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Another, deeper fantasy idea

First of all, I hope the admins will show some leniency towards this slightly off-topic thread. (I wasn't sure where to place it, I figured this subforum is read by the most fantasy freaks like myself.) I love the idea of "Fantasy Cycling", but I'm here to tell you some more about my own little project and hear what you guys think.

Short version

I am organizing an independent fantasy competition (starting from Paris-Nice) which, unlike "Fantasy Cycling", focuses more on the long-term future of your fantasy team that competes with the other 17 WorldTour teams. It is a so-called contracts (aka dynasty) league, in which you initially keep 3-5 riders from a chosen WorldTour team, and then complete your team by bidding for the rest of the peloton offering them contracts up to 3 years long, while being limited by a salary cap. Then you select 8/9 riders to compete in each WorldTour event. Pretty much makes you feel like a real team owner. I don't think it has been tried before. I'm looking forward to your comments, advice, or maybe even interest in joining. More details: http://www.profsl.com/smf/index.php?board=1107.0

Long version - the rules

Summary
This is a fantasy league in which you take over one of the 18 World Tour teams, sign up to 30 riders in a series of auctions, and give them multi-year contracts within your total salary cap. Then you choose 8/9 guys to score for you in each race based on the real-life results, and redo the bidding for riders out of contract and neo-pros each January.

Salary Cap
Each team starts with 3-5 keepers and is equally rich. It can spend €5M per year on salaries, including the keepers. Each team can have between 20 and 30 riders.

Keepers' Salaries
All keepers are on a 1 year deal. The salary is derived from his CQ ranking in 2011, 2010, and 2009. The highest of the three is multiplied by 500 and rounded up to the next €10k. Minimum keeper salary is €100k. Examples:
Vanendert - 435*500=217500 => €220k
Gilbert - 3168*500=1584000 => €1.58M
Voeckler - 1744*500=872000 => €880k
Boonen - 1377*500=688500 => €690k
Your grandma - 0*500 => €100k

FA Bidding
Bids are in format of total contract value. The minimum bid is €30k and the minimum increment is 10% of the last bid, rounded up to the nearest €10k. Note that the number of years does not need to be listed until the bid is won. The resulting salary will be the final bid divided by number of years, rounded up to the next €10k. The winning bid will be the highest total contract amount.

Each player is auctioned in a separate thread at the ProFSL website that may be started by anyone, but please follow the template. There is no limit to the number of players that can be auctioned at one time or the number of bids for a player. You cannot at any point make bids that (if all successful) would take you over 30 riders or the salary cap. A bid on a player is considered final when it has been open for 48 hours. This means that no other GM has bid higher on the player of interest.

Contracts
Bidding will be done for players before the league starts and as well as during free agency each following winter. You will be bidding on the whole amount of the contract. Example: If a team bids €3M for Cadel Evans, then that declares that the entire value of his contract is €3M, and they can still choose between 1 year €3M, 2 years €1.5M per, or 3 years €1M per. If he retires earlier, tough luck. Contract guidelines are:

Salary range, Maximum Years
€200k or less (per year) = 1 year
€210k - €990k = 2 years
€1M or higher = 3 years

Example: Astana sign Andy Schleck for €2.4M. Based on this amount, they are only able to sign him to a contract up to 2 years, because if Andy's total salary was broken down over 3 years, it would only be €800k per year, not the €1M that is required for a 3 year contract. Nevertheless, if the bid was won at €2.4M then a higher total contract amount can be awarded.

Trades
Two teams can at any point exchange riders and their contracts, as long as it keeps them within the salary cap.

Free agents
A team can at any point during the season start an auction for any rider on the free market. From February 1st, please send a PM to everybody in such a case, the clock increases to 96 hours.

Scoring
Until the evening before the race (until 23h59 local time), every team nominates 8 riders (9 for the Grand Tours) that represent them in this race. Only these riders will score points if they do well IRL. If a team doesn't announce its squad, their 8/9 highest paid riders not participating in any other race at this moment will be selected automatically.

