Should we change DNHL to a money league?

[izaman3]

I think this is a great discussion. I'll be upfront and say that I think this should stay a free league. I've been in plenty of money leagues and just because there is a buy-in, it doesn't lead to increased participation.

This league has great owners, and Rob has always been great about having league discussions about the future and rule changes. We've seen teams rebuild on the fly and perennial contenders.

If we are looking for more activity or engagement, maybe making it is about setting GM expectations. I always vote for the Ken Holland award based on my gut, but is there criteria? We have amazing power ranking posts, but it's usually the same people commenting on them. How often are people even checking the Profsl page? Is it even twice a week? I try to check every day or two but I know I've had streaks of not checking.

I like snug initial comment about roster turnover, and I'd be interested to hear more. Should there be times during the year where we ask people to confirm their commitment to the league?

End of the day, I've been here since we started and I'm staying until it ends or I die. Money league or not.

[WestCoastExpress]

Either way I don't really care.

However I don't think $5 or $10 is going to be a huge incentive for increased activity. Sure, maybe whenever the deadline for payment is there will be an unusual uptick, say in August or September or whenever it ends up being - with payment fresh on people's minds and a league that they've "invested in" so they want to make some roster moves.

Come November, December, January, that $10 is long gone and if they're out of it, I don't see too much increased interest versus what it is now with a non-paying league.

The only thing that may happen is the top-5 or 6 teams headed into playoffs actually do sacrifice a good prospect or two, to land an extra decent player or two.

On the flip side, it may make it slightly more difficult to attract new members, as a "pay league" can sound intimidating to some. Especially for this site which seems to be on the decline, having a league where you have to pay might turn off some new blood. Even if it's just $5. The whole process of having to PayPal money to someone you don't know online might just have people looking for other leagues.

[Rob]

Good stuff, guys. I do agree that it's not a huge incentive overall. I think it's a small change either way.

I don't know how long these "dynasty" styles leagues have existed, but I caught on around 2010 and I get the sense that most of you all started around the same time. I fell in love right away and there was a lot of excitement in this community.  Over 7 years I've seen a lot of members lose interest, get bored and/or burnt out. There's been no effort to offset this attrition with site wide recruiting (though i know a few guys are trying to step this up now). I think we've been mostly insulated from the broader site issues, but there's no doubt in my mind that the energy here would improve if ProFSL was active, growing and engaged.

[WestCoastExpress]

Good stuff, guys. I do agree that it's not a huge incentive overall. I think it's a small change either way.

I don't know how long these "dynasty" styles leagues have existed, but I caught on around 2010 and I get the sense that most of you all started around the same time. I fell in love right away and there was a lot of excitement in this community.  Over 7 years I've seen a lot of members lose interest, get bored and/or burnt out. There's been no effort to offset this attrition with site wide recruiting (though i know a few guys are trying to step this up now). I think we've been mostly insulated from the broader site issues, but there's no doubt in my mind that the energy here would improve if ProFSL was active, growing and engaged.

I think it's tough... First off, you have to be somewhat smart to manage your cap in leagues like this. I know a few guys that can barely manage drafting the right amount of depth for our yearly re-draft $ leagues. They'd be lost here keeping track of everything.
I also think it's more based for people that are older. When I say older, I mean older than a high schooler. There's plenty of them scattered in Yahoo and ESPN free leagues I imagine.
Also, I'm sure there are several other dynasty leagues with salary cap out there. I haven't bothered to look because ProFSL is all I need for the few leagues I'm in. But there must be a ton more out there for people to choose from. People also don't like change, so even recruiting people from those other sites may be difficult. If they don't like the layout we have here, or something doesn't please them, they may just default back to what they know.

Personally I'm not really in other leagues where I can recruit other people. I used to be in a keeper league on Yahoo with some randoms, but that league became a trading joke so I had to leave unfortunately. It was also free and no salary cap which made things easier.

We've got a solid core, that's for sure. Love this league, and the GM's in it.
It looks like Rebel may be on the down turn, just checked it out and lots of inactivity there. Maybe some of those GM's come over here (if they're not already).

I know there was wind of Anthony perhaps wanting to start a new league, and I was thinking of doing it. Different scoring type rather than just points that all of the NHL ones have here. H2H with 1-win per week on the line only.
But if there isn't really the group of GM's to house existing leagues, I don't really see a need to add another league.

[dedreger]

I'm fine with it either way -- free league or a money league.

Personally I'm skeptical that becoming a money league would itself increase participation and I suspect it'd be a net impediment to filling openings that come up (given that it's more likely the weaker teams that will need filling).

One thing that I think could help engagement is to make scouting and speculating on prospects something you can do throughout the year, along the lines of what you can do in many baseball dynasty leagues -- that's actually my favorite part of the baseball dynasty leagues I've been in.  Players picked in the most recent NHL draft would still first be reserved for selection in our league draft, but after that any prospect would be fair game for FA bids (prospect contract, then subject to increasing the bids with signing bonuses).  Some accompanying changes would probably be needed to make that viable ... some combination of more cap room to create more budget for signing bonuses, contraction to 18 teams (which has the side benefit of making easier to maintain a league full of active owners ... dump the least active ones), increasing the size of minor roster slots, reducing the number of draft keepers from the NHL counterpart team, etc.

