Run Leagues No One Wants to Leave with Joey Wright

Most commissioners think their job is merely administrative. They collect dues, schedule drafts, manage league settings and move on. Footballguys' community engagement leader Joey Wright thinks that's only the beginning. In this episode, Joey joins Jeff Blaylock to talk about what it actually takes to build a dynasty league that people never want to leave, from the three roles every commissioner plays to the tools and traditions that keep a league alive year-round to what separates a good commissioner from a great one. Whether you're a veteran commissioner or thinking about launching your first league, this conversation will change how you see your role.

You may want to check out this episode on YouTube for some special photos and moments that don't necessarily translate to audio-only formats.

Topics Include

• The three hats every commissioner wears: administrator, mediator, and social chair
• Why turnover is the truest signal a league is in trouble
• How a league constitution prevents most conflicts before they start
• The best communication tools for keeping leagues engaged are outside the app
• The off-season engagement playbook: events, birthdays, and more
• What to look for in a commissioner and what skills the role actually requires
• Starting a dynasty league from scratch: settings, format, buy-in, and timing
• The Empire dynasty format and why it may be the future of money leagues

Chapters/Timestamps

00:00 — The Commissioner Builds the Community
01:55 — Joey's Road to a Full-time Fantasy Role
09:19 — The Home League Show & How It Came to Be
13:10 — Think Bigger Than Administration
17:06 — The Three Hats: Administrator, Mediator, Social Chair
23:01 — What to Look for in a Commissioner
31:00 — Skills Every Commissioner Needs
38:29 — Handling Conflict & the Constitution
46:17 — How to Level Up Your League
55:39 — Parting Advice for New Commissioners
58:58 — Where to Find Joey

Links & Resources Mentioned in the Show

Download an Example League Constitution
Order "The Commissioner's Playbook: A Guide to Creating the Fantasy Football League of Your Dreams" from Amazon (not an affiliate link)

Follow Joey on Twitter/X
The Home League Show on YouTube
Trivia Night Live on YouTube
Footballguys

Follow Jeff on Twitter/X
Jeff's Dynasty Rankings

Support the Show

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Visit dynastycompass.com to learn more about the show.

Transcript

Jeff: Fantasy football is a community, whether that is a community of 12 in a home league where you've known everyone for years or a community of thousands scattered across the globe. The key to all of that is the commissioner. They are the ones who set the tone, who adjudicate the disputes, and ultimately are responsible for how much of a community the league actually is.

Joining me today is Joey Wright, the community engagement manager for Footballguys, to talk about the importance of community, the role of the commissioner, and how commissioners everywhere can level up their leagues right now. That is next on the other side of the stomp on Dynasty Compass.

[Theme music]

Jeff: Welcome to Dynasty Compass. I am your host, Jeff Blaylock, the other Jeff B from Footballguys. And I am thrilled today to be joined by the Joey Wright of Footballguys, my friend and colleague. Joey, thanks so much for taking the time and your busy show producing schedule and welcome to Dynasty Compass.

Joey: You know, I, I like to think that I'm never too busy, especially for you. Um, when you sent me the show sheet, it said episode 34, and I'm just wondering why it took 34 episodes for you to invite me on. Nah, that's great. I'm just excited to be here, uh, to talk to you about what we're gonna talk about today. I feel like this is the perfect episode for me to come on, so I'm excited to talk to you, buddy.

Jeff: Well, they're, they're out of order. So this is actually episode 33, so that's, that's one sooner. Uh, and it's taken so long because, you know, I wanted to perfect the format before I got you out here. And so today we are at perfection because Joey Wright is finally here and we are gonna be talking about commissioning today.

Something that doesn't get a lot of attention in the fantasy space, despite the fact that it's an extremely important aspect of any league really, but particularly dynasty leagues. But before we get to all of that, you know, Joey, you are a definitely a fascinating person. Every time I talk to you, I learn something new about, about the really surprisingly wonderful past you have and the long road you've taken to get to, to Footballguys as the community engagement leader. So, uh, for everyone who may not know you as well, what's the, uh, the high level story of how Joey ended up in a career of fantasy football?

Joey: I mean, I think it starts like, you know, when I was a kid, just the love of sports and you know, just the love of looking at the back of baseball cards and football cards and basketball cards. Uh, college basketball was my first love. I was a ball boy for the Florida Tech Panthers for five years and it was a great time bonded with my grandfather over sports.

And then, you know, as I got older, I just got more and more into it. And my actual like toe dipping into the industry. In 2020, I got really sick. Um, I had my gallbladder removed. I had to get double open hernia repair. Um, a couple other procedures done and I was in bed a lot and I was already playing fantasy football for years before that.

I've been playing since about 2009. So, uh, I ended up in my first industry league, which was the RazzBowl from the guys over at RazzBall. And I had a blast. I made it, you know, my own little thing and you know, every week doing weekly updates and stuff and just had a lot of fun with it. And the team at RazzBall, I've always so thankful to them 'cause they were, they were the company that gave me my first shot, uh, said, dude, you're really funny.

We really enjoy, you know, you just kind of being who you are. Do you wanna come work for us? And I said, sure. And then they gave me the, uh, waiver wire article. Year one. Uh, I ran that for a whole year, kind of made it my own. Uh, yeah, I just really enjoyed my time there, but knew that like, you know, maybe straight analytics was not gonna be my foray into this industry.

And I went to the Fantasy Football Expo and I, uh, met my, uh, I, I call him my mentor. He will deny it up and down and that's fine if he does. I met my mentor, Dave Richard, who I've been listening to for over 10 years, uh, through the CBS podcast. Uh, and he told me, you know, I asked him a lot of the same questions that people have asked me, like, how do you get started in this industry?

And he's like, find your differentiator. Find what makes you different, find what you're good at, that's outside the realm of fantasy football, and find a way to make that valuable to a company. And I met, uh, at that same expo, I met JL Garofalo, Jay Felicio, and Simon Groeneveld, uh, three of the guys and Josh Fewster as well.

Uh, four of the guys at Front Yard Fantasy. And about a week later, I joined the team over there. I said to JL, um, and Front Yard Fantasy, just for anyone that's never seen it, it's a used to be a daily game show where, um, the chat would join in. It was very interactive with community. And I saw like, oh man, I really enjoy that.

Uh, but I asked JL, I was like, hey man, I got this idea. Uh, can I go to like, record something that's like not a show? And I went to the park and I recorded some star and sits and I did it in like a little funny character. Um, the first episode actually don't have the voice, but a few episodes later I developed this voice to create Starts, Sits and Salutations, uh, where I went out into nature, talked to animals, I did all kinds of stuff, uh, with that series.

And I remember Dave saying to me like, this is your differentiator. This is what sets you apart. Um, lean into that. And what I found was. I was able to develop a community doing the show. I took it to Expo, uh, two years later and interviewed people, and you can actually watch my interview on camera with Joe Bryant, uh, where I basically land a job with him.

And I wasn't even trying to, um, but through building community, um, of my own, I got to meet some great people. Um, Dave Kluge, Jeff Bell, Alfredo Brown, who were already at Footballguys, and they really kind of put the good word in for Joe, for me as well. And, um, Joe brought me on at the end of the 2022 season, um, and then said, oh, by the way, five days, uh, in five days we're gonna be in Las Vegas for a company retreat.

We'd love for you to attend. And I was just like, uh, let me see. And, uh, made it happen. Worked, um, you know, did round tables and whatnot for a while for Footballguys. And then in the summer of 2023, I was really unhappy in my day job. And I'm, I'm very thankful for my day job that I had. Before this, I was a water technician.