Points are scored in UCI WorldTour events only, but according to the CQ ranking scoring, and not to the UCI WorldTour scoring. CQ ranking rewards riders for finishing well in classics, stages, stage races, but also for keeping and winning jerseys.

All these points are added up in the individual ranking. The final score of each team will be equal to the sum of the points scored by their riders in the calendar year (when nominated for races). The ranking of teams in the unlikely event of a tie will be determined by the place of their best rider in the individual ranking.

Calendar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_UCI_World_Tour#Events
(We're skipping Tour Down Under this year.)

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

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82 comments

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Garfield | 12 years ago
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1 team needs a new directeur sportif.

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Garfield | 12 years ago
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This kid still up for adoption. They say he has some talent.

//www.albertocontadornotebook.info/i/tdwSAXO2012.jpg)

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Garfield replied to Garfield | 1 year ago
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New season, new chance to join. Don't miss it! Sign up here:

https://fantasycycling.freeforums.net/thread/1/sign-sheet-rule-all

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Garfield | 12 years ago
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1 substitute needed for a very strong team.

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Garfield | 12 years ago
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The game has started, but there are still 2 teams available.

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Garfield | 12 years ago
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Nope, either you keep him or he is auctioned as a free agent, both can't occur. Other than that, you nailed it!

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Gkam84 | 12 years ago
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Ah ok, got you now

So getting Gilbert on a one year a €1.5M works out just the same as winning him in an auction a €1.5M, it would still only be a years contract

If you won him for €2M you could get a two year contract as €1M a year  26

Just out of interest, If i did pick BMC, kept Gilbert, then auctioned him off, say someone did bid €3.3M, Does that then go into my €5M per year salary cap? So making it €8.3M

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Garfield | 12 years ago
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I'm afraid you misunderstood that part. All keepers get a 1-year contract. In an auction, €1M per year or higher lets you sign a rider for up to 3 years. For example: if you won an auction at total €2.4M, you cannot offer 3 years, thus 2 years at €1.2M per year is your best choice. If you won an auction at €3.3M, you're allowed to sign for 3 years and €1.1M per year. It's very easy once you get used to it. Clear now?

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Gkam84 | 12 years ago
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That makes no sense, because if i were to pick Gilbert as a keeper, how can you put a 1.5 contract on his head when you state this €1M or higher = 3 years and if you pick him as a keeper you only get a years contract  39

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Garfield | 12 years ago
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Yes, you could. But if you keep those guys, most of your budget is already gone. For example, Gilbert earns over €1.5M, and you have €5M for the entire team of 20-30 riders.

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Garfield replied to Garfield | 10 years ago
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We're nearing the end of year 2.
It's relatively light and low maintenance, but we're having a lot of fun!

Wanna join for year 3? Free agent auctions and a neo-pro draft begin November 1. Check it out yourself: http://www.profsl.com/smf/index.php?board=1107.0

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Gkam84 | 12 years ago
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As stated above, if i had more time to play, then i'd be in BUT, just want to see if i'm right here

If i picked BMC, i could have these guys without bidding?

Cadel Evans
Mathias Frank
Philippe Gilbert
George Hincapie
Thor Hushovd

I know RSNT is gone, but that seems slightly unfair that someone can snag that team and have

Fabian Cancellara
Andy Schleck
Frank Schleck
Chris Horner
Andreas Kloden

Without anyone having a say, so in theory, ALL the big guys are not going to be up for auction or free agents to start with  26

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Garfield | 12 years ago
0 likes

Well it IS up and running, just follow the link to join. We're starting the free agency later this week, so make up your mind ASAP. You'd have to choose one of the available teams and give me your 5 keepers  26

http://www.profsl.com/smf/index.php?board=1107.0

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Stumps | 12 years ago
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I know what you mean, all i was getting at was dont fall into the trap of by changing something it makes it better.

Personally if your game works then great i'm all for it.

