FranchiseKeeper Fantasy Football Rules

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• Fantasy Football Overview
• League Styles
• Salary Cap
• Signing Deadlines
• Deadline Periods and Intervals
• Contract Negotiations
• Using the 'Live Negotiations' Page
• Mid-Season Transactions
• Standings
• League specifications
• Sportsmanship

Fantasy Football Overview

Fantasy football is a game where a participant acts as an owner to draft a team that competes against the teams of other fantasy owners.

Fantasy teams accrue fantasy points based on the real-life performance of the players they have drafted. Only starting players accrue points; bench players do not accrue points.

Depending on the style of league you have joined, the fantasy points are used in different ways to determine league winners.

We take pride in our users on being active owners. This style of player acquisition doesn't work using auto-drafts.

League Styles

Head to Head Playoff Leagues

In Head to Head Playoff style, the teams with the top regular season records play an elimination playoff to determine the league champions. For regular season play, FranchiseKeeper teams are matched up randomly against other teams from their league, to play a 13 week regular season schedule.

Fantasy Points Leagues

In the Fantasy Points League, there are no matchups and teams accrue points based on their players' real life statistics. The fantasy points a team accrues throughout the 17 week season are tallied. The team with the highest number of fantasy points at the end of the year wins the league championship.

Salary Cap

Total team payroll for a given year cannot exceed that year's salary cap.

The salary cap for the 2013 FranchiseKeeper Fantasy Football Season is set at $230.

Once a player's contract offer is accepted by the system the salary is temporarily counted against the team cap. Contract bids that are the current highest bid for a player may not be withdrawn. Therefore, when a contract offer is the current highest bid for that player, the contract terms are counted against the team's salary cap. (e.g., if you offer a 2-year, $10 contract to Peyton Manning ($5/2013, and $5/2014) as long as that contract offer remains the highest on the table $5 will be counted against your 2013 salary cap and $5 against your 2014 salary cap.)

Owners should keep track of their contract offers and available salary cap space because the system will not allow you to offer a contract that will take a team over its available cap space. A listing of your outstanding contract offers, both regular and max, are listed on your Negotiations > 'My Offers' page.

Contract terms are only entered into a team's My Teams > 'Finances' page once a player is signed.

Activated max bids are also temporarily counted against the salary cap since it is assumed that the max bid will win. If an owner has the current high bid and a max bid on the same player, only the max bid is counted against the salary cap. If an owner has a max bid that is activated and another owner places a regular bid that is higher, the max bid terms are no longer counted against the available cap space.

If your bid isn't accepted it might be because you don't have enough available cap space. You may have to modify or deactivate a max bid on another player to free up money. Another reason a bid is not accepted is because you may not have any available roster slots.

Again, accepting other owners' contract offers for players you don't want allows a much more fluid and realistic negotiating environment for everyone. (See the section 'League Acceptance of Contract Offers' below)

Signing Deadlines

To expedite the option process, we have instituted signing deadlines to prevent the auction process from continuing indefinitely. To prevent these signing deadlines from being gamed at the last moment, owners will have the right to a silent maximum bid.

The multi year aspect of our leagues as well as the multi year salary cap constraints makes our auctions more complex. To give owners more time to make their calculations as well as to reorganize after missing out on players, FranchiseKeeper gives extra time between deadlines. Because of the extended time between deadlines our auctions might extend over multiple days.

We offer day, night and weekend options to fit your schedule. Some users will prefer auctions that last throughout the workday while others might prefer night and weekend deadlines. You choose what best fits best your schedule.

The initial auction works as follows: Each owner may place a bid on any player currently in the NFL. Unlike other fantasy sports auctions, FranchiseKeeper team owners DO NOT nominate players sequentially. Instead, each owner may place any bid on any player at any time. FranchiseKeeper owners can offer an initial contract to any player from the Agent page or make a counteroffer to any player from either the Negotiations > 'Agent' page or the Negotiations > 'Live Negotiations' page.

If the contract offer's terms are valid, the system registers the contract offer instantaneously. Upon registration of a contract offer for a particular player, that player is assigned the first available signing deadline, i.e., two days after the initial contract offer. In other words, if a bid is placed on Peyton Manning between 12:00 AM Tuesday and 12:00 AM Wednesday, the first available signing deadline would be on Friday.