What it allowed me to do is basically drive around town and listen to fantasy football podcasts and, you know, 'cause you have to drive to the customer's houses. So I had lots of time in between. Um, I'm very thankful for that job, but I was very unhappy. Uh, I knew that this is not what I want to do for life.

I, I, I think I wanna try this football thing. Um, went and sat down with Joe at the Expo and he said, pitch me your dream role. Go home and figure out what that is and then come back to me. And, uh, Joe said no. Uh, when I went to him the first time, um, it's just 'cause it was bad timing and, uh, remember being really defeated.

And then a week later he called me, he is like, you know what, let's go ahead and do this. So, um, you know, maybe my presentation was really good and Joe had to digest a little bit. And then ever since then, um, I've kind of hit the ground running. Anything and everything I can do at Footballguys I want to do.

Uh, I plan our company retreat. Um, I run the Discord, uh. I helped create the Footballguys Bowl, uh, which is our community bowl with last year we had 5,000, over 5,000 teams in it, 5,004 to be exact, because a week before the bowl was kicking off, we were like 28 teams short. And I was like, no, no, no, we're gonna, we're gonna hit 5,000.

Um, go to all the community events and really anything that I've done at Footballguys in this industry, I, at the foundation, I wanted to build community and I wanted to be a part of something and make people just fall in love with the game that I did. So anything I do with Footballguys kind of is through that lens.

I'm on two shows. Sunday Morning Live. That's community, that's people asking for help, starts, sits face forward. We can put their comments on the screen. I love that type of thing. And then I host a trivia show, which is just hanging out building community. So anything I'm doing is building community of Footballguys.

And so, yeah, my journey is not the same as a Matt Harmon or a JJ Zachariason, who we're definitely more analytics based. And I love those guys. Those guys are incredible. I leaned on their knowledge, I leaned on the guys that we have of Footballguys, Bob Harris, uh, Dave Kluge gave me. We have some great minds of Footballguys, but that was not my path.

I was never gonna succeed, uh, going the route of a straightforward analyst. Maybe I could have, I've had some people say, oh yeah, I think you could, you could have gotten there that way. But I knew the best and most true way for me was to find my differentiator, find what makes me different, find what I'm good at outside of fantasy football, and apply that to fantasy football to help myself succeed.

And, you know, I do this full-time now. I don't have any other job. Uh, and I'm really happy and I, I ended up in an industry that I absolutely love, in a community that I love. Uh, so yeah, I think that's my journey. I think I hit all the points I was supposed to hit.

Jeff: There you go. And of course, you're a huge film buff because you have part of your library behind you. It is a vast library if you've ever seen Joey on a longer, wider shot. It's just more and more and more, uh, so big, big film buff once a, once a projectionist, so always a projectionist at heart.

Joey: Um, I, well, I say I love this job. Um, boy, let me tell you, being a film projectionist when I actually got to like, with 35 millimeter film, that is a and b like jobs, like just such a, such a fun time. I love movies. I was a film critic for a little while and, uh, yeah, 1,500 films a little bit over that now.

So yeah, just love.

Jeff: Just a few, just a small number. Very, very small, very small collection. So, you know, you of course build community on a, on a very large basis for Footballguys. This is a, this is a, you know, nationwide, global kind of community for, for folks who are in leagues, of course we're looking at a much smaller kind of group.

But what, what, from, what does community engagement at this larger level mean? And then how does that get applied to just the individual league level?

Joey: Yeah, I mean, I, I think community at large, um, I just want everyone to feel what I felt the first time I did a draft with my room full of buddies. And I don't think being in a league of 5,000 people or 2,000 people of the super tournaments, or if it's just a league online with people you don't even know.

I don't think the community needs to stop there. I think you can build community and relationships through those leagues. Um, so I think the community or what it looks like to that league is whatever that league's identity is, if that makes sense.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. And, and you know, home leagues of course a big part of that. That's how many of us got started. You're just, just mentioned it, you know, sitting in a room, drafting with your buddies. I know that's something that you're particularly passionate about. And you and our colleague, Dr. Kevin Murray, you guys host a show for Footballguys.

It's focused on home leagues. It's one of the newest shows we have. It's outstanding. I love it. Um, and that shows in what, what's the, what was the goal here for that show? And, and you know, you talked about pitching something to Joe earlier, so great segue into how did you pitch that to Joe? How did you say, Joe, we need a show about home leagues.

Joey: I didn't pitch it to Joe. Joe pitched it to me before I was really ingrained at Footballguys. In the role that I'm in, Joe, it's a hundred percent. Joe had told me and Kevin Murray separately that he wanted a commissioner based show at Footballguys. And I wanna say over two years ago, Kevin and I were walking in Las Vegas and we started having the conversation that two years later would lead us to make The Home League Show.

And we just knew we wanted something for commissioning. And I was like, man, I would love to help you on this. I just don't know where my role is. And then we figured out, why don't we just make it commissioning and community? And then it really all started taking off. But the big jumping off point for us to do it is, uh.

Kevin Murray put a book out. The Commissioner's Playbook. Oh my gosh. If I got the name of that book wrong, Kevin's gonna kill me. But

Jeff: we'll, we'll edit, we'll edit this out if you're wrong

Joey: No, no, no. It's The Commissioner's Playbook. Um, but Kevin wrote an incredible book, and in that book, you know, it goes through chapters of like, really how to set up, you know, any type of fantasy league, how to build community, what makes fantasy football great.

And it really just kind of provided a blueprint for us to get our hands into fantasy football, into building the leagues and building community and put it on a show. And it's been really fun. I think we've got like 15 episodes in the tank, and it's evergreen content too. That's what's great is we're not really doing, you know, kind of like this show.

We're not doing fantasy football content that's like, okay, what tight end are we gonna start this week? It's really like, how do we build a fantasy league? How do we build a home league? How do we make it great for everyone? Um, it, whatever kind of league that might be.

Jeff: Yeah, that's, that's great. I love, love that show. And, and Kevin's, Kevin's book as well, have links to all of that in the show notes down below if you're on YouTube or in the notes if you're on another platform. Uh, but, you know, talking about commissioners, I think a lot of commissioners. Probably see their role as largely administrative.

You know, they, they collect dues, they update settings, they make sure the league's moving, right. They move it from one year to the next. They go from off season to end season. But that, that to me always felt like a very narrow kind of vision for a, a commissioner. I imagine you also would agree with that.

So what, what could a commissioner be doing for their league if their focus has up till this moment been just on administration?

Joey: Yeah, I, I think in any type of a, a job, if you're in leadership and you try to do it all yourself, you, you're probably not gonna have a lot of fun if you're doing administrative stuff and fantasy football is supposed to be fun. Um, I think one of the greatest things that a leader of a fantasy football league can do, and that's the commissioner, is delegate some roles out.

Take some of that administrative work off your, off your plate and give it to some people in your leagues. Like let's say if you've got money in your league, nominate a treasurer. And this is stuff that, you know, working with Kevin I've, I've learned about and I knew about before, but definitely developed my knowledge a little bit more.

Um, but you know, when you give some of those administrative duties away, it allows you to kind of be a little bit more of a party planner, which I think is kind of a fun attitude to have as a commissioner, to make that league engaging in every single aspect possible. But that doesn't mean that you need to have parties every week. Communicate with your league, find out what the identity of your league is, and do everything you can to make sure that that league identity is matched in everything you do.

So if you're like, uh, let's say you're a league where, um, everybody's local, you know, let's think, and we'll talk more on this stuff as well, but, you know, think of going on like a destination draft. Like, you know, and the destination might just be an hour away, but go get outta your, you know, outta your normal sports bar.

