiebreakers 1-9, prize money will be divided equally among those tied commiserate with the amount of winnings allocated to the positions (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th place) the teams are tied for

XII     Special Rule

A.     Participation in tournament is limited to one entry per household/IP address

B.     After all tournament slots are filled but before draft order has been established, NFL.com will be contacted to verify that all participants registered with tournament are originating from different IP addresses to verify that no participant is registered with multiple teams

C.     Multiple teams originating from the same IP address will result in immediate expulsion of all teams involved

D.     It is recommended, that before the draft, each individual team verify for themselves that all teams are from different IP addresses; this can be done through the contact NFL tool (found in the FAQs), simply send an email, include league ID number, and ask NFL to verify that no teams in the league originate from the same IP address