CommishRx: How to Deal with Collusion in Your Fantasy League Pt 2

In the first part of this series, we discussed what collusion is and how to recognize it if it’s happening in your fantasy league.

That’s settled. We’re moving on to what measures fantasy league commissioners can take to try to discourage collusion from happening in the first place.

Prevention is the key. Fantasy commissioners need to think about scenarios taking place before they happen, and create rules accordingly. The best way to prevent collusion: your league needs to know that you’ve thought about it first.

It’s often enough to keep most folks from acting out if you make it known that you’ve already considered that cheating or other ill behavior may happen in your league and you’re prepared to address it. It also demonstrates that you have the best interest of the league at heart.

Fantasy League Collusion: Engraved in Stone

It all begins with the rules. Yes, this seems quite obvious to most, but you’d be surprised how many commissioners find themselves in a bind when an issue arises because they discover that there’s nothing in the rules to address that particular situation.

Remember “Rule #1: Put it in Writing”?  Rule #1 is the cornerstone of prevention. We will always emphasize putting everything in writing because it’s arguably the single-most powerful tool at your disposal as a commissioner that can protect not only you but also the league itself.

Fantasy League Collusion: Dial D for Deterrence

There are already an established set of rules that go along with most platforms (i.e., Yahoo!, ESPN), but there are certain “real” scenarios that come up like collusive activity or someone in your league purposefully not rostering a position, that are usually not covered.

In regard to collusion, we’re not going to get into a set of specific rules – it’s up to you to decide what they will be. However, what you want to make clear in your rules is precisely what will happen to league members if they are caught doing it. What is the penalty? Expulsion from the league? Game forfeiture? A loss of a keeper for the upcoming season?

There should be no room for ambiguity. There’s always a couple of knuckleheads lurking about who couldn’t care less about your preventive measures. For them, we reserve the right to freeze their rosters.

Fantasy League Collusion: The Iceman Cometh

As you sit underneath the apple tree with pen and pad, drafting your set of rules, let it be known to the world that you have the power – like Prince Adam of Eternia – to keep owners from accessing their team if they decide to exhibit antisocial  behavior toward their fellow league mates.

Make sure that your chosen platform (i.e., Yahoo!, ESPN) gives you the freedom to execute the actions you desire. Back in the Cro-Magnon era of fantasy, commissioners didn’t have such options as the ability to rearrange matchups, change scores or freeze rosters.

Now, there is no excuse not to create or run a league on a platform that doesn’t give commissioners the tools to maximize league management.

If you feel that members of your league are colluding, it’s your call to either kick them out immediately, reach out to the owners and talk to them about the matter first. You may come up with some other protocol. In any case, you should freeze the rosters of the parties involved.

Why would you do this?

• You prevent the guilty from retaliating by immediately dumping their players after you give them the news.
• The same reasoning applies if you choose to have discussions with the league first. If things get ugly, you’re preventing the accused from doing the same thing.
• Similarly, you’re preventing them from spitefully making lopsided trades which will upset the balance of the league. This is a mess you’ll have to clean up afterwards, so end that junk before it happens.

No one will have grounds to moan and act surprised about what you’re doing because you will have already described your course of actions in the rules.

Fantasy League Collusion: The Usual Suspects

Inevitably, there will be a time where someone will leave your league, and you have to bring in someone new. I strongly suggest to try and avoid having another member of your league bring in someone you don’t know.

NOTE: This applies mainly to newer leagues rather than those with established members that have been entrenched for a while.

If you have a new or young league with a mix of co-workers, friends, acquaintances (not close friends) and family, you truly have yet to determine what their league loyalty is going to be. They may place winning above all else, and conspire with their best friend since kindergarten to help them out.

It takes time to sort out the bad apples. Some of your family members might even turn out to be the sour apples when it comes to fantasy. [See: “Don’t Let Personal Relationships Cloud Your Judgement”]

Members in long-standing leagues have a vested interest in keeping the league going and are less likely to do anything to ruin it. They know a good situation when they see it and will hold the continuity and stability of the league in high regard. Protecting the league and having fun with the other owners become just as important as winning the championship.

If at all possible, try to make sure that you have some kind of personal relationship with the new owner. Avoid bringing in Bob, “that guy” who works in your office. Bob might talk about football a lot in the break room, but if you don’t know him that well, you might want to reconsider.

There is only one person in my league who I don’t know personally. I’ve never met the guy. However, my cousin vouched for this person and I trusted him to know better than to bring someone in who wasn’t going to mesh with the rest of us (in a highly competitive league) and not be a jerk. It has worked out splendidly.

Still, it was a risk, but it was certainly better than asking the guy who I always see at the gym who’s always talking loudly about playing fantasy and claims he “knows about some football, man!”

Your Call

Are we guilty of being overly critical? Perhaps. Again, it comes down to the quality of your candidates. No matter how well you may have prepared for losing members in a league, you still may find yourself in a situation where you might not have good options to replace former league members.

Sure, the aforementioned Bob, might actually be a great addition to the league. Bob and I might eventually talk if I find that I’ve run out of better options, but until then? Nope.

New commissioners are often surprised at how much work it actually takes to run a fantasy league. Yet, if you put in the time in the early on and pay close attention to the details, you have a better chance at being one of the happy commissioners, instead of the ones crying about how much it sucks to be one on Twitter.