And listen, sports bars are great. I do a lot of my drafts there, but you know, it's fun to go do a beach draft every now and then. We, I live close to the beach or you know, if you're in the mountains, go to the mountains, get a cabin and just do a fantasy draft there. Get a fire going. Um, find out what the identity of your league is and just try to match every single aspect of your league to that.

Jeff: Yeah, it, it, what does that, but what does that look like? So what are, what are the aspects that we're talking about? I mean, when you've got a community and a league that's really working well, like, let's say you were, you were gonna parachute into a league. If you looked around, how would you know that league's got that sense of community.

It's got that identity presented in the, in, in, across all of its aspects.

Joey: Yeah, I mean, I think it's engagement. Uh, if you look at any league and there's not engagement there, you don't see the, the teams or the managers bought into whatever the nucleus of the league type is. Um, I, I think you need to kind of reevaluate what's going on. And so I think one of the biggest indicators of that is turnover.

If you've got a lot of turnover in your league, that's a sign that maybe. I don't wanna say you are not doing something right. 'cause that could be wrong. You could just not have the right league managers in there. I think that any fantasy league kind of takes two or three years to really kick off until you have that core group of people, 12 people or 10 people, or eight people, how many ever people you need, uh, that fits your league best.

Uh, 12 seems to be the, the number that most people go with. Um, once you get those 12 people that are all very like-minded and not. And the same type of fantasy players, but they have the same goal in mind. So if you've got a money league, maybe that's a little bit more serious. Maybe you don't do lots of bells and whistles.

It's just you make sure that every little deadline is met, everything is scheduled out properly. That's something that a good money league would have, or a treasurer that will handle the money. Well, the, and it's all written down in a constitution. That would be something I'm looking forward to as a, uh, as a paid league or just a casual league with friends.

You know, I want a super fun draft party. I want an end of the year Super Bowl party with lots of awards and fun aspects. It just depends what that league identity is, but whatever that league identity is, whatever the commissioner's doing needs to match that.

Jeff: Yeah, you, you mentioned of course turnover and I mean dynasty leagues, all leagues really, but dynasty leagues in particular, because of their longer timeframes really live or die on retention and, and replacing managers, uh, is tough. And having, you know, as you know, a number of them leave over a short period of time is, is very kind of destabilizing.

So you, how much would you say that retention is a factor of fantasy success from kind of the individual manager standpoint, but just the league operation standpoint as well? And then how much is it really the relationships in the community within the league?

Joey: That's a really interesting question. I think, um, definitely if you see your league and you've got multiple managers turning over every year, I want to just say look in the mirror, because if you've got year after year people turning over, now the first year, I, I, I give any commissioner, any league that first year to kind of be like, oh, you know what?

This, um, you know, Jimmy wanted to try fantasy football, not for him. All right, well let's find a, let's find a replacement for Jimmy. Jimmy's not having a good, um. He wasn't having a good time. But I think it's the fantasy commissioner that forces Jimmy to keep going. The fantasy commissioner, I should say, that forces Jimmy to keep going.

That's where you can kind of get some stale leagues going. Um, you know, it's, it's, I kind of alluded to it earlier, but that basic question is like, is this league gonna be serious or is it going to be fun? And there can be both. Um, you know,

Jeff: Both is a, is a tightrope. It's the one I do try to walk on. 'cause I, I do find there's a combination of seriousness that keeps people committed and fun, that keeps people committed. And, and trying to find that balance between them is always a, a challenge. It's one that I, I try to walk, uh, but you know, and a lot of the leagues that I have are, are not based around longtime friends.

We're not based around geography. I'm here kind of on an island in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I, I left Austin, which I'd been in for 25 years. So my, my circle of folks I can have in a home league is, is not big enough for a home league. And many of them don't play fantasy football. So that's also a, a bit of an issue when you're trying to make a fantasy football league.

So how do you, how do you kind of. Take that, that energy from your buddies at the cabin in the mountains doing that draft and put it into a league where everybody is somewhere else. Maybe nobody really knows anybody. You may know one or two people in the league, but, but there's not a, like a central core cluster of, of friends who have been together for a long time.

Joey: Yeah, I mean, I, that, that's tough. Like my, my main home league I've had going for over 15 years. I've known the guy since, since I was 16. Um, that has community already built into it before it even started. But I'm gonna just be honest, my strongest dynasty league is with 11 people that I met two years ago. And I, I, some of them knew each other beforehand and I knew one of the guys and that's how I got the invite into it. Um, but it's just, you know, having good communication honestly is what kind of built that league up. There were some common interests that we would continue to talk about and through the off season, so that definitely helps have some, having some common interests in there.

Um, but one thing we did was we established a forum outside of a league chat. We had different topics we could talk about, and we started kind of already building the, or sorry, putting like the foundation of what would be a community, if you want to call it. Um, but just getting to know each other, communicating.

And it also was a fun league, so the communication was more fun. So it already built those bonds into it. We're looking at, I might be flying up to New York to go to the rookie draft that they're gonna do, just to, you know, just to be apart. And that's fun. I would never fly somewhere. Some inter, some strangers I met on the internet, you know, 10 years ago.

You tell me that. I'd be like, you're, you're insane. You'll never do that. And yet, once a year, I'm flying to see strangers — actually more than once a year I'm flying to see strangers all over the country that are no longer strangers. They're, they're friends and, um, yeah, it's just communication I think is a huge part of that.

Mm-hmm.

Jeff: Yeah. You know, when I think about the commissioner, I think about the role. We've already talked about, you know, kind of the, the administrative part. There's also the, the mediator part, you've gotta be the judge who stands in and settles disputes among, between or among managers, depending on how many we're talking about.

And then, you know, the, the party planner, the, the social chair aspect of it. And that view for me is kind of a bit unrefined. It was just sort of the, these three kind of roles. And I may get much more refined after this conversation today as we, we talk through all this. But is that also kind of how you see the roles of commissioners?

You've got kind of the administrative hat, you've got the judge and jury hat, and then you've got the, uh, the social chair party planner hat.

Joey: Yeah, I wanna like commend you on something. 'cause like if I needed to kind of refine it and break it down into three categories, I probably couldn't do better than what you did there. You know, being an administrator, making sure that you've got all the rules, every, all the settings are lined up correctly.

The draft time is right, you know, all the boring stuff if you want to call it. Um, that's a huge part of it. Being a mediator, listen, you're gonna have league disputes. Um, we'll get into it in a little bit. I think one of the best things you can do. League disputes is have a league constitution where everything is laid out for you.

So it's very easy to be a mediator, hey, these are the rules, this is how things are. Uh, if you don't like it, uh, let's finish out the season, but maybe you can move on after that. You know, it's, it's very easy to be a mediator once that happens. And then, yeah, if you've got guys that are, you know, local that are altogether, you know, make it social, have Super Bowl parties, you know, meet up for the NFL draft, March Madness parties, you know, lots of fun things you can do in the off season.

Keep that engagement going. So the league doesn't necessarily feel like, ah, this is just, you know, four months outta the year. This is a year round thing, you know, the NFL draft's coming up, so I know we're gonna get together. And then every summer we have a league rules, you know. Uh, summit where we're gonna talk about new rules, we wanna institute finding something.

Just always get together. If you're local and even, you know, we live in a world where we can have Zoom calls and it doesn't need to be local. You can get in a Zoom call and you can have these like fun hangouts just as much. I mean, last year you and I, uh, were in a draft for the, uh, for the in, uh, it was for Footballguys, one of our, one of the behind the scenes leagues that we do.

