Fantasy Football Commissioners: 4 Ideas to Spice Up Your League

With the 2011 NFL season fast approaching, its time to get those fantasy football leagues up and running again . As I am sure many of you have noticed, there are owners at the end of the season who tank because, well, they just do not care anymore. Here are a couple things that you can do to keep interest high throughout the season for all owners and maybe make things a little more interesting for you as well. 

Institue Fines

Everyone hates when an owner does not set their roster and there are 3 injured players set to start against the best team in the league, setting them up for an easy victory. On second thought, everyone except for the owner playing that team hates it. 

To correct this problem, consider instituting a system of fines. After the league entry fee, have each owner pay an additional sum of money as a deposit. At the end of the season, each would get their deposit back except for the sum that was taken away due to fines. Add the amount generated to the pot for an even bigger prize for the winner. 

Fines can be levied for things such as not setting one's roster or even for things such not voting in league polls. This will create an incentive for owners to check their teams each week and participate in league activities. 

Add a Rivialry Week

In college football, rivalry week is always a fan favorite, unless of course your team never wins. Adding it to your fantasy football league would no doubt make things more interesting. Everyone loves to beat their rival in competition and they will no doubt look forward to doing it in fantasy football. It will definitely increase the trash talking and therefore generate more interest in the league. If there are owners who do not have rivals, create rivalries! It will no doubt put more emotion into the game. 

Add Weekly Prizes

There is nothing that generates more interest than a chance to win something. Each week, your fantasy football league can have a prize for a new task. For instance, in week one, a prize can be given for the owner who scores the most points. In week two, a prize can be given to the owner who has the highest scoring quarterback.

These prizes can range from anything such as a trophy or achievement on the fantasy football website, to part of the prize pool. Whatever it is, it will keep the whole league interested, even those who have not won a single game! 

Add a Transaction Celing or a Transaction Floor

In every fantasy football league, there is always an owner who makes twice the amount of transactions as the closest owner or there is an owner who makes zero transactions. 

If your fantasy football league adds a transaction ceiling, there would be a certain number or transactions that an owner is able to make per week, or  maybe per season. This would make the draft a lot more meaningful as the players that you draft would be stuck with an owner longer than in other leagues. This would make things more challenging for owners. The free agents that the owners pick up would have to be carefully researched in order to make sure that they are worthy of using a transaction on.

On the other hand, if your league decides to impose a transaction floor, each owner would be required to make a certain number of transactions per week or per season. This would ensure that no owner would be too comfortable with the players that they have. Each owner would have to make some hard decisions as to which players that they must drop or trade.

Installing a transaction floor or ceiling could be enforced by using the deposit and fines system discussed earlier, or you know, the honor system.