League configuration help index

Free Agent Acquisition

The free agent acquisition option deals with the means by which non-rostered players, also known as free agents, are acquired by competing teams during the regular season.

Fantasy league championships are won and lost in the weekly battle for emerging, available talent. Your league must choose a method that defines how free agent talent is distributed to candidate teams. The available methods are: 1) Use the blind-bidding waiver system; 2) Use the worst-to-first waiver system; or 3) Use no waiver system and just open free agents up for first come, first serve.

FantasyBowl.com recommends using some sort of waiver system for all leagues. For more fun and more challenge, choose the blind-bidding system. For more casual and less challenge, choose the worst-to-first system.

Blind-bidding waiver system
The blind-bidding waiver system was new in 2006. It's an option that's a little more fun (in this author's opinion) and calls for a little more strategy than the other systems.

Every team starts the season with one hundred mythical dollars to spend on waiver-wire players. Each week, teams place blind bids on available players. On Thursday evening at 10 PM ET, players are dished out to those teams that placed the highest bids on them. When a team wins a player, his bid amount is deducted from their season allotment, and when a team is out of money, he becomes ineligible to bid on and win future players.

Worst-to-first waiver system
The worst-to-first waiver system gives your league the option to use a distribution mechanism that gives "under-achieving" teams access to new talent before "over-achieving" teams.

In worst-to-first order, each team gets the chance to pick one player off the waiver wire. Once each team has made its transaction, the process starts over with the worst team, and repeats until all teams have pulled all their desired free agents out of the available pool. This is very similar to how the NFL handles waived players, and is a much more fair way to distribute available talent.

First come, first serve
The first come, first serve option foregoes the waiver system and simply opens the entire talent pool up for the first comer. No measure is taken to insure an even distribution of available free agents.