And we were all hanging out in a Zoom call, having a blast. And yeah, I think you don't necessarily need to be local to build community, but to make it feel local and get that local feel is kind of in a lot of ways kind of an endpoint that you'd probably want to get to too.

Jeff: You mentioned a moment ago that you guys had kind of this forum outside of league chat, and I think we can all agree that league chat is one of the worst ways to communicate generally with people because you have to really be paying attention to that. And in Dynasty we at least have an off season calendar that even the, the most checked out of Dynasty managers still has to come back every once in a while and check on something in, in redraft leagues, an eight year silence — an eight month silence rather — is, is a reality sometimes.

But what, uh, what would be some of the tools or what, what did you build that community in or what are some of the tools that a commissioner can use outside of their league chat to, to build a group?

Joey: That's a great question. I mean, two of the big ones, I'll mention Discord and Slack. Uh, what they allow you to do is have chats that are on individual topics. So there can be just like league chat, this is where we're talking, just league stuff. Um, you know, that's where you put all of your rules that you want to think about.

Just having any discussion about the league. But then say, you know, your league is, you got a local basketball team that you're all really in on, have a channel called Orlando Magic. And I'm using as an example from our Slack. We have an Orlando Magic chat and we're all in there talking basketball. We actually had a change the name to basketball because, uh, one of our guys is a Sixers fan.

And he complained too often that it was just Orlando Magic talk. I'm like, all right, we'll make it just basketball for you. Then we got a movie chat in there and what it does is it allows you to have, you know, just something on your phone where you can go to, where you don't get as lost in the conversation.

'cause with the league chat on a fantasy football app, we'll say Sleeper, if you decide to go on a nice evening with your wife and or your husband have a nice date night and you come home, you could have missed 70 messages. League chat. Having it on a platform like Discord or Slack and they're very similar, um, to how I'm speaking from a fantasy football perspective.

Uh, it just allows that conversation to be a little more funneled. Um, and then you can do polls. There's a lot of really interesting things you can do with those two formats. So I like both of those a lot. Um, you know, there's Mighty Networks out there, um, that you could use as well. There's all kinds, but Slack and Discord, I think are the two most popular ones.

Jeff: Yeah, we've got one, one on, I think it's WhatsApp, which,

Joey: WhatsApp, yeah, that just clicked on my head too.

Jeff: that, uh, that we use. That's the one here locally. The, the home league here in New Mexico that I was invited to this season, uh, uses, uses that to communicate. So that was,

Joey: oh, sorry.

Jeff: no, go ahead.

Joey: WhatsApp's. A lot like Slack and Discord. So no difference in there. Just like a, almost like a forum feel, uh, where the siphon channels and it just, it makes conversations so much better.

Jeff: Yeah, and you know, Slack, I, I, I use that for fantasy football. We have it for that, but I also have to use that for professional, like day job purposes. So Slack is one I just put a little caution flag on just because if there are folks who either want or need to keep their professional life separate from their fantasy life, Slack may not be the best tool, but it is still a really good tool.

Joey: Can I ask you a question? Would you, would you rather those two apps be split off so you're like, you know what, when I go to Slack, I'm just doing fantasy? Or when you're, we'll use your instance. When I go to Slack, it's just business time. But when I go over to WhatsApp, that's the fun. Would you rather those be together or separated?

Jeff: Well, you know, me being, being who I am, I kind of like things to not have to look in so many places at once. So I don't actually mind that they're all together. Um, but I do know that there are folks who are at like corporate systems, for example, where it's supposed to be just purely work related. But, so Slack would be kind of be the, my lower choice of those.

But still really good. I mean, I've got a couple of leagues that I'm part of that are on Slack and, uh, I can turn notifications off if I just needed to focus on work. But, but that's, that's typically, uh, workplaces don't use, uh, WhatsApp. 'cause that's, uh, not, not the best kind of a. App for work stuff, but

Joey: Yeah.

Jeff: a second ago we were, we were chatting about, uh, the commissioner roll, you know, administrator, uh, you know, judge mediator and, and then the kind of social chair.

Is it, is it realistic to expect that a commissioner can be good at all three of those things?

Joey: No, and I mean, I don't even think I'm good at all three of 'em. And like, you know, you asked me to come on the show to talk to you about commissioning. I think I'm pretty good at 'em. But, you know, I, I think that's where delegating comes in. If you see that there's a weakness, maybe you're not a good, you're not a good planner, you know, you're, you don't work well with the schedule.

Maybe you hand that off to somebody else in the league, like, you know what? You're gonna be the planner for the league. Um, you know, I don't think it's realistic to expect a commissioner to do everything. Um, but usually the person you pick to be the commissioner of the league, um, has a good grasp on what that league is going to be.

And at least I like to think you just don't pick some random guy, you or a gal, you, you get the one that seems to be the one most suited for that. I saw a funny thing out there that's, uh, was like a little Instagram reel that's like, look, um, talking to females and I was saying, ladies, look at a group, a guy, group of friends.

Find out which one is the fantasy football commissioner, 'cause that's the guy you should marry because, and then they listed out all the things like they'll be on time, they're good at conflict resolution, like all these things. But in, in reality it's, I don't think it's completely, um, the best expectations for you to think your commissioner is gonna excel at everything.

But that's when being a good leader is knowing when to delegate.

Jeff: Yeah. So if, if you were, if you were choosing a league based solely on who the commissioner is, I, I don't mean a name, I don't mean a preexisting relationship that you might have, 'cause that might overrule all these other considerations, but more like a character or, or an archetype. I mean, what are you, what would you be looking for?

And again, just nevermind the rules, nevermind. Anything else about the league? This is just purely based on you have commissioner A, B, C, or D. You can go with one of them. What, what are you looking for?

Joey: I'm gonna break your rule. Um, Jeff Bell, any league he commissions I will be a part of because he is a fantastic commissioner and gets everything done. But I, I think it really boils down to the identity of your league. And I'm gonna give you two examples. If you have a fun league, if your league is fun, look for someone that's outgoing, wants to make a spectacle out of it, wants to have events, wants to make everything seem like the biggest thing in the world.

That's fun. That's a kind of a fun league. But let's say you're don't really care about the fun. You're more of like, you know what, I want a serious money league. This is a dynasty league. I wanna manage it for a bunch of years. I'm very focused. Find someone that's, um, good at meeting deadlines, good schedule and planner.

That's kind of what I'm looking for, for a more serious league. So I think it, like I've said before, it boils down to the league identity. What kind of league are you in? Find the person that matches that league identity.

Jeff: Yeah, I a plus one on, on Jeff Bell. Uh, I got into a league last year with him, uh, because he sent me a message that simply said, you've been summoned, and there was a link.

Joey: He's, the thing, like, I don't want to go too much about Jeff, but he, he can get pushy. Um, like you, at least you got a message. Often I'll just get it, like, I'll just see that image pop up for Sleeper, and I just respond either yes or no. Like he doesn't even, he just sends me the invite. No pretext, just like, you know, grab me by the collar.

All right, you're coming into this league. Um, but yeah, no, he, he's a great fantasy commissioner. Um, somebody I would shout out at good at, at a lot of the things, um, especially the rules aspect of it, creating fun leagues that with settings that are just kind of wonky and off the wall. No, no two leagues are the same with him, so,

Jeff: Yep. Uh, what, you know, let's say now you, let's shift from kind of the, the, you looking for a commissioner to now you wanting to be a commissioner, because it is such an important role and it is something, it's a serious responsibility to take on. Uh, what skills would you say a person needs to have at least some of, if they're going to be an effective and good commissioner?

