Build Your Empire

good to talk to you again. I now, one of the things that you and I have in common that a lot of casual listeners for Fantasootball Weekly won't know is that you and I love unique ways to play fantasy football variations and you know, crazy concepts. I have thrown dozens of weird ways to play at you, and you know, gotten feedback, and um, you're one of the few people that is is not like will you just shut up about your stupil league? I d um, and I love that about you. Is that is that we

share a passion for unique ways to play. One of them that we started, uh seven ish years ago, was the Empire League format. The Empire League format, um was was was was something I dreamed up, Scott, because I was in a dynasty league. It started really this way. I was in a dynasty league that at this stage is now like twenty one or something years old, but then was still like thirty and it it just it

got stale. You know. It's just it's it's the same guys, same players, same scoring system, and it just didn't have any real like zest to it. I'm thinking to myself, man, it would mean so much more if this dynasty league had a true ending point, like the champion, and what would make it? What would be the criteria for having the champion of this thing, not just this year's champion, but the champion, and then this thing just disbands or it ends and we restart, we start from scratch or whatever.

So the first thing came to me was you should win back to back. If you've got a dynasty in a dynasty team, you should be able to win two years in a row. That's you know, like in any sport, nobody's talking about you as a dynasty until you're back to back. It um. So that my first criteria was you got to win back to back, Well, how do

we how do we even make that better? And then we got into the rolling pot and so for those who don't know about the Empire League and this this episode is gonna be really dedicated to Empire Leagues, to Dynasty League in which the ultimate winner wins back to back years as I mentioned, but every year, a portion of the pot, we recommend half half of the pot waits and rolls over from year to year for somebody to hit that back to back bonus and then it pays out. And it what it does is it puts.

It means that if if you are a math off top of my head, if you're in one league and somebody hits it in years five and six, that ends up being something to the effect of a four dollar payoffs three payoff. It's it's real money at that point. I mean, you know, you can do something pretty special with that, um not. And as an unintended side effect, so there is the money and as an unintended side effect, what's ended up happening that I absolutely love about the

Empire League. Scott tell listeners, what happens when you're the reigning champion. You don't get to trade. You don't get to trade. No, that's how we do it because we don't want any collusion there there a lot of them do have an abdication clause where if if you're out of it, you know you can't make that you're not going to make the run. The second year, you can say, you know what, I abdicate my throne. I'm off the throne.

There's no reigning champion, and then you can trade again. Yes, but for the most part, the reigning champ can't trade. Reigning camp champ can't trade unless you're conceding the year and then we let you trade. Beyond that, though everybody's gunning for you, that's where you want to That's where I wanted you to go. Is the more of the psychological part of it. Everybody wants you to lose, and it's awesome. Being the guy that eleven other owners want

to take down all year is awesome. Yeah, you're wearing the black hat everybody every You know, when when when Scott's the reigning champion and it's my turn in the regular season to play you, I'm doing everything I can to beat you. All that matters to me is that you lose and it feels great. Yep. It's it's always good when you know that that team is either going to miss the playoffs, so they get kicked out of the playoffs and and you're just like the league lives on,

The league lives on. Ye yes, uh, the Empire League. You now, we played. Its a dynasty league because you have the best chance of going of going back to back if you roll, if you if you were the champion last year, like if we were to take this season as an example, you might be rolling into this year with Travis Kelsey and Lamar Miller and Christian McCaffrey or you know, two out of those three or whatever, and you're rolling over all these great players, so you

have a real chance of going back to back. Um, it's much harder in redraft where you're starting from scratch and you've got to try to win back to back. You know, a lot of our listeners have been in redraft leagues, are predominantly in redraft leagues, and it's it's hard if they go back to back in redress unless you're playing with a bunch of work people that don't know how something which happens. Sometimes too, I think they

are fun. Um. Now, a lot of people get hung up and I get this all the time when I talk to people that aren't willing to flip their dynasty league into an Empire league. They get hung up on the idea that the league ends. Scott talked through a little bit about what happens when the league ends, and you know what you do. Then when the league ends, when there's a back to back champ, when someone wins the Empire pot, the league is just it's just done. At that point, you can restart it fresh if you

want to write, you absolutely can. But at that point the league is just done, and the Emperor takes the Empire Pot, and then you can you can either start over, you can walk away. Yeah, so you can. You know, you can look at you look at the composition of your twelve owners and you can say, all right, you know, we're all having fun here. You know, let's roll over all twelve and let's start again. Or you could be more selective and you could say, all right, you know,

who wants out? This is your chance to get out? Who wants to stay in? Or you could say, you know what, they're there are three guys that really didn't weren't really into it. You don't even invite them back. You know, this is your chance to recalibrate your league. For your best owners. Absolutely, and after many years in the dynasty league, parody does become an issue. Sometimes owners are just better and then it's top heavy, and then the bottom owners don't want to play or they're less active.