Once a contract has been offered, negotiations for that player begin and competing contract offers for that player may be entered from either the Negotiations > 'Agent' or Negotiations > 'Live Negotiations' page. To offer a competing bid, on either of these two pages, select the player to whom you wish to offer a contract, enter your offering terms and click submit.

Deadline Periods and Intervals

Since our auction is multifaceted, we allow users extra time to sign players. The auction deadlines are not immediate but are assigned at least 2 days in the future to allow for negotiations. For your convenience, auction deadlines are assigned to occur during preset periods of time. This way you can be sure that during your assigned period (i.e., 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM on weekdays) you can watch live negotiations and adjust or put new bids on players you might be interested in.

Each league has a different deadline scheme. Some schemes are during the day in case you want to do your bidding from your desk at work. We also have night and weekend deadline schemes if that is most convenient for you. When you select a league to join you should decide what time is best for you to be available to participate in live negotiations. You can also choose the league you want based on the number of days that the draft lasts(longer drafts allow for more time between deadlines to adjust bids after the previous player gets signed).

Available schemes are:

• Weekdays 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM
• Weeknights 8:00 PM - 11:00 PM
• Weekends 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM
• Saturdays 12:00 PM - 7:00 PM (Saturday deadlines are always only 1 day)
• Saturdays 12:00 PM - 7:00 PM (Sunday deadlines are always only 1 day)

To ensure auction deadlines never overlap we schedule them sequentially (one after another). Each league has a different number of minutes between deadlines depending on the length of auction that you want. This way if you lose a bid on a player you can increase your bid on someone else with the extra money you now didn't spend. In all auctions the earlier rounds have more time between deadlines than later rounds.

We set up the leagues so that team owners can fill in their team rosters within 1, 2 or 3 days. Once all the deadlines for a day are filled in, the next players are rolled over to the next available day.

Bids on players are initiated by owners at their convenience without any limitations. Once an auction is initiated, the deadline will be automatically assigned in at least 2 days at the next available deadline period. This is done to ensure all the owners know who the other owners are bidding on and have time to negotiate.

On the 'League Settings' page are the details of your league's auction deadline settings. If you can't be online at the deadline for a player that you want then you can try offering a contract that will be allowed by the other owners, registering a max bid, or offering a high enough contract.

Standardized Contract Value (SCV)

FranchiseKeeper's proprietary algorithm assigns every contract offer a Standardized Contract Value (SCV) based on contract length and dollar amount of guaranteed and non-guaranteed salaries. The guaranteed portion of the contract is more valuable. Likewise, more years in a contract are more valuable than fewer years. The SCV is used to determine contract values: the higher the SCV the more valuable the contract.

At his deadline, a player signs immediately with the team that offered the highest SCV contract offer (including Max bids). That team is responsible for the exact contract terms laid out in the contract.

A calculator programmed with FranchiseKeeper's algorithms is available for use on the Negotiations > 'Live Negotiations' and Negotiations > 'Agent' pages.

Contract Negotiations

Offering Contracts

FranchiseKeeper was created to allow fantasy team owners to offer multi-year contracts to prospective players. Drafting a team and determining contract structures can be as simple or as involved as you'd like it to be.

Structure of the Contracts

Team owners can offer prospective players 1 through 5 year contracts. The contract can have guaranteed and non-guaranteed terms. For example, an owner can offer Peyton Manning a 2-year contract with $10 guaranteed and $5 non-guaranteed in year one, and $8 guaranteed and $2 non-guaranteed in year two.

Minimum bid increment must be a Standardized Contract Value (SCV) of 0.1.

Contract Restrictions

To provide a fair environment the following restrictions have been placed on contract structures:

1. Minimum salary is $1 per year (Guaranteed + Non Guaranteed?1). This can be broken into non-guaranteed and guaranteed (i.e., $0.50 Guaranteed and $0.50 Non-Guaranteed).
2. Range of guaranteed money throughout the length of the contract cannot exceed 4:1 ratio. i.e., if the lowest guaranteed amount for any given year is $10, the highest amount for any other year in the contract cannot exceed $40.
3. Nonguaranteed money in a particular year cannot exceed 4 times the amount of guaranteed money for that same year. i.e., if the amount of guaranteed offered in a particular year is $5 then the non-guaranteed amount for that year cannot exceed $20.