Joey: Yeah. No matter what kind of league format, I know that I've kind of been bouncing around to say, hey, find your league format. Find what works for you, like the identity of your league, no matter what that identity is. That all boils down to that person needs to be able to communicate. Um. Whether that's decisions that need to be made, draft dates, are we gonna have a party rule changes?

That person needs to be able to be a communicator, uh, is kind of the one of the most foundational best traits that a fantasy commissioner can have. 'cause that kind of solves everything.

Jeff: Yeah. What would you say is kind of the ideal level or frequency of communications coming from a commissioner in a dynasty league?

Joey: Ooh, frequency in a dynasty league. It needs to be. Hmm, that's a great question. Uh, on frequency, I would say like weekly, like there needs to be at least weekly messages coming from the commissioner. If there's not already engagement, if there's like a lot of chat or engagement already, I think it's just monitoring that chat to make sure it's, you know, everything's good.

Did I miss anything? Um, but I think like any good commissioner, you're probably, you're probably hearing from them at least once or twice a week.

Jeff: Yeah, it

Joey: you think that's not

Jeff: about football actually. I mean, you know, I'm sure, sure. In some leagues you probably reached out about Oscars to some of your, uh, your league mates. 'cause that's something that you'd be able to talk

Joey: See my home league, they don't like talking about movies.

Jeff: Oh, they don't like talking about movies.

Joey: Yeah. Like,

Jeff: Well, I guess when the Magic and the Sixers play at least have something there and they

Joey: Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, they, they, they're, they're cool and stuff, but they're, you know, it's like Joey sees everything and they don't, and so maybe I do, like, they'll say, oh, well I thought this was great. Well, did you guys see all the movies? And maybe I need to calm down on that. So.

Jeff: So, you know, aside from, from just, you know, the communication itself, just sending things out, what, what are some ways that commissioners can keep their league engaged even when there's, there's no lineups being set. Like, like this time of year when we were waiting for the NFL draft and perhaps our rookie drafts aren't for another couple of months.

Joey: Yeah, I mean if you've got no weekly lineups going on right now, I mean, look at what's going on in the off season. There was March Madness, got WrestleMania, uh, NFL draft, get together. There's all kinds of events and it can even just be birthdays. Like you gotta league member birthday, throw 'em a birthday party.

Find a way to like, if you can't meet up, at least like meet up online or have some type of a, a benchmark at least once a month to more than just check in on your league, but to kind of, you know, maybe it's a li it's a little bit more checking in. Yeah. Just to spend time with them, build those relationships during that time in the off season.

'cause once the season comes around, you know, it's all business. Right.

Jeff: Yeah, I think there's kind of a natural tendency for commissioners to send sort of league-wide communications or something to everybody, and it's important, at least in my mind, to sometimes you just reach out individually to somebody and, and take all those other names off the distribution, uh, and, and just chat with them.

See, see what's going on. Especially if, uh, if it's a situation where we haven't heard from 'em in a little while, if they haven't been checking in. I mean, just see what's going on in their, in their lives. Not to, not to be nosy or, or anything like that, but just to let 'em know you care about them and, uh, see if something can do for them.

Joey: And as a league, as a good league member, the more you communicate with your league mates, the, like, let's, let's see. We all wanna win our fantasy leagues, right? Like, we're in it to the, for community to have fun, but at the end of the day, we wanna win. And somebody you're communicating with, you know, when it comes down to trades, like, listen, I talk to this guy a lot more.

It might be easier to make a trade with that person. 'cause you get to know their, you know their tendencies and you've got a good relationship with them.

Jeff: Yeah. I mean, if I mean, winning, winning your league and rubbing it into the faces of everyone else is much more fun if you have relationships with the other people. If you're rubbing their faces with, you know, if you, if you don't know who they are, there's not much, uh, there's not much value in gloating.

Right.

Joey: That's true.

Jeff: You know, so, and of course in many leagues there, there's the money part you know, what, what would your advice be to commissioners, uh, who have, and this to me is the worst part of it.

You have to cajole your league mates to, to pay their dues for the year. You know, how do you keep that cajoling at a minimum and still get the money to come in?

Joey: It, it doesn't need to be that way. You have clear deadlines. Um, you can't draft until you pay. If you make your money deadline, you know the money's due by draft day. You know, you need to be able to be paid up to be able to draft with that in your constitution. That is a set in stone rule. It can solve some of those problems.

Um, you might lose somebody year one or year two, but by year two, year three, you've got a good solid group of people that are gonna pay their stuff on time because there's nothing worse than like waiting on a collection or not getting paid out when you win. Like, let's be honest. But, and that's good for the managers too in the other league, like to know that, okay, if I ever win this league, I'm gonna get paid out right away and then the money's being taken care of.

Um, also another thing you can do in Dynasty, no future pick trades until you pay for that year. So if you are wanting to get a 2027 pick, you have to pay for 2027 before you're allowed to trade for those picks. It makes everything just a lot better across the board and there's great services out there that can manage your money if you don't feel like doing it.

Um, LeagueSafe's one of them, so. Mm-hmm.

Jeff: Yeah, we've mentioned LeagueSafe on, on this show a couple of times. I guess the other question though is, is it, is there a, uh. Is there a dollar figure that you have to have? I mean, there's obviously leagues where you don't pay anything and there's leagues where you pay a lot of things. Is there any kind of a sort of magic number that's low enough to keep everyone engaged but high enough to keep people engaged, but low enough not to drive anybody out the door?

Joey: Man, I don't know because I, that's a great question. I think it really matters of who the people are in the league. Um. For me, if I'm paying in a money league to keep me engaged, like I don't really need to have the money to stay engaged in a league. I just like to win leagues. Um, it's nice to have money, but I can't say there's a dollar amount that would keep me engaged.

But I've seen to notice across the board of my leagues, I would say $25 is the lowest amount of a buy-in that I'll see. I don't see anything less than that. Um, and I'm in leagues that go higher than that. Um, and yeah, maybe I'm a little more invested in how those turn out, but maybe I'm just, I'm not saying I'm a saint, but I feel like I'm pretty engaged in any league I'm in.

Um, but I think $25 is probably the minimum,

Jeff: Okay.

Joey: at least from what I've seen.

Jeff: And, and you know, I mentioned that to me, cajoling people for money is the worst part. It's because I have been pretty lucky as a commissioner to not get involved into a lot of conflicts between my league mates. Uh, and so I haven't had to do a lot of conflict resolution. So, but you know, thinking about separating good commissioners from great commissioners, what is it that great commissioners do when they handle conflict within their leagues?

Joey: They have a constitution that they get to go to. Um, it eliminates so much conflict if you have just a really good basic constitution. So a set of league rules that are written down that everybody has the link to. And one of my leagues, I actually printed up constitutions and mailed them out to them, um, just to be a real, real stickler.

Um, but that doesn't eliminate conflict. It, it will never completely eliminate conflict. But what it does is it eliminates conflict for the future as well. It can eliminate conflict for the future. So let's say you've got two guys that are fighting over a trade and there's no trade vote. So you're the commissioner.

You need to resolve that, take that situation, take what happened in that trade, you know, dispute. Figure out a way to set a rule from that to make the league better. Put that in your constitution. Your constitution should be ever evolving. But any great commissioner has a constitution there and communicates with both members, get both sides of the story.

Um, I have noticed in my leagues, usually by year three, there's not much conflict. Um, it those first two years that are, whew, it's like a marriage in a lot of ways. You know, when you, when you're first, you're starting to get married, you know, you'll have some conflict come up in those first two years that won't happen later on. Um,

Jeff: Yeah, I think you're, you're right there. And part of that reason is that typically the ones involved in that conflict, one of them will typically leave within a year or two. Uh, even, uh, regardless of the, regardless of the outcome. But I, I'm not saying that that's, you know, and it's sort of a doom and gloom way.