This this curbs that, it really does. I like taking you know you and I've talked about this offline a lot. I love taking at the opportunity to improve leagues. And part of that process is good owners and getting rid of the bad ones, which is hard to do. It's so important to a league. There is the most important part. They're always the most important part. It is your league is only if your league is not defined by its scoring system. It's defined by the quality of the owners. Absolutely.

There are different scoring systems that do different things, and different constructions of leagues that do different teams that will generally do something to a league that it'll be more active here, more active here, less active here, Like it will it will shape the league in a certain way. But good owners can overcome any good or bad rule rule, Yeah, which I which I like. If there's a bad rule,

good owners can overcome it. Yeah. Very important by the way to be able to do that oftentimes, Yeah, um, the you you help run the Empire leagues for our company Fanball, and we through uh product we call Safe Leagues. It's an offshoot of League Safe Safe Leagues, and you run Empire leagues. Um. One of the things that we knew would happen, and I think you can help validate this is when you've been paying into your Empire pot for a number of years, you don't want to walk

away from that league. See. I think you get a lot of extra stability in an Empire league because people have been paying into this pot and they don't want to just walk away from all the money they've paid into that pot. Nope. And not only do you see people wanting to leave less when people see that, when you talk to someone and be like, you want to come join this league with me, there's a five thousand dollar pot, they're gonna jump at it. Yeah, you could

fill that spot. So if you've got to go it's crazy enough to walk away from the Empire pot, you can find an owner who wants to come in. Because for the cost of playing for one year, hundred bucks, you have a chance at the five thousand dollar rolling pot that's been accumulating. Yeah, that counts for a Ton. That's another reason. It's another reason that we like the

the the Empire League. Uh, I want to take a quick break, but then after that, I want to talk to you about whether or not you want to have deep rosters or shallow rosters in an Empire league, and what the advantages and disadvantages of shallow or deep rosters are based a little bit on how you want your Empire league to go. And then you've also got some data. Having run in the ballpark of a hundred Empire leagues for us, you've done some data mining on Empire leagues

that we can pass along to listeners as well. It's Paul Charching and Scott Fish. It's an Empire League edition of Fantasy Football Weekly. We're back Paul charch In Scott Fish with you talking about Empire leagues. It's one of the things that we're really passionate about it. Scott is a is been in the dynasty realm for years and years and years, years and and um I remember the first guy ever heard talk to it was in a dynasty league. It was nine four dropped he dropped the

term dynasty. I mean, what's what does dynasty even mean? What? What is a dynasty league, and so you know, he explained he was holding everybody, and I was really intrigued by that. But I didn't start playing until closer to two thousand or ninety eight or something in that ballpark, I want to say. And then you were hooked, and then I was hooked. I've been in one ever since. What's your what's your dynasty background? Ninety two was when

I started my first dynasty league. Dang, because that's all I knew at the time, and that's the only way you knew how to play. My dad played a Big ten basketball dynasty league where you drafted them as incoming freshmen and you kept him throughout their college career. So I didn't know that a redrafted league existed. I didn't know how to play. I just knew it was you kept all your plays. Was your first pick, Jim Chicken Chance,

it was Steve Young? It was and uh well, you said it was Big ten basketball, no basket, So I know you gotta go with like Evan eshen Meyer style if you're gonna if you're gonna go there, um who played I believe years earlier than that. I think, yeah, Uh no, Steve Young was my first Dynasty draft pick. And I still remember rookie draft standing up on a chair getting excited, saying that J. J. Stokes was the next Jerry Rice. How do you c l A you have a first rounded you might remember I do remember

well because he was slow, super slow. That was a bad deal. That was a good year, right, Joey call theway Michael Westbrook like that was a good year for wide receivers. I don't remember that class anyway. Although I will say this, in the course of my time in the fantasy sort of news quasi journalism business, We've only ever broken a hand I have only ever broken a handful of stories. J J. Stokes release from the Jaguars

was one of them that we broke. Yes, yes, so, And I was very disappointed when it got picked up by other news services and they called it internet reports. Oh come on, could you just give us credit, give us a little bit. Yeah, we didn't get that. Uh. The Empire League, we you and I think have just a fundamental difference on roster size um. And it's philosoply what you want to get out of what you want

to get out of the Empire League. So I want to talk roster side with you the prevailing you are in the vast majority of people that like to have a deep roster of a lot of players. Tell people nasty Empire Dynasty format. I I get your point of view on Empire a little bit more, okay, And Plus, as I mentioned on when I talk about commissioner stuff,

play what you enjoy the beauty of Dynasty Empire. There's so many different ways to play, play what you love, and all of fantasy football there's no overarching thing that says you've got to play our way exactly, although when you play in the big services you kind of do who you know, you really do have pretty limited ways to play anyway. Uh, tell people why you like a deeper roster and how many what? What do you think is the right number of roster spots for Dynasty or