Max Bids

Max Bid allows you to enter the highest contract offer you would be willing to give in order to sign a player. Entering and activating the max bid is a way to protect your against another team owner coming in with a last-minute competing contract offer.

If a player signs a max bid contract, the owner is responsible for the exact terms the owner laid out in the max bid contract.

If an owner has an activated max bid which is greater than the highest regular contract offer at the signing deadline his max bid will be deactivated.

Max bids are kept secret and will ONLY be registered if a higher competing regular contract offer is registered at the time of a player's signing deadline.

If multiple max bids are registered, the team that offered the highest value max bid will sign the player at the terms offered.

If an owner has an activated max bid and another owner offers the player a higher value regular contract, the max bid is deactivated and the owner is notified by email.

All Max bids will be deactivated if the league unanimously agrees to let a player sign early (see below for unanimous league acceptance of contracts).

Max Bid Tiebreakers

In the event that two or more max bids have the same value, then the tiebreakers will be decided in the following order:

1. The owner whose contract offers more years signs the player.
2. The owner who offered a contract during the regular negotiation process signs the player. (i.e., the owner did NOT just enter a max bid).
3. The owner who had offered the highest regular bid at the time of signing deadline signs the player.
4. The owner who first activated the accepted max bid signs the player. Accepted max bids are time-stamped from the final activation. If you have deactivated a max bid and then subsequently reactivated it, the time-stamp will reflect the LAST time you activated it.

League Acceptance of Contract Offers

A player may sign an owner's contract offer before his deadline if the league owners unanimously allow the offer.

Unanimous agreement to early signing will occur when a player is not wanted by the other owners. Owners indicate their disinterest by checking the check box marked "Accept current bid" on the Negotiations > 'Live Negotiations' page.

By selecting this checkbox you agree to let the interested owner sign this player at the specified price and before the player's signing deadline. Once all the owners in the league select the checkbox the owner will sign the player immediately at the accepted contract terms. Once a new offer is registered, contract approvals must be renewed.

All max bids will be deactivated if the league unanimously allows a player to sign early.

Owners are encouraged to be active before deadlines (i.e., accepting other owners' bids for players you don't want and offering reasonable contracts to players you do want). Relying on the max bids and/or just watching the negotiations from the sidelines doesn't allow a player's market value to be accurately evaluated. This may lead to overpaid players, unwanted players on your roster, and undesirable salary cap scenarios.

Monies Not Counted Against Salary Cap

1. The non-guaranteed portion of a dropped player's salary
2. Players traded off your roster. (Note: the players and their contracts that you receive in a trade will count).
3. Retired, injured, and suspended players are subject to special restrictions.

Retired, suspended, and injured players

Team owners are responsible for contracted salaries for all players who REMAIN on your roster, including retired, suspended, and injured players.

When a player retires, you are given a choice of whether or not to drop him and ALL contractual obligations from your roster. If no action is taken after 14 days, the player remains on the roster and you are responsible for his contract.

Drops for retired players are final. If a player decides to come out of retirement after you have dropped him, he does not return to your team, even if the only reason you dropped him was because he retired. On the other hand, if you had decided to keep him on your roster while he was retired then he is still yours after he comes out of retirement.

One seasons worth of games is 16 NFL regular season games.

If a player is suspended from the NFL for less than 1 season you must still pay him, and his salary counts against your salary cap. If he is suspended from the NFL for more than a season's worth of games you may drop the player with no further contract obligations. You are given 7 days to make this decision. This drop is final.

If a player sustains an injury announced to be more than one season's worth of games then you are given 7 days to drop him from your roster with no further contract obligations. If, however, the injury is projected to keep him sidelined for less than a season's worth of games, contract obligations do remain even if you drop him from your roster.

If a player goes to jail for more announced to be more than one season's worth of games then you are given 7 days to drop him from your roster with no further contract obligations. If, however, the incarceration is projected to be for less than a season's worth of games, contract obligations do remain even if you drop him from your roster.

