This league is:

slow auction

10 teams, 20 players per roster

$25 buyin, 100% payouts, handled via LeagueSafe

team DF

no PPR

Flex RB/WR/TE

no Injured Reserve

Head to Head, with Victory Points

Nearly all contingencies have been accounted for within these rules, but for new issues that may arise, a group discussion is encouraged and then the wizened commissioner (Keith) makes the final decision. Everything is defined in the beginning of the season, and then the website runs the show.

During the season, all team owners are ultimately responsible for ensuring that their starters are declared and accurately scored.

Aurora uses a league currency for both the Auction as well as Free Agency, and the name of the currency is the Photon (PH).

After the auction is completed and before the season begins, 100 PH are deposited to each team's bank account. In addition, any funds leftover from the auction are deposited in each team's bank account, and all of these funds are for use with Free Agency.

During the season, each loss suffered by a team results in +10 PH being deposited to their account on Tuesdays. A tie will net each involved team a +5 Photon deposit for that week.

Teams can also include Photons as the part of any trade.

Sometimes referred to as an "Ebay" style auction, this approach takes place over a time period of up to three (3) weeks, starting with the second week of August and ending prior to Labor Day weekend. It has a couple of tremendous advantages over the old realtime method that had been in place for years:
1) it is no longer necessary to schedule 12 people to sit down at the same time
2) it stretches out the auction for 2-3 weeks. each day is fun and can be intense.
3) it totally rules

Starting the Auction
Each team starts the auction with $400 VIRTUAL DOLLARS in their bank. On Day 1, each team can nominate 1 player to put on the auction block, along with their opening and (secret) maximum bid. When the player is placed on the block and the opening bid is placed, the bid deadline is set for 24 hours later. If someone outbids the initial bidding team, their bid becomes the new high bid and the bid deadline is reset to be 24 hours later.

This process continues until no team has bid on that player for a continuous 24 hour period. After that, the bid is processed. The player is removed from the auction block, placed on the team's roster, and the team's bank is deducted the appropriate amount of $'s.

With this method, a total of 12 players are placed on the league auction block on Day 1 (one player is nominated per team). On Day 2, each team can nominate another player to place on the auction block, bringing it to a total of 24 players being nominated through two days.

Bidding
Players are nominated with an Opening Bid and a Maximum Bid. The Opening Bid is presented to the public when the player is placed on the auction block, and the Maximum Bid is kept secret. If another team places a competing bid on that player, the current bid is adjusted based on the relation of the two competing bid values.

Maximum bid is greater than new bid
The current bid value goes to [New Bid Value] + 1$ and the owner of the current bid remains the same. Deadline remains the same

Maximum bid is equal to new bid
The current bid value goes to [New Bid Value] and the owner of the current bid remains the same. Deadline remains the same.

Maximum bid is less than new bid
The current bid value goes to [Old Maximum Bid Value] + 1$ and the owner of the current bid changes to the new bidding team. The deadline is set to 24 hours in the future, using this exact time of day as the base time.

Auction Schedule
The auction begins on August 10 at 12:00pm Eastern Standard Time. This date is considered Day 1, and Day 2 is August 11th, etc.

On the first day of the auction, each team can place one player on the auction block. On Day 2, each team can place another player on the auction block. As the auction progresses, more players are able to be placed onto the auction block each day.

day	max # to nominate
1	1
2	1
3	1
4	1
5	1
6	1
7	1
8	2
9	2
10	2
11	2
12	2
13	3
14	3
15	3
16	5
17	5
18	5
19	5
20	5

Errata
The minimum signing contract is for 1$, and so a team has to allocate at least 1$ per roster slot.

Each team is composed of 20 total players, and the roster parameters are set ahead of time (see below). At the end of the auction, each team's rosters must conform to the guidelines set forth. After the auction is completed, each owner may change the composition of their team as they see fit (dropping a QB, adding a WR, etc.), as long as they don't have more than 20 active players at any one time.

This means that positional ratios are only required for the Auction. After the Auction and throughout the entire season, owners can have 15 QB's and 4 TE's if they want to! Of course, they still can only start 1 QB, 2 RB's, 3 WR's, 1 TE, 1 K, 1 DF/ST, and 1 Coach...

Free Agency uses an economics based approach, where teams have a virtual bank (Aurora currency = Photons) at the beginning of the season and they use these funds to make bids on available free agents. All competing bids are made in private, and then simultaneously resolved at the posted times.

Currently, we have Free Agency signings at 10am on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

When bids are resolved, the value of the winning bid will be +1 over the second highest bid. For example, if someone bid 15 Photons on Alfred Pupunu and the second highest bid was 7 PH, the winner would obtain Pupunu for a cost of 8 PH. Similarly, if you bid 30 PH on a player and no one else bid, you'll end up only paying 1 Photon to sign that free agent.