Empire Empire? Since this Empire podcast talk to me about Empire less, so I think I think in Empire leagues, I prefer in the twenty two range. Okay, which I I an incredibly large amount, but you're like, oh, we're gonna pull it back to exactly all right, So I is twenty two good number for an Empire league roster? I I feel like it's just enough that you can still build that dynasty with the back end of talent and have fun with rookies staying at the back of

your bench. I feel like you go down to the sixteen level and a reigning champion has trouble, you know, they basically have to make the call to go for it, because it's it's tough to like stash rookies to you know, for a later chance. If you you have, you have one shot, and then it's basically rebuild. And and I want the I want teams to have the ability to you know, stash those lower level guys, you know, just in case it doesn't happen. Which I get your side

to the sixteen man rosters. Uh, the great benefits, by the way, I think sixteen is just about perfect. Yeah, keep going. What what what is the benefit in an Empire League of having a sixteen roster? The great benefit of having a sixteen man roster in an Empire League is that a reigning champ who cannot trade has ample amounts of things on the waiver wire to aid them in winning that championship. Granted, they do still have to fight eleven of other owners for those wide wire pieces.

But at least it give some more of a puncher's chance that at that pot. That's really I think, as much as anything else. When I look at roster composition for Dynasty and Empire, the first question is do you out to have a waiver wire that has anybody with a pulse on it? And anybody's played the Scott fish pol knows that you can go the whole year not making a waiver transaction because there's nobody to be had um and you can still you can have a good team.

You can have a a very bad team. Uh. I think I don't want I don't want an Empire league to last forever by design. I want somebody to hit back to back on that. What's your ideal length for I think it's in the five six year range because I think if if I could, in my mind when I was coming up with Empire leagues, five or six years felt like the right amount of time to give everybody kind of a chance to to get in and you know,

help sculpt their squad. And I thought that that would be pretty typical of when the payout what happened, knowing that some people would pay out in your one and two we went it right after that, and other times you go ten years. But I thought in that five six range would be about right. Um, but you know, you know, there's there's no rules on that obviously. What kind of data have you gleaned from the hundred or so empire leagues that you run at safe leagues about

typical length of Empire leagues before somebody hits it? Sure, First off, there is there are people out there that have trouble joining the Empire League just because they're worried that it's going to go away in two years, that it's going to go away right away, and that does happen. But yeah, it's it's pretty rare. I've I've found with

these leagues. They're the sixteen man rosters went away or you know, we had a back to back champ in two years in one out of every nine leagues about one and nine and one in after one in the first two years back to back. Then I'm surprised it's not even that high. And then in the two man rosters. Okay, hold on a second, I think so many people in dynasty and empire leagues get fixated on young players and then other people are gonna come and go nobody wants

to play over thirty. Fine, I'll take all these players over thirty and they'll win it. And they'll go win it right off the bat with a bunch of old guys because everybody else's mindset is so locked into young players all the time. All it takes is gain a few of those in one league and then all of a sudden, it's a nine man league. Really really it is. Yeah, yes, So that's that's a tough. A tough way to try to play an empire league is to just uh go after all youth and just let the top teams grab

all those you know, vets that are scoring points. So one in eight to one and nine teams win it within two years. Um, So it's not much of a concern, but it does exist. We recognize it exists. Someone's that's gonna happen. About thirty percent of leagues you have a double winner within three years, which seems was still a lot. Yeah, I'm surprised. I'm surprised. It's it's within three years. Keep

going at four years, it's about okay. Leagues have cashed out by has a double champ in either year two, year three, or year four. It's a little sooner than I had expected. All right, uh right, now we we do have leagues, you know, entering year six, now we have a we have a good amount of them, I bet. And that's when we started servicing Empire leagues on our side of the fence. And so they're a bunch of Empire leagues are still going through safe leagues. I'll tell

you what, it's fun. We had we paid out if we had to know, we were happy to. We paid out a five thousand dollar pot last year. How about that? Yeah, that guy had been in it since year one and he took it down. Yea thousand bucks. All right, Now I want to talk briefly some draft strategy for you, and specifically this if of leagues are done in the four year range, and you know then so I think, you know, four year, five year, six years probably the

most common. I would think here, as we run more and more, I think that, yeah, that's probably five, four or six years is probably where the most of them we win. How many running backs from five years ago are relevant today? Relevant? Almost none? Almost relevant to a similar level. None? None. Right, So when I start my when I start my Empire league, you know, uh, I am I issue running backs almost entirely. They're gonna come and go. I promote that in Dynasty as well. I

