If you are in charge of a league- there are some things you should provide for your draft party. This list is even more important if you are having your party at a remote location, where common household objects are not easy to get your hands on.
Draft Board- Spend some money on this is you have to. You will save yourself so much time in the long run! As I’ve said before, I use FanDraft- which is an excellent piece of software that has 99.9% of all players you might draft already in their database. Adding a player on the fly is also no problem. Throw it up on a big screen TV or use a projector- and everyone can see who’s available with a click, who’s been picked recently via a ticker, and how much time is left on the clock for the current pick. It supports many different draft styles, and even has a free version you can use to try it out first. When your draft is over, you can print out team lists, draft reports, and more.
If software isn’t in the cards, look for a draft board that has stickers of all the players. In the case you can’t find or don’t have a sticker, you just hand write in the player’s name. This works well too- but fumbling for stickers when you’ve got a good draft pace going can be a bit of a buzz kill.
Individual kits- show your league you care- but giving them everything they need on a sheet of paper. I provided a handout that had a Draft worksheet (list of positions, which team and bye week each player had, and a notes section), it also listed all the NFL Team Bye weeks, out league rules, and trade end dates. This helps answer most of the questions that will be asked during the draft- when the commissioner is busy with the draft itself.
Throw in a cheap pen, because half your league will forget one, and top off the kit with a name tag, unless it’s a co-workers league or something where everyone knows everyone else.
Community Items- While I encourage everyone to do their own research, bring their own notes, etc… I have found it very useful to bring my magazines and make them available to anyone who wants them. It’s some last minute research for the guy that only brought his top 200 list, and ran out of RB halfway through the draft. Most magazines are printed early in the season, so no one is going to scoop you using it- but it will let your league stay more competitive than letting that guy hang out to dry.
I also provide a legal sized notepad. Just tear off what you need.
Bring an extension cord and a surge strip. Bringing power to the masses makes you a god- because no one wants their laptop dying at round 10.
Commissioner Tools- Make a small draft board, and have someone keep track on that. This year I had three letter-sized pieces of paper, and each one had 5 rounds on it. This made checking teams much easier than booting up FanDraft (I have not printed the reports yet) or going to look at a huge draft board.
A league list with everyone’s phone number makes it easy to track down a late arrival, and also reminds you who needs to pay dues.
If your league is hosted online at Yahoo, or a similar provider- when your draft is finished, you will have to input the draft results. Instead, get someone to help while the draft is live! Input the draft as you go- if your league host supports that (Yahoo does). This way, when the draft is over, everyone gets to go home and check their team and set positions right away. Otherwise they have to wait until the commissioner gets around to it.
Finally, once you have posted the draft results- I recommend locking down the teams for a few days. Tell everyone this is the time they have to dispute anything. We had a 15th round error in our league: Demaryius Thomas, not Devin Thomas. Once the time has expired, or everyone has confirmed their team is who they drafted- it’s go time. Make sure you plan your draft early enough before regular season to accomplish inputting draft results, and a wait time.