The increased amount of FA bidding means an increased amount of transaction processing, though -- Rob, if your blood pressure is rising at the thought then forget I even mentioned it.

[SlackJack]

I'm fine with it either way -- free league or a money league.

Personally I'm skeptical that becoming a money league would itself increase participation and I suspect it'd be a net impediment to filling openings that come up (given that it's more likely the weaker teams that will need filling).

One thing that I think could help engagement is to make scouting and speculating on prospects something you can do throughout the year, along the lines of what you can do in many baseball dynasty leagues -- that's actually my favorite part of the baseball dynasty leagues I've been in.  Players picked in the most recent NHL draft would still first be reserved for selection in our league draft, but after that any prospect would be fair game for FA bids (prospect contract, then subject to increasing the bids with signing bonuses).  Some accompanying changes would probably be needed to make that viable ... some combination of more cap room to create more budget for signing bonuses, contraction to 18 teams (which has the side benefit of making easier to maintain a league full of active owners ... dump the least active ones), increasing the size of minor roster slots, reducing the number of draft keepers from the NHL counterpart team, etc.

The increased amount of FA bidding means an increased amount of transaction processing, though -- Rob, if your blood pressure is rising at the thought then forget I even mentioned it.

If I follow correctly this is basically just removing (or reducing) the 40 game threshold before undrafted prospects are eligible for Free Agency?

[dedreger]

If I follow correctly this is basically just removing (or reducing) the 40 game threshold before undrafted prospects are eligible for Free Agency?

That's part of it.  The other part is that you can offer a prospect contract (plus a signing bonus that counts only against your current-year cap; that signing bonus component is what would be bid up if there's competition for the player).   Currently, after 40 games the undrafted prospects can be bid on but only to "normal" contracts, not prospect contracts.

For those of us that are or have been in dynasty baseball leagues on this site, this will be a familiar concept.

[Rob]

Haha. This is exactly how we used to do it. We changed the rule 3 years ago in order to keep players in the draft. I do miss pc bidding with signing bonuses, no doubt. But this rule has kept our supplemental draft healthy.

[Eric]

Haha. This is exactly how we used to do it. We changed the rule 3 years ago in order to keep players in the draft. I do miss pc bidding with signing bonuses, no doubt. But this rule has kept our supplemental draft healthy.

I agree with this. While I would like it where we could bid on specs, this would greatly reduce the Supp draft player pool. If you get rid of the keeping of your drafted players (which I'm not supporting) then the PC bidding would work out better.

As for the the $ aspect, like it was said before I dont see $5-10 being a activity jump. There are 2 big reasons why I am still in this league. 1) Rob, he is a damn good commish and keeps everything flowing at a great pace. 2) The keeping of draft picks, this was a big seller cause it is different than any other hockey league on here. I do think we have a good group of guys ranging from great hockey knowledge to decent hockey knowledge and we make this league work and one of the best ones I have ever been in.

[snugerud]

Ok, to expand on my thought.  Why are GM's unwilling to pay assets for prime players (full price)?  For me simply its the asking prices.  There are several reasons why the asking prices are high and I dont blame them for being high, but that doesnt make me want to throw away my assets.  I think the biggest reason is there are no such thing as a rental player in DNHL.   Who was our biggest FA in the last 3 seasons?  Guentzel and only because he didnt hit his 40 games quick enough other than that, I think Daniel may have been our big name this year. No one in DNHL ever lets a top guy walk to FA and they shouldnt because they are an asset and you cant go sign another similar caliber guy. 

Bottom line is guys are not renting players because rental costs them too much in the long run.  ( My first few seasons I gave away assets trying to make pushes and frankly said I wouldnt do it again because what i gave up was way too much only to lose those players)

But, what if you could....
I am thinking we need some kind of mechanism in place that pushes (not by force but compels due to market) about 10-20 top 100/150 guys into the FA market each season. 

I think we could do this with one simple rule change.  When extending a player the new contract must be equal to or greater than the expiring contract. 

This would have a very light to non factor on players 18 - 28.  I mainly see this affecting players that have had injury filled seasons and players that had a decline in production, but i see that as a good thing since I dont believe you should be able to sign crosby at low cost for the next 5 years because he had 2 seasons where he missed 20 games.  We all knew he was still going to be great and if you dont want to sign him at the extension cost, you take your chances in the open waters of FA. 

I know some of you are going to think , I dont want to lose a crosby for nothing.  Thats when they become great rental pieces. You get picks or whatever you can and then you still get your chance at him again in FA. People really wont mind losing top players if they have 10-20 other equivalent options to sign.  Knowing that he is a rental player I wouldnt have to give up my next 5 years of 1st round picks but I wouldnt mind giving up a 2nd/3rd or even a 1st rounder , also knowing I could have a chance to reclaim but still happy to have the extra production for a playoff run even if i dont.

I think this would be a great thing for the league. More players in FA, creates rentals that guys wont mind losing because they didnt have to give up their first born,  It actually more closely mimics NHL , most NHL players in their prime even with a couple seasons of injuries do not take less money.