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.)