I mean, that's part of the job of a commissioner is you have to separate out what's the, what is the argument over the actual rule or the actual thing in the league, and what is it about somebody who just really is upset with somebody else or just wants to get into a fight with somebody.

Joey: Yeah, and sometimes that is just noticing the toxic behavior of one person, and then it's like, oh, that's really what the conflict is at. It's not necessarily with the rule, it's with the person. And I am, one of my, my foundational beliefs in fantasy football is I don't veto trades, but I veto members. I have gladly let people finish their season out, take your money, leave, and I've kicked 'em outta leagues because there are, I'm not concerned about one person in the league.

I'm concerned about 12 people or 11 people. I guess we include myself. The, it needs to be fun for everyone. It needs to be fair for everyone. If you've got one person that's toxic in there, find a nice way, or maybe don't find a nice way to give 'em the boot and don't feel bad about it because there's 10 other people that are gonna say, thank you so much for doing that.

If there's a toxic member in your league.

Jeff: Yeah. And that's of course a lot easier when it's a group of people scattered across the country that you don't know. But even in a league with your longtime friends from high school, if there's someone who's toxic, they need to be,

Joey: Yeah.

Jeff: need to take them out in order to keep the rest around.

Joey: A hundred percent, and let me take a step back from just toxic, like I'll use my home league. An example. The first year we had one guy that just, he's like, hey, I want to try it. I enjoy coming to the hangouts. Like that's, I wanna be part of that. So I guess I had to be part of the league, but he didn't really like fantasy football that much.

And it was simple for me to say like, dude, you can come to the events. Like, that's no problem. Um, like if he's like, I just hate playing fantasy football. I'm like, you don't have to like, just come hang out with us. Like, you don't need to be part of the league. But, you know, he does. He feel like he misses out a little bit, but we still, we let him in the group chat.

Um, we need to figure out a role for him. You know, maybe he's like the, the flag bearer of the league. He brings the flags out. 'cause we, we sing the national anthem before our draft every year. No we don't. I'm just kidding. I made that up. Um. No. I mean, yeah, noticing people that just, maybe it's not their thing.

Maybe the format's wrong for them. Being able to be a good commissioner, recognize that, communicate, have that conversation with them. It can go worlds to make your league even better.

Jeff: Yeah, definitely reach out and, and, uh, we've talked about a league constitution a couple of times. I mentioned it on, on the show. There is going to be an example from a league that I commission in the show notes linked to that. So if you wanna see what one of these might look like, if you need to, if you say, man, I'd really love to have a constitution from my league, but I don't know how to start.

This is the place to start. Whether you copy it wholesale or just use it as ideas, uh, if it'll help you make your league better, uh, you can do that. And then the other thing I'd say, you, you actually kind of hinted at it when you said the 11. And then, you know, I'll throw myself in there to be 12. I, I try as a commissioner to.

To make it our league and not my league, uh, and, and make sure that it's, it's actually, you know, a community driven league. And not just me as the, as the the commissioner who runs things and who sets the set. I can set the tone, but I shouldn't make all the, I shouldn't make all the decisions and it shouldn't be my league.

And the farther you get from the startup, the easier that becomes to make it a, a group league. When you're first starting out, everyone's gonna look to the commissioner for, okay, what are we doing? How does this work? And, and it's a little more of the commissioner's league in year one, but hopefully by year two, and certainly by year three, I hope everyone in a league feels like it's their league, not just a single person's league.

Joey: Yeah. One thing you can do is like, if you're gonna establish a league, let's say you're setting a league from the ground up, have your first thing you ever do not have to do with fantasy football at all. Just get everyone together. Get everyone together, and then talk all these things out. You know, have some votes, you know, like, hey, you know what?

I think it should be Superflex. But Billy over here thinks, you know, Billy doesn't want Superflex. He just likes one quarterback. All right, let's have a league vote on it. Maybe that's the issue that at the foundation, Billy would've left about. If you're a commissioner and you're trying to like, dictate everything, well, you know, Billy, you know, he didn't wanna play Superflex.

He just wanted one quarterback. He was a wrong fit from this league from the start. It could be something as simple as that. Talk it out. Um, but yeah, have a meeting before you establish the league with the people to make sure that everyone's on the same page, wanting the same thing. But, you know, you'll, you'll be in year two and somebody will be like, you know what?

That FAAB system we were working with, I didn't like it. I didn't get it. Maybe we should move on from FAAB and then have a talk about that. Have a vote. Just communicate, you know.

Jeff: I I try to have surveys, anonymous surveys at the end of every season so the league mates can, can say what they like and didn't like about the league. And in one league I had, or several leagues, I do this, I had options of, you know, it's, it's the greatest thing ever. And there's three options in the middle, and then there's, I absolutely hated it.

And on a couple of, uh, rules in the league. I got all five answers from top to bottom. Uh, so that, that means I've got some, some talking to do and some conversations I need to have with the league to try to try to get a, a better direction. 'cause clearly, uh, some of those provisions, uh, are all over the place.

And I, we don't need perfect alignment. But I think it's better if you have a fairly aligned league that you're all doing. I think it goes down to the character of the league you were talking about earlier and having that consistently applied to everything. If there's rules or provisions that are clearly dividing a lot of people, then there's, that's something that needs to be resolved.

Uh, don't, as a commissioner, don't let that fester and don't just let it sort of sit there because it will, it will conceivably wreck the league later if it's not addressed now. And even if someone hates a rule, if, if you have the conversation with them, they may say, okay, I get the rule. I don't like it, but I get it.

And, and, you know, it's, it's part of what makes this work.

Joey: But props to you for having a process in place where they could, you know, that anonymous survey, you know, or they could go in, they could complain. 'cause that tells you right there. Well, this is a problem. We either eliminate this or find a common ground that makes sure everyone works. And I don't know what that issue was, but hopefully it worked out.

Jeff: Not yet, but we're, we're

Joey: Okay. There you go. You'll get there.

Jeff: We're working on it. Uh, you know, if, if I were as a commissioner, if I wanted to like to level up my league, we've already mentioned a big one, which is constitution and the second big one, which is do stuff that's outside of fantasy football as part of your league.

But what would be some other ideas for a commissioner who wants to level up their, their league and the community they have in it?

Joey: Yeah. So I mean, we've mentioned a bunch of stuff that would actually level your league up already today, but a couple things. So you're saying you're wanting the league to be more involved, maybe you're just need a little more juice from it. So if it's a money league, maybe you have the discussions about, hey, let's increase the pot.

Maybe let's introduce a progressive pot. So if somebody wins a league two years in a row, they get an extra special part of a pot. So. Everyone buys in for a hundred, but they throw in an extra $10 a season that just goes and sits in this one pot that if anybody goes back to back, they get that extra pot.

That's, that's an extra little, little caveat you can throw in there to level up. Um, if it's a fun league book, a destination draft, I cannot tell you some of the best memories I've ever had have been my beach draft weekends with my guys. Um, I I was just on a show, uh, the other day. Uh, who was I with talking?

Oh, JL Garofalo, we were talking about Andrew Luck and I will never forget our destination draft. The night that Andrew Luck retired, we'd had our draft that afternoon and we were doing a little bit of a, um, just like a, went to a sports bar, um, had some food and then we went and played mini golf. Um, 'cause we are children at heart and we enjoy it, but it gets super competitive.