If a player dies he will be automatically removed from your team with no contractual obligations.

If you feel that a player is projected to be out for more than one season's worth of games and he is not listed as such then please contact us and a determination will be made by FranchiseKeeper on a player-by-player basis. All such decisions are at the sole discretion of FranchiseKeeper's commissioner. For inquiries send an email to commissioner@franchisekeeper.com.

A player deemed to be injured for a season's worth of games by FranchiseKeeper will hold that designation in all leagues. Owners have 7 days to drop players listed on the Players > Free Droppables.

Using the 'Live Negotiations' Page

The player on the block is the player with the next upcoming deadline. This lets all owners know whose deadline is next. Bidding can still be done for any player at any time regardless of who is on the block.

There is a league list on the top of the Negotiations > 'Live Negotiations' page which lists all the teams in the league along with their available cap space in the current year. For more info on each team's finances an abbreviated version of the My Teams > 'Finances' page is provided on the Negotiations > 'Live Negotiations' page.

Player on the Block: This section lists the player on the block, his actual NFL team, his position, and the date and time of his signing deadline. There is also a timer counting down to the deadline. The current highest bid, the team that placed it and a breakdown of the bid are also listed. Note: the 'current highest bid' does not include any max bids that may be activated.

If you choose to view a player on the Negotiations > 'Live Negotiations' page other than the player whose deadline is next, the player you choose will replace the player with the next deadline in the 'On The Block' section. Please keep this in mind so as not to miss any player's deadline.

Breakdown Section: This section is where you can enter the terms for your contract offers both in the respective regular contract breakdown and the max bid breakdown. Enter the dollar value in the guaranteed and/or non-guaranteed boxes for each year of the contract. Regular contract offers are registered by clicking 'Submit' below the bid breakout.

You may click 'Calculate' to see the value of your contract offer without actually offering a contract. Calculate does not register an offer.

A max bid must be activated in order for it to be placed at the right time. You can activate max bid by pressing activate above the max bid breakout.

Finance Section: This is an abbreviated version of the My Teams > 'Finances' page. You'll find key information about every team's finances without having to change pages. Also listed here are the position limits and the positions filled by each team.

Chat Window: Allows you to chat with other owners in the league during negotiations.

Winning bid details will be posted in the chat window during signing periods.

Bid History: This lists all the previous bids for the player currently displayed on the block. Scrolling over a bid will reveal a pop up with the bid breakdown.

Upcoming Deadlines: This is a listing of all the players whose deadlines have not yet passed. You may click on any player in this list to display his details in the 'On the Block' Section. This allows you to view details about this player and offer him a contract from the Negotiations > 'Live Negotiations' page. Please remember that if you do this, the player on the block will not necessarily be the one with the next imminent deadline.

Any leftover salary cap space can be used to sign free agents.

Mid-Season Transactions

There is no waiver system. Unclaimed players both pre- and mid-season are considered free agents. If an owner wants a player he must sign him to a contract.

Any player that is not currently on a roster of any team in a particular league is considered a free agent and is eligible to be offered a contract.

Mid season, teams are ONLY allowed to sign players to a one year contract (for the remainder of the current season).

You can drop players using the My Team > 'Drop a Player' page.

Contracts may be offered to any unclaimed player (free agent) using the Negotiations > 'Agent' or Negotiations > 'Auction' page.

All claimed players are immediately added to your starting positions. However, it is up to you to make sure that the players that you want are in the starting position.

At any time during the fantasy football season, you can drop a player from your team.

You can drop players without replacing them, but you can only pick up players without dropping anyone if your roster is under the maximum number of players allowed on a team's roster. You are never allowed to exceed your league's roster limit.

Players can be dropped using the My Team > 'Drop a Player' page and may be picked up using the Negotiations > 'Agent' page.

Any dropped player can be bid on immediately by any team wishing to do so.

The process follows the mid-season contract negotiation and approval procedure listed above in this section.