In the case of a tie, the team with the worst W-L record wins the tiebreaker and thus the player being bid upon. If the W-L record is the same, the second level tiebreaker goes to the team with the lower YTD points. If a third level tiebreaker is still required, it goes to the team that placed the bid first.

Note that when you craft your FA bids, you have to do so with the intention of acquiring all of the players that you bid upon. And therefore as part of the bidding process you also have to account for all needed roster cuts. The Free Agency bidding form allows you to either specify 1-to-1 sign-and-cut relationships, or use a ranked list of players to cut, or even a combination of both.

[free agency schedule]

Each week, your team faces one other team (determined by the season schedule posted before the season starts), and every owner submits their starting rosters prior to kickoff in that week's first game (usually Sundays, but sometimes Thursdays or Saturdays). If there is an early game in the week, Sunday's starters can still be edited up until 1 pm EST on Sunday. Currently, starters cannot be changed after 1pm on Sundays.

The 10 starters each week are always in the same positional ratio: 1 QB, 2 RB's, 2 WR's, 1 TE, 1 RB/WR/TE, 1 K, 1 DF/ST, and 1 Coach.

These players earn points for their fantasy team through actual real-life scoring and yardage bonuses. The total points earned by those players is that fantasy team's final score, and the winning team is determined by highest score between the two teams which faced each other.

For tiebreakers, the first and only level of tiebreaker is Head Coach. After that, a tie is a tie.

Divisional ranking is based on total Victory Points, followed by season YTD. Starting in 2013, the order will be: VP, W-L-T, YTD, Head-to-Head, most Points Against, Rock Paper Scissors (3 out of 5).

During the regular season (covering the first 13 weeks of the NFL's 17 weeks), each team faces each divisional opponent twice, and every other team in the league once.

Teams earn 1 Victory Point for a Win from their head to head matchup, and 1 Victory Point for being in the top 50% for scoring for that week. Standings are determined by Victory Points, then overall W-L-T, then YTD points by starting players.

If a team wins their head to head game, they earn 1 Victory Point. If they tie, they earn 0.5 VP. If their team scored in the top six teams for that given week, they earn an additional 1 VP. This is a reflection of a team's overall power and helps to mitigate the luck factor when it comes to a season's schedule of head-to-head matchups.

Homefield advantages are in place for the playoffs. The home team gets 2 bonus points to start the game with, reflecting their home-field advantage. There is no homefield advantage in the Championship game.

Once kickoff of Week 12 begins, all prior regular season games are considered final. All statistical adjustments/corrections must be made prior to the playoffs. The rule is: Stats are Stats are Stats, and the Stats rule.

After kickoff of Week 12, everyone will know exactly where they stand in the playoff hunt as they go into the final regular season game. Teams have until Wednesday night of the final regular season game to audit and correct their results.

The winners of each division, determined by the overall Victory Points within the division, get the first three seeds in the playoffs which take place in weeks 14-16 of the NFL's regular season.

Of the nine teams remaining, the three teams with the highest Victory Points make the playoffs. The worst six teams in the league do not play in the official playoffs (though see the paragraph below). In case of a tie for determining what teams will make the playoffs, the second level of tiebreaker is the W-L record. The third tie-breaker for this situation will be YTD points. The fourth tie-breaker will be the teams' head-to-head record. The fifth tie-breaker will be a vicious game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, 3 out of 5.

As in the NFL, every team enters the playoffs with a clean slate. Just like the regular fantasy season, the Head Coach is the first tiebreaker. In the playoffs, bench points are the second level tiebreaker in "overtime." Third level tiebreaker in the playoffs: starting ST/DF. Fourth level: the higher seeded team.

The six teams that missed the playoffs will face each other in the Loser Playoffs, for pride and side betting opportunities.

Homefield advantage is used in the playoffs until the Championship game, which is on a neutral field.

Since we do not keep any players from season to season, there is no Injured Reserve slot that is available. Rosters are limited to 20 players, period.

All trades are pretty much legal but are subject to a league vote if one is called for. If five owners vote against a trade, it is reversed. If it is reversed after kickoff and it affected that week's starting lineups, then the sanctioned teams are treated as if they started too many players at the affected positions; the lowest scoring player is considered "started".

Keep in mind that anyone who is involved in a bad-faith trade in all likelihood will not be invited back in the following season. This type of vote has never been needed in the past.

Teams are not allowed to "loan" or "trade for a day" players to other teams.

Teams can include Photons as part of a trade.

The Trade Deadline is first kickoff of Week 11.

Dues are $25 for the prize fund. This results in $250 in the prize pool.

$100: 1st Place
$65: 2nd Place
$40: 3rd Place
$25: 4th Place
$20: Top YTD scoring team (regular season)