Um, so we were playing mini golf and we were like on hole six. My buddy looks down at his phone, he is like, hey, um, Andrew Luck retired. And we're like, ah. And then I was like, oh no, he really retired. And the guy that drafted Luck just, he was a Colts fan too.

Jeff: Oh.

Joey: The life just out of him. And, but see as the commissioner that was me in that moment noticing like, this league could be really unfun for him this year.

So I said to the guys like, hey, we are going to give him first bid off the waiver wire. We're just gonna change that rule. The good faith, good thing that we need to do for him. 'cause like he just got a raw deal and I know injuries happen and whatnot, but maybe it was him being a Colts fan as well. You know, that's being a good leader.

Noticing like, this season's going to be bad for this guy. This guy means a lot to me being in this league. We need to do something special for him. Um, and he ended up making the playoffs, so yeah.

Jeff: Yeah, you know, timing of these drafts, uh, it can be something. And Andrew Luck's retirement sort of came completely out of nowhere. I mean, I, that's something that no one I think really could have predicted unless you were, you were very close to that situation. Um, but it, it does speak to me, to, to kind of a, a question that isn't on the show sheet.

So I'll set it up and give you the time to think about

Joey: Go. Okay.

Jeff: Uh, which is, you know, the timing of something like a rookie draft. Uh, I've got leagues that have already done them, and I have leagues that won't do them until a week and a half before football season starts, and several that are in between.

And, and I personally have found is that these really early ones kind of punish people who aren't really paying attention to every last detail of football year round. Uh, and the later ones tend to be. I don't say more fair 'cause that's a loaded word there, but certainly more accessible, I'd say to success for everyone in the league.

So as you're thinking about, you know, when to do a rookie draft, I mean, obviously right after the NFL draft, that's when energy's really high. So that, that is a time, even if we don't know what's gonna happen, at least know where they are. But where, where in the calendar is kind of the, the ideal spot for, and we can split it up.

You know, you've got your money league and you've got your, your fun league. 'cause those may be different deadlines, those may be different points in the calendar where you'd wanna do those. Where would you say are some ideal spots in the calendar to do your rookie drafts?

Joey: I would say overall the Monday, a week later, a Monday after the draft. So not the following Monday, but the week in the future of that Monday. So I think

Jeff: About 10 days.

Joey: Like 10 days later. Yeah. Give people a little bit of time to research, you know, the landing spot reaction a little bit. That's where I like to do my drafts.

But listen, if you're in a dynasty league and these guys are all the other guys and gals, the 12 members are bought in. They know every single rookie. 'cause it's more of like a Devy league. Do it before the draft, so you know, who am I to, to, but for the most part, I like to do 'em after the draft, so I know where the landing spots are, but people will disagree with me on that.

They'll be like, well, you know, that's part of the risk. And part of the fun of it is like maybe not knowing where they're gonna land in the anticipation of that. Because fantasy and football, at the end of the day, nobody knows who's gonna finish first through 64th at a position. We think we know and we get to make some educated guesses at it.

Um, some people, the fun for them is to have some real big swings and some real big misses. Um, I can see how the fun is taken out of that. To answer your question, I think it's dependent on the league, but for the most part, like 10 days after the draft.

Jeff: And how about for a startup draft? So let's say that you, you, you're, you want to start a dynasty league. You wanna start it this, this year, whatever year you happen to be watching this. It's 2026 right now. But whenever you have found this video or this audio and you want to, to start a dynasty league this season, when is the best time for you to do that?

That

Joey: That's a, that's a great, I think that actually kind of pairs with your previous question. Um, 'cause I think you can do it. You can separate them out. I think it's, anytime is a great time for a startup. There doesn't need to be a date on the calendar. You know, do that startup whenever you'd like. The question of when should we include rookies, I think is where I start to kind of spread them apart.

And let's say, you know, things are, uh, not tempers, but like emotions are high. Everyone's having a good time in March, around March Madness. You're like, you know what, let's do a startup draft in March. But we don't know where these rookies are gonna be yet. What you can do is choose a designated position.

Like make it an IDP league, but nobody takes defensive players and any defensive player taken will constitute as a rookie pick. So the first defensive player taken will be the rookie 1.01, the second, the 1.02. And I know a lot of leagues use kicker, and I just didn't wanna like push against the kicker thing unless you, like, I hate kickers.

I don't like 'em in leagues. Um, we use kickers when we do our startups to designate their rookie position, but that's a way that you can have two drafts and two startup drafts in one year. You can have your startup for the veterans players that are already in the league, and then a draft later on of just rookies.

Um, you can also draft the rookies with the veterans. That's something I, I really don't like to do.

Jeff: Yeah, I don't either. Um, you know, just sticking to startups here for a second, 'cause it's something we really haven't talked about, but it, but it is, it is a really critical aspect of this. You have to start somewhere, you know? What would you say are the, the things that a, a. Either a, a existing commissioner wanting to branch out or a, a new commissioner. What are the sort of things that they need to think through before they start asking people to get in a league or before they start setting it up on one of the platforms that's available for it?

Joey: Yeah. I mean, some things that just establish the league out. Know how many teams you want to have, know what type of league you want to have, and if you don't know if you want to be a Superflex or um. You know, TE premium, whatever the settings are, you know, propose what you would like and maybe you get a little pushback there.

But just having the settings, don't even have to have a draft date yet. Just get the bare bones of the league set up. So I would say settings, format is really important. Number of teams. Once you get that, I think you've got the foundation of what you need to kind of start picking a draft date. Picking a draft style.

Jeff: Uh, and I think, you know. Buy into, you know, what kind of a, what kind of a level? Not necessarily a specific dollar figure, but, you know, kind of none, low, you know, medium high. Kind of where, where that, where that would be.

Joey: That's a fantastic point. And I can't believe I spaced on that. Like that is just as important as the setting because if you're saying, you know, I'm gonna have $150 buy-in and Billy over here, I don't know why I'm picking on Billy. Poor

Jeff: Poor Billy. Billy did not deserve this.

Joey: He didn't deserve all this shade today. And Billy's like, you know what, $150 is just not my level of commitment.

Um, it's good to know that upfront and maybe you're like, you know what? We really want Billy in this league. 'cause we like Billy, we've been picking on Billy a lot. Let's drop it down to 75. And Billy's like, listen guys, I got groceries to buy this week. I can't. All right Billy, we're gonna take it down to 50.

And then you find that number and you're like, all right, Billy's in guys. And then, uh, and then Billy wins year one and see what it's like to win all this money. And then that's when you go after him for the hundred.

Jeff: Right. And that's when he wishes it had been $150 because it would've been a much, a much bigger prize. Well, Joey, this has been really wonderful. Thanks so much for, for joining me. Uh, any, any parting kind of words of advice to someone who is not a commissioner now, but is thinking, I, I wanna start a league?

You know, we've talked about some things you need to do. We've talked about some setup stuff, but what's, you know, take a step kind of back, step back from, from the settings and all the little nuances and the details. What, what's the advice you have for someone who wants to be a commissioner and, and sees this and wants to go out and start a league of their own?

Oh, movie title.

Joey: There it is. Yeah, that's very much. Um, three things. Get a group of 12 people that you feel like are committed members to what your genesis of your league is going to be. What the nucleus, what the core of your league, what the belief, the type of league it's going to be. Find 11 other people or 10 other people.

How many of other people that match that same type of mission. Um, make sure you pay your dues on time. 'cause so much, so much trouble comes from not paying your dues on time. Have rules established there, have a constitution. Those three things will help you a lot. I wanna shout a format out that, um, I was having a conversation earlier with somebody in the industry.