Starting Positions

1. You don't have to start a player at every roster position, but fantasy points and statistics will only be accumulated by those players on your starting roster.
2. Players are only eligible to play at those position(s) designated by FranchiseKeeper.
3. If you pick up a player, but later realize you did not want him on your team, you may immediately drop him. Note that you are still bound to any contractual obligations associated with that player.
4. All starting players earn fantasy points for all of your league's categories (you do not receive points for players on your bench). Points coming from categories not normally associated with a player's position (e.g., a kicker who throws a touchdown pass) are NOT counted.
5. Rosters for future weeks can be managed in advance. Rosters can be set weeks in advance by clicking on the weeks number from your team page and making the desired changes. Please check your set rosters if you have made any transactions in the interim as rosters might have been lost.
6. All managers can set their rosters for any future week. If a current player is no longer on your team (drop, trade, injured reserve, or is still on your team but doesn't take up a roster spot) during the week that you designated him as a starter then his spot will be blank and needs to be replaced.

Trading

A trade is an agreement between two teams to exchange one or more players and their contracts. Trades can include an uneven number of players as long as no roster or salary cap restrictions are being violated.

The Trade deadline is Wednesday Nov 21, 2013, 12:00 PM EST.

Proposing a Trade

From the Trades > 'Offer Trade' page select the team with which you would like to offer a trade from the drop down. Their roster will appear on the right side of the screen while yours will appear on the left side. Select the players you would like to include in the trade offer by marking the checkbox next to their names and click 'Offer Trade' to propose.

An email will be sent to the other owner notifying him of your offer.

The other owner can then go to his Trades > My Trades page and review the proposal. He can either accept or decline it.

• If the trade offer is accepted, an email notification will be sent to all league owners for review. If within 2 days, at least 1/3 of the other league owners(owners NO involved in the trade; the 2 owners involved in the trade don't count) object to a trade, the trade is vetoed and will be cancelled and an email notification will be sent to both owners.
• If an owner wishes to make a counter offer then he must reject a trade offer and propose a new one.
• An owner has 2 days to take action on a trade offer proposed to him. If he fails to take action, the offer expires.

During the review period, trades are marked as 'pending.' After the trade has been accepted and the review period has ended, FranchiseKeeper will process the trade and update each team's roster. Please allow up to 24 hours for processing.

Trading Limitations

• While a trade is pending, owners may not make other transactions involving any of the players involved in the pending trade.
• Players can only be involved in one transaction at a time. A player may only be offered in a trade to one team at a time.

Scoring

In all styles of leagues starting players accrue fantasy points for their teams based on their real-life performance and statistics.

When you see a negative number in the points list, it means that points are removed from a player's total for that play. Therefore, a player may end up with negative points.

Offensive statistics and scoring fantasy point values:

Kicking statistics and scoring fantasy point values:

Defensive statistics and scoring fantasy point values:

Standings

Head to head

During the regular season, FranchiseKeeper teams in head-to-head playoff leagues are matched up randomly against other teams from the same league to comprise a 13 week regular season schedule. All teams will play each other at least once.

For each weekly match-up, the team with the higher number of fantasy points receives a Win and the team with the lower number of fantasy points receives a Loss; if both teams accrue the same amount of fantasy points each team receives a Tie.

Weekly Win/Loss/Tie records are tallied to determine overall season standings. Overall standings are based on winning percentage.

If two or more teams have the same number of points at the end of the regular season then the tiebreakers are as follows:

1. Number of Wins
2. Total Fantasy points
3. Fantasy points scored in Week 17
4. Fantasy points scored in Week 16
5. Fantasy points scored in Week 15
6. Fantasy points scored in Week 14
7. Fantasy points scored in Week 13
8. Fantasy points scored in Week 12
9. Fantasy points scored in Week 11
10. Fantasy points scored in Week 10
11. Fantasy points scored in Week 9
12. Fantasy points scored in Week 8
13. Fantasy points scored in Week 7
14. Fantasy points scored in Week 6
15. Fantasy points scored in Week 5
16. Fantasy points scored in Week 4
17. Fantasy points scored in Week 3
18. Fantasy points scored in Week 2
19. Fantasy points scored in Week 1

In the event that a playoff game ends in a tie, the deadlock will be broken using the following system:

1. Winning percentage against this opponent during the regular season.
2. Playoff seed.

Playoffs

Fantasy Points Leagues

In the Fantasy Points league, teams are awarded fantasy points which are tallied throughout the football season. Only starting players accrue points; bench players do not accrue points.