think it's I think it's valid there too. Um, I'm and I don't even necessarily. It's not that I don't want to win my Empire League and you're one and two, but I'd really rather hit it in year five and six and get the big Empire pot. Right. So I'm really gonna position myself primarily to be value to have a chance of winning this thing later on. And that to me is I want to be drafting players who are young and not a running back, that are gonna be able to be helping, helpful of my team in

five years. That means I want a young, great tight end. I want young great wide receivers, and maybe a young great quarterback. I was gonna say at this point in time, I have no problem with someone taking George Kittle at age and Patrick Mahomes at age twenty three first right right away. You absolutely could. You were going to get those two players for six years, seven years, eight years of high level skills. Yeah, it's it's weird to say that like a quarterback that earlier tight end there, but

That's that's the way it is. You can get wide receivers in the later round. You can draft them and rookie drafts, tight ends and rookie drafts. You're waiting three years on him, you really are. I've had Julio Jones for his entire career, and he was my first overall, my first round selection because I looked at his quarterback who was then a young Matt Ryan and already good.

And here's Julio Jones is a rookie. He's gonna be good, and like game on, I'm gonna you know, if Julio Jones as good as I think he can be, I could hold him for you know, a decade, And now here we are, almost a decade later, Leo Jones is still is still it's still valuable. So I really think Empire leagues in particular, the way the way that initial draft should go is you're really building around the young players at positions that have a long life span. And

running back is it's basically everybody butt running back. Uh, Travis Kelsey, George Kittle. Kelsey's actually now get so he's actually probably doesn't fit the mold. Uh So maybe it's it's more Kittle as somebody who makes a ton of sense as a as a young, building black guy at a position of of weakness at tight end. You know, every year it seems like talking about you know, who can find a nobody? So yeah, that's um, we have

all for that trap every year too. We we think this is the year they're they're going to be deeper deeper, and then three injuries later, there's just suddenly nobody to pick up again? Is tight end twelve somehow? Right? Yes, and he's not even good I know, seving a bad year and he's tight end twelve. Uh, It's it's always a battle at the tight end position. But um, you know, as off the top of my head, a guy like Courtland's Sutton fascinating if you think through lock is for real.

Portland's Sutton looks like a beast. You know, he could be powering your team for another decade. Chris well, we don't even know his quarterbacks is gonna be That's the problem with Chris. You're like, yeah, your quarterbacks, who's the quarterback? So you know, I love identifying those receivers that have got the quarterbacks the you know guys that I wouldn't that other people are gonna reach for the running backs of people are gonna reach for it, like Ezekiel Elliott.

Just is he gonna be? Is Ezekiel Elliott going to be a player who's a valid helper in four years, in five years, in six years? And I don't even know that I can say that about Christie McCaffrey. Maybe now you would think just with all the usage he's had, Yeah, he was a four plus a touch guy. Wasn't over the three seventy anyway, he topped the three seventy marker total touches. So which is the danger mark for for

running backs? Um? Anything else Empire League related that you want to stress to people that are either new into it or think you know in the Empire leagues right now? I think the main thing I would stress out there is the main concern I hear is that it could be over in two years. You can't go in there because it's we're talking at best that that's going to happen.

I mean, it happens, but or if this is just an offshoot of it, If you're really worried about that, and people in your league are really worried about it, say you can't win it. You have to win two in a orrow after year two, yeah, you can. You can make a rule. You can make rule. It just says, you know, we're not paying out until you're four or whatever, and that's you know, that's the earliest you can do it. But even so, is it the worst thing that you

have a redraft? Is? That isn't really so bad, it's all but man, people get attached to their rosters. They get emotionally attached the roster, and they hate the notion of giving it up even when the roster is not good. You know what you can do. You can you can win to in a row out the Empire pot and just keep all your rosters if you really want to.

We don't recommend that now. I think the fresh start is great, but at that point you might want to because some somebody else has obviously got a great roster that's gone back to back on a great job today. Scott, thank you listeners, appreciate you getting to the end of the podcast. Hope you enjoyed an Empire League breakdown. We'll talk more Empire League throughout the off season because I

love it. Scott loves it, and dynasty leagues and rookies and free agents, and we'll probably talk a few ways to play that you know, you might might be able to take to home leagues. Yeah, we'll definitely be talking guillotine leagues. I know that. Um I might dust off the old thievery league idea with you. Yeah, I might go back to that a little bit. I still don't. I still believe there's a little something on that league. So we'll see how that goes. Thanks for listening, everybody.

We'll be back next week for more. Fantasy Football Weekly is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H