Fantasy Football 101 - Expanding your Dynasty League
Dynasty leagues are rapidly growing in popularity. The idea of playing fantasy football all year around is what true fantasy players dream of. Ideally, you want your league to have at least 10 teams, and ideally at least 12 competing for the trophy each year. What happens when you want to add additional teams to your existing dynasty league? Unlike a redraft league, the NFL players on your rosters remain on your roster until you decide to cut them, trade them, or they retire. There is no redraft every year, so how do the new teams even compete with 10 to 12 other preexisting established teams? Below is a dynasty expansion approach we have used in the past that was deemed successful by all parties. For the example below, we were adding 2 new members to our existing 10 member dynasty league.
League Buy In
First things first, before moving forward with an expansion you need to receive buy in from the other members of your league. If you do not already have an established rule change voting system in place, we recommend implementing one for things such as this. At minimum, it is recommended to have at least 50% voting approval before moving forward with a change of this significance.
Expansion Draft
Next, we have to establish an expansion draft. This is a draft that only the new entrants will be participating in. Essentially, this will be a reverse snake draft that will allow the new members to draft anybody off of waivers, or, any of the players that are being added to the expansion draft (more details on how players are added to the expansion draft below). This allows the new members of the league to have a starting point year one. The order of the snake draft can be determined by the commissioner of the league (a coin flip is sufficient if you do not have a creative way to determine this).
Each team is required to put up 4 players from their roster. If this is a super-flex or 2 quarterback league, then at least half of the members of the league are required to put up a QB. If at least half do not volunteer, then all members of the league are required to put up a QB. Of those 4 players, at least 2 of them have to be an RB or WR (RB/RB, WR/WR, or RB/WR).
Once the expansion draft is completed, both of the new members will now have a roster in the dynasty league. If any of the players that were placed on the expansion draft are not selected, then the team that put them up will automatically receive them back on their roster.
Rookie Draft
Now that we have 2 new teams, these teams are still incredibly weak from a talent perspective. The new team members will automatically receive the 1st and 2nd picks in the upcoming Rookie draft (as well as the preceding rounds in the rookie draft). Now, this can be a controversial decision in the expansion, but it definitely evens out the playing field given how poor the new members teams are to start with. An alternative approach would be to grant them the middle 2 picks of the draft in between the bottom and top teams (picks 5 and 6 in a 10 team league or picks 6 and 7 in a 12 team league). The order of who chooses first between the new members would be the opposite of the expansion draft (the member who chose 1st in the expansion draft receives the 2nd pick in the rookie draft).
Defense Draft
If you are a dynasty league that plays with defenses, then there is a chance that the majority of them are on teams already. Because of this, we recommend redrafting the defenses for all members of the league. This means, everyone starts fresh, and there is an ad-hoc draft where everyone picks a defense. This can be a 2 round, reverse snake draft, and the order should be at random (drawing names out of a hat is sufficient).
Conclusion
With all of the above steps, the two new members will most likely have the worst teams in the league, but that should be expected. The new team members need to grow their teams just like the rest of the league did. However, they now have players to work with, a foundational piece in their top Rookie picks, and you are able to expand your dynasty league with little impact to the other members of the league