Um, I love Dynasty. I, I think Dynasty's a lot of fun, but I, I think the trust in Dynasty might be starting to get lost with people. You know, especially in money leagues, are trying to just win that first year and then they bail, start looking at Empire dynasty leagues where maybe there is a little bit of an end in sight where if somebody won two years in a row, the league will redraft or it folds.

Um, I think the league experience would be a lot better with that if everyone was doing that. Um, it's something I'm gonna start pushing for a little bit more of my dynasty leagues. Like, hey guys, I love being in this league with you. But, um, you know, already established ones. I, I don't think it'll be as much of an issue, but new startup dynasty leagues, anyone I do will be an empire if there's money involved, where we're paying towards somebody winning two years in a row, because that just gets buy-in for the future.

And that's great for any dynasty league is to have buy-in for not just one year, but for many, many years in the future.

Jeff: That's, that's great. That's great advice. I, I actually had not thought about that aspect of that kind of a, of a rule. I've got one league that I am in that has rules in place if certain things happen, it either everyone redrafts or, or formats change or something like that. And I've thought to myself, that's really difficult from a dynasty standpoint if you're managing out two or three years.

And at any point the league may disappear out from under you. But then I guess that's true of any dynasty league and that's part of the calculation. And, and I love that you've also highlighted the, uh, the, uh, I guess the pump and dump kind of strategy where someone tries to come in, get that quick pay and walk out.

Hopefully you have picked 11 guys or, or 11 people, not just guys, 11 people who, who wouldn't do that. That's not their motivation. But particularly as you get into some of the higher stakes leagues, that there is that risk of someone going all in for year one and then. Packing it up. So things like requiring prepayments of, of future dues if you're trading draft picks away, uh, you know, this Empire concept.

Those are some great ways of, of keeping that behavior tamped down a little bit, aside from just straight up, you know, choosing them, the people who are, who you're part of the league with. You, uh, Joey, let everyone know before you go where all they can find you from. Trivia nights, Tuesdays to end season Sundays, and everywhere in between.

Joey: Yeah, you follow me on Twitter at @TheJoeyWright. And that's because I just put, I do everything pretty much at Footballguys, and it all goes out there, all the links, all the show links all goes out there. I do trivia on Tuesdays in partnership with Fantasy Cares and Footballguys. Um, I, every Monday I'm doing the Fantasy Football Show now over at Footballguys with Dave Kluge.

And then in season I'll be doing Starts Sits, not Starts, Sits and Saluations. Maybe I'll bring it back one

Jeff: There we

Joey: Um, I've not

Jeff: would love to see that again.

Joey: It back. People ask me all the time, are you ever gonna do it again? My daughter actually, she's like, daddy, why don't you make the O-hi-o videos anymore? And I'm like, honey, I just haven't felt led to, I felt like I went out on top, you know?

Um, but no, I, I do, uh, Sunday Morning Live every Sunday. Uh, to help you with your starts and sits once the season starts. And honestly, The Home League Show with Kevin Murray, which is honestly the genesis of why I'm here today, uh, doing this show with you. All the things that Kevin and I talk about that I've talked with you today, Kevin and I have covered as well.

Um, yeah, like I'm doing so much in the Discord with Footballguys. I'll be in Canton for, uh, the Fantasy Ball Expo this year. I'll be at a couple Scott Fish Bowl live drafts. Um, if you're in

Jeff: Albuquerque, Albuquerque, Albuquerque.

Joey: I won't be in Albuquerque. I'll be going to Chicago this year. Um, I will be in New York when the Fish Bowl draft is going on.

Um, I'm not as able to hang out for as long in New York for, for some other reasons, but I might be in Charlotte as well. That has not been determined. Um, not, won't be going to Vegas this year. I, I, I went last year. It was a great time, but, um, yeah, I'm around, uh, follow me at @TheJoeyWright on Twitter and I'm on Bluesky and yeah, that's, yeah, all my stuff's there at Footballguys, so, yeah.

Jeff: Uh, and, and Joey, you would've been on the show even, even without the, the existence of The Home League Show,

Joey: Oh, I

Jeff: you're just such a great guy and you know, you, you kind of full circle. You started this conversation, Footballguys talking about the, the retreat, I mean, to go five days after you're part of the company.

Uh, the retreat was my really first taste of everybody, uh, as well. I think I've been with the company for about two months and, you know, having a good group of people is obviously critical to building a community, but also just being willing to be a part of it. And you and I shared an iconic moment together that, that, uh, kind of got me cemented into the lore of the company even when no one knew who I was. Uh, we were watching a particular playoff game, uh, in which a particular kick doinked off a particular upright and unfortunately went through. Can you take us back to that fateful moment of history between us?

Joey: Yeah. So I was watching the Buccaneers-Commanders playoff game and I was bought in, you know, I'm a huge Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan, and I had my own little chair set up. I even had a little sign on it that reserved it for me. 'cause uh, one thing I mentioned I do is I plan the company retreat for Footballguys.

So the whole time I'm working, getting the food brought in, getting snacks, making sure everyone's taken care of. But this was the one time that I was like, hey guys, I could just watch the Bucs game, like that's all I really wanna do is just be in for my game. And so I was, and at the end, the kick went through for the Commanders and, um. There was the, the moment was immortalized through a photo and Jeff decided, you know what, that photo was so good. I'm gonna put it on a pillow. Um, and you can see here. So that's all right. There's Jeff. Oh, and then there's me as I see a doinked kick going off or going through,

Jeff: go through. Yeah.

Joey: Crushing, crushing moment for me. Um, Jeff, I'll have you know this pillow 'cause we didn't know where to put it.

Um, my daughters, I have a, a nine year-old and a 6-year-old. They thought it was hilarious. This pillow sits in their room on their bed and they like pulling it out and you know, they sleep on it and yeah. So that's where this pillow resides, is in their bedroom. 'cause they think it's just the funniest thing.

Jeff: I, I, you know, I did too. That's why I brought it to the subsequent, uh, fantasy, uh, uh, the subsequent retreat that we had for Footballguys as, as a, uh, white elephant gift that while you did not select it originally, despite the fact that I'd put it in a Tampa Bay Buccaneers branded bag, I, I don't know. I was chose to attract your attention, but you end up with it anyway.

I'm sure. Uh, the, the baffled person who got it, uh, was happily,

Joey: No, the weird thing is I'm not, I'm not gonna call out who it was, but they wanted to keep it. Um, and I just thought they'd give it to me. I paid them $25 for the pillow. Um, so

Jeff: that was more than I paid for it. I could get you another one from the same place I got that one.

Joey: Yeah, no, no, it's, it's so, 'cause like I mentioned the retreat, I'm so focused on everyone else. I was just grabbing a bag and opening it up and look, okay, what's in here? I wasn't even look. And then everyone's like, Joey, there's a Bucs bag there. And I, and I have used that bag. Uh, I use it when I go grocery shopping, I can grab a couple things.

I put the stuff in there. Yeah.

Jeff: You see, white elephant gifts can actually serve legitimate purposes. They don't just have to be for laughs even though that one originally was just for laughs. But I'm glad to see that both aspects, the pillow and the bag, uh, live on in the right household. Joey, thanks so much for for joining me and thanks to you and the audience, uh, whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite platform.

I thank you so much for being here. Please, if you haven't already liked this show, please subscribe. If you're on YouTube, click the little bell so you get notifications when we put out new episodes and we will be doing a new episode next week. So if you click that bell next week, you will see the notification, uh, with I have a very special guest, Pete Nova from PlayerProfiler coming.

We're gonna talk about trading draft picks when they are on the clock and at their most valuable. So we will see you next week on Dynasty Compass.

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