Let us know when it's up and running and i will give it a shot  1

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Garfield | 12 years ago
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Stumpy,
firstly, please note the huge difference in philosophy. My game is not "subsequent" to anything, as I believe nothing like this has been tried before. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Secondly, the league IS SET UP and will begin before the end of this week. Can I get a piece of your pie now?  10

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Stumps | 12 years ago
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Garfield,

When i was younger i played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons and the initial game was probably the best despite efforts from numerous people.

Basically what i'm saying is that your game sounds really good but after you've played the original then subsequent games seem to loose their appeal.

Dont get me wrong if the game gets set up i will love to play and give it a go and will be happy to eat humble pie

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Garfield | 12 years ago
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Thanks for the extensive comments! In a nutshell, bad news is you didn't convince me to change much, good news is I have all the problems you listed covered.

I suspect some of your doubts originate from the fact that you haven't actually visited the game page at ProFSL. (Or read the rules for that matter?) But let's tackle them quickly:

1. There are maximum 18 participants. So far we're 12. 1 or 2 more people might still join, but it's fairly irrelevant to the league's existence. I'm also silently happy ro report that nobody took BMC, Sky, or Garmin. Seems like we're a romantic bunch and care more about the success of the Vacansoleils and the AG2Rs of this world.

2. The cyclist universe in not limited. But when offering a contract to, say, Voeckler, you have to take into account that he probably won't win you any points in the Giro. Still, with max 30 riders per team, all signed in January or early February, I have no idea what is your problem with picking the team for TdF or the coexistence of TdS and DL.

What did I miss?

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thefatcyclist | 12 years ago
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So you would have a closing date for "managers" and once the game was started nobody else could join.

18 teams. So only 54-90 participants. How would you work out who would get to take over each virtual team. What if you had 300 people wanting to be SKY, 250 wanting to be Rabobank, etc etc. Then If I put in EBH, does that mean nobody else can have him. There seems to be big holes in a really good germ of an idea.If based on real results, it looks only too easy to not be able to pick a full team especially around the TDF, when teams tactically split their teams between the two, or only participate in one i.e
TDS or DL or Tour of Luxemburg. there would be problems with team time trials, because the virtual "SKY" would actually bear no resemblence to the real "SKY" except for the 3-5 riders. Or to put it another way, you might put the TDS in the programne for the season, and not the DL, therefore there is a huge chance that these 3-5 riders are racing the DL, so you will have no real stars or results to use to score the game.This would mean knowing the precise team rosters, and falling back on the other 25 or so people in the roster, Then there is the problem of real riders riding for other riders in there real teams like a leadout train. Then managers can spend ages creating and picking teams for a race, only to have the programne select the team for them if rosters are late.

What pool of riders are you going to use, the real rosters for each real team???, all registered UCI cyclists, top 150 in UCI listings. In any roster there will be those destined to never ride for the team, because they are in for developement reasons, so the upper echelon is relatively small in some teams, but some teams are hugely rich in riders as in Skys 30 man squad, Radioshack trek's 28 mean roster, but not so strong in Rabobanks 27 man roster.
Then what about the wild card teams for the TDF?

Simplify it and I might give it a go, but not in the present form.
I am sure there will be loopholes in my logic, but there may also be constructive points.
With regard to pricing and bidding and contracts. I am arithmetically really strong, but can make neither hide nor hair of it.

Cheers

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dave atkinson | 12 years ago
2 likes

you don't want to be going around making fantasy games anyway. it's a mug's game  39  4

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Gkam84 | 12 years ago
0 likes

If this was last season, i'd be on it like a shot, i had lots of spare time as most forum members will tell you

But having limited time to look at riders..etc this year and maybe even being away from any internet, the road.cc game works just as well on my phone and tablet

I hope you get a few members who play both, as its an interesting take on it, more like running a whole team for a season rather than picking a bunch of riders every race, Its more like playing the fantasy games for football that some of us as used to

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Garfield | 12 years ago
0 likes

Thank you!

Indeed, there is certainly a difference in complexity between the games focusing on merely predicting results and those going into deeper management, so I fully understand your point.

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Gkam84 | 12 years ago
1 like

Hope it all goes well for you, but to complicated to hold my interest and keep it fun to play

Thats why i play here, simple and fun

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