Multi-Sport Fantasy FAQ

Can you trade players and/or draft picks across sports?  A: Yes!  For that reason, the trades can get kind of complicated.  For example, as of this writing a recent trade was:

Boogie Cousins, Gordon Hayward, a 6th round pick in baseball, a 6th round pick in football, and a 7th round pick in basketball FOR Shady McCoy, a 1st round pick in baseball, 2nd round pick in football, and 1st round pick in basketball

Does everyone know about all 3 sports?  At first, most of us played all 3 which for some people meant playing a sport for the first time.  Since then, some people have added co-managers and now about half the league is co-owned teams where one guy does baseball, one guy does basketball, and they do football together (for example).

You’re all nuts.  Not technically a question but we do hear it a lot so figured I should include it here.

How do you draft?  One sport at a time.  We like to get together in person so we start by figuring out everyone’s availability and setting a date.  We have a Google Doc “draft room” for every sport which allows us to change the order mid-draft if trades are made.  Brad usually shows up late and Reitman usually whines about people taking too long to pick.

How do keepers work?  3 per sport so 9 total.  We don’t have limits on how long you can keep a player and keepers don’t impact the draft (i.e. everyone keeps 3 guys and we essentially just start the draft in round 4).

How do you keep track of trades/rosters out of season?  We use a shared Google Doc to track stuff like trades, overall standings, keepers, league dues, rule proposals, etc.  Edit access is limited to our commissioners but the whole league can view the doc which works well for us.  Hamaoui has been logged into the Google Doc for 24 hours a day since 2011 which we think might be some sort of record.

What website(s) do you guys use?  We’ve had some blowout arguments about this and over the years, we have tried CBS, ESPN, and Yahoo.  Currently, we are using Yahoo.  That said, some members like CBS because it allows for more customization.  My advice would be to first write down how you want to run your league and then figure out the site(s) that will support what you want to do.  To the best of our knowledge there are no websites that fully support multi-sport fantasy, so we just play individual sports and add up all of the scores using a Google Doc.

Are all of the sports worth the same amount?  Yep.  Because some sports’ regular seasons are longer than others, we assign different amounts of points for regular season wins — i.e. winning a week in football is worth more than winning a week of baseball, but the two sports are worth the same amount overall.

[something something] ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME RIGHT NOW!?  whoa… uhh… hey, yeah, sorry babe… Marco Belinelli pulled a hammy and is out tonight vs Orlando so I was just picking up a small forward… annnnd done!  Sorry, what’s up?

Do you guys know of other multi-sport leagues?  We’ve heard of a few including Jonah Keri’s League of Leagues.  Our good friends in LA tried to start a league similar to The Parliament called The Franchise but unfortunately it folded after a couple years due to controversy about a Kevin Durant trade (or something like that… I was a few beers deep when it was explained to me).

What’s the hardest part about starting a multi-sport league?  For us, it was growing pains related to rules and rule changes.  You really have to think through the implications of how you set up your league’s rules and scoring.  We’ve struggled with things like tanking and injury spots plus all of the usual rule arguments you have with single-sport leagues.

Any advice for other people trying to start a multi-sport league?  Check out our blog post on the 15 Steps To Create A Successful Multi-Sport Fantasy League.  The bullet points may seem obvious at first but if you take a few minutes to read through everything I promise it will help you out.  One rule in particular that I think helps with parity is not allowing anyone to trade draft picks more than a year out (i.e. I can’t trade my first round pick two years from now).

What’s up with The Woods?  If you don’t know, now you know.

I’m trying to start a multi-sport league – can I bounce some questions off you guys?  For sure, hit us up on Twitter @ParliamenTweets