If, at the end of the season, two or more teams in a fantasy points league finish with the same overall total, then the tiebreakers will be as follows:

1. Fantasy points scored in Week 17
2. Fantasy points scored in Week 16
3. Fantasy points scored in Week 15
4. Fantasy points scored in Week 14
5. Fantasy points scored in Week 13
6. Fantasy points scored in Week 12
7. Fantasy points scored in Week 11
8. Fantasy points scored in Week 10
9. Fantasy points scored in Week 9
10. Fantasy points scored in Week 8
11. Fantasy points scored in Week 7
12. Fantasy points scored in Week 6
13. Fantasy points scored in Week 5
14. Fantasy points scored in Week 4
15. Fantasy points scored in Week 3
16. Fantasy points scored in Week 2
17. Fantasy points scored in Week 1

NOTES:

• For any end-of-season ties, the final week of your league's regular season will be the first week used to break the deadlock.

League specifications

League styles: Head-to-Head Playoffs; Fantasy points

Teams in a league: 8, 10, 12, 14, 16

Maximum roster size: 22

Maximum player acquisitions: No maximum

Maximum trades: No maximum

Fractional yardage points: Yes

Negative yardage points: Yes

Starting roster: 1 QB; 2 WR; 2 RB; 1 RB/WR/TE; 1 TE; 1 K; 1 DEF/ST, 13 Bench players (any position)

Trade reject time: 48 hours

Minimum number of teams required for trade to be rejected: At least 1/3 of the league owners NOT involved in the trade. i.e., 2 owners are required to reject a trade in an 8-team league and 5 are required in a 16-team league.

Trade deadline: Wednesday Nov 21, 2013, 12:00 PM EST

Sportsmanship

Good sportsmanship is required and expected.

FranchiseKeeper.com reserves the right to revoke the membership of anyone determined to be in violation of FranchiseKeeper.com's Code of Sportsmanly Conduct. If you feel that a fellow owner acted egregiously or in an unsportsmanlike manner, please email us at complaints@franchisekeeper.com.

FranchiseKeeper Code of Sportsmanly Conduct

By joining the game, participants agree to abide by the following regulations:

1. All league-related transactions will be executed with the intent of improving the owner's team and/or its standing within the league.
2. No owner may drop or "dump" players from their team for any reason other than improving their own team and/or its standing within the league.
3. No owner will engage in any action that may be deemed to be collusive (two or more owners agreeing to make moves that benefit one team, but not the other).
4. No owner will make any roster moves (including waiver claims, trade proposals, etc.) whose sole purpose is to hamper the play of other owners.
5. No owner will take any action whose purpose is to, in any way, interfere with fair play in a league.

While FranchiseKeeper.com will not remove teams from leagues after they have drafted, any failure to follow all of the items listed above may result in the limitation or removal of playing privileges for the offending owner. These restrictions may include:

1. The suspension of specific game privileges (trading, message board posting, etc.) for the remainder of the season.
2. The suspension of ALL playing privileges for the remainder of the season.
3. The complete deactivation and removal of the corresponding FranchiseKeeper account.
4. Any other action that FranchiseKeeper, at its sole discretion, feels is necessary to restore fair play to the league.

It is the responsibility of team owners to monitor activity within their leagues. If, as an owner, you notice any suspicious or collusive activity in your league, please notify us at once so that we may investigate and take the appropriate action if any is deemed necessary against the offending team(s) and/or account(s).

• Please take note of negative scoring categories such as interceptions thrown, missed field goals, etc. Also be aware that players receive credit only for stats in a category for his position.

Please include the following information in any correspondence:

• The name of the team in question.
• Your League Name.
• The player(s) and statistic(s) in question.
• Any reference point (box score, recap, news story, etc.) that might help in resolving the issue.

Please email all concerns to complaints@franchisekeeper.com.

FranchiseKeeper is the sole arbiter of all league disputes, including those in private leagues. All disputes are settled solely by FranchiseKeeper's League Commissioner.

FranchiseKeeper reserves the right to alter these rules between season on account of creating a more playable game.