Fantasy Football DIspute No. 2603 -- Free Agent Bid Allowed Despite Imperfect Form

SPORTSJUDGE.COM

COURT OF FANTASY FOOTBALL

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -	x	Index No. 2603 Date: December 12, 2008 Dispute: Alleged Rule Violation Judge: Brett Smiley FREE AGENT BID ALLOWED.
LEAGUE MANAGER, on behalf of the LEAGUE Petitioner, - against - IN CASE OF EMERGENCY ("ICE") Respondent.	: : : : : : : : : :
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Petitioner, the LEAGUE MANAGER, on behalf of the LEAGUE, brings this fantasy football dispute in the COURT OF FANTASY FOOTBALL seeking review of a bid submission that, strictly speaking, does not conform with the proper form pursuant to the rules posted by the League Manager. However, for the reasons set forth herein, this Court rules in favor of ICE and upholds the bid. This is a case of first impression so we rely on no precedent in reaching our holding.

ANALYSIS & DISCUSSION

The fantasy football dispute presented here is whether or not the bid was legitimate.

This calls into question the rulebook, as set forth in a league-chat, which provides:

All bids will be made here. A bid may not be edited. If it is edited it will not count.

Free agents will be open for bidding at 3 a.m. on Tuesdays. Bidding will conclude at p.m. on Wednesday.

Each team will have a $100 budget for the first half of the year. Budgets will reset after week 7.

All bids must be made in whole dollars, otherwise they will not count.

If an owner is over his allotted budget at 7 p.m. on Wednesday all of his bids will be disqualified.

At 7:01 p.m. on Wednesday I will post the auction winners and they will be allowed to add their players. At this time, all remaining free agents become fair game.

If an owner picks up a player before 7 p.m. on Wednesday or picks up a player that he has won an auction for, he will be fined $20 free agent dollars and will lose a roster spot for that week.

All teams currently have their full $100 budget.

ALL posts are to be made using this format: (Example) Tom Brady $1

The relevant evidence was reviewed and instructive in reaching our decision.

Through the course of the season the league members established a norm that deviated from the strict rule above (although, the rule did not prove strict)—that bids would be recognized even if they did not conform with the rule—First name, Last name $. The league members earlier in the season challenged a bit of “Moore 45” which was upheld in awarding the bidder Mewelde Moore using $45 from his budget. The Court suspects that numerous other nonconforming bids were made, accepted and not challenged.

And so the bid at issue now is Colts 6. ICE submitted the name of the “player” (Colts) and a dollar value (6). Yes, it was not in the "proper form”, which would have been Colts $ 6 (a sub-issue, the absence of “D/ST” discussed supra).

As noted above, the League Manager indicated to the Court in its letter that more than one bid had previously been recognized that did not follow form. In light of that, it would be wholly unfair to penalize ICE in this instance for making a bid (and ultimately winning) that indeed wasn't in "proper form", but in a form that had previously been accepted. Effectively, this matter has been decided by the League’s own prior ruling.

Curiously, the bid was actually accepted and this challenge to its legitimacy comes after a playoff game was decided by the Colt’s D/ST point total. Indeed, this ruling is based on the doctrines of equitable estoppel, whereby this challenge comes too late as ICE has already relied on the bid acceptance in setting his roster, and acquiescence/ratification whereby the nonconforming bid form had been previously accepted and therefore the League cannot deny it now based on circumstance.

Significantly, part of the argument against the bid suggests that the absence of the "D/ST" after "Colts" is part of the problem. But nothing in the League Manager’s petition or the evidence indicates that a player's position is supposed to be part of the bid. The example was not "Tom Brady QB $1". Rather, it was "Tom Brady $1". And so this Court cannot agree that the presence (or lack of presence) of "D/ST" from the bid has any effect whatsoever.

HOLDING

For reasons set forth herein, this Court rules that the free agent bid should be upheld.

Fantasy Dispute Resolution Discussed in Florida Sun Sentinel

Sarah Talalay of the Florida Sun Sentinel wrote an article last week about SportsJudge.com and the market for fantasy sports dispute resolution. To quote a section of the article:

Perhaps it was inevitable that a hobby that has grown so large it has spawned fantasy magazines, television shows, stats services and trophy manufacturers would need arbitration services, too. After all, fantasy leagues typically are run by a commissioner who is also a team owner.

"The game is being overseen by someone who has a vested interest, even when you're not dealing with disputes that involve the commissioner's team," SportsJudge.com founder and Barry University law professor Marc Edelman said.

Edelman began getting requests for fantasy legal help as a law student in 2001. In 2007, he launched SportsJudge.com, which charges $15 a dispute, or $100 for 10, and returns opinions that cite past SportsJudge decisions within 48 hours.

No one is getting rich from the services. So far, all say they do it as a hobby because they enjoy it — but they are seeing growth.

Fantasy Football Dispute? We Solve Them

When I first started resolving fantasy football disputes in 2001, I operated as a one-man shop. However, as more fantasy football leagues have turned to formal dispute resolution, our team has grown in size.

Thanks to the hard work of Marketing Director Mike Colligan, we now have available pictures and bios of the entire SportsJudge.com Team, including information about our three deputy justices (who assist me with fantasy trade disputes) and about our featured columnists (who write for SportsJudge Blog).

We also have posted our many of our Testimonials, which come from publications as varied as The Sporting News, ESPN the Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal.

As we approach the 2009 fantasy football season, SportsJudge.com looks forward to continuing to meet all of your fantasy football arbitration needs. If you have any questions or concerns about our fantasy football dispute service, please feel free to reach out to me directly at info@sportsjudge.com

Very truly yours,

Marc Edelman, Esq.

Professor of Law & Founder, SportsJudge.com

Bang to Gavel: SportsJudge Decisions of Note (October 2007)

October brought many new and exciting fantasy sports disputes to SportsJudge.com's docket. Below are four of the staff's favorites from this month:

(1) In the case Team Anadrol v. Vegas Baby & Flathead Yankees, No. 955-C, the Court of Fantasy Baseball ruled in a fantasy baseball arbitration that an out-of-contention owner's decision to bench all of his hitters for the final six weeks of the season in a Yahoo! 5x5 rotisserie league amounted to "illegal sabotage." While the court acknowledged that an owner of an in-contention team may choose to strategically bench his hitters in Yahoo! games to maintain strength in ratio statistics (i.e. batting average), the court found that this same action is impermissible if done only to aid one in-contention team to pass another in the standings. As a remedy, the court ordered the league standings recalculated as if the benching had never occurred, and prizes awarded accordingly.

(2) In the case Cincinnati Bowtie v. Nellie's Nuts, Index No. 904, the Court of Fantasy Basketball ruled in a fantasy basketball arbitration that when during a Yahoo! fantasy draft one owner accidentally selected Jason Terry instead of Jason Kidd, and another owner using auto-draft selected Jason Kidd in the next round, the owner using auto-draft had no obligation to return Jason Kidd to the team that had intended to draft him.

(3) In the case Commissioner v. Defending Champs & Teram Hoon, Index No. 954-T, the Court of Fantasy Football in a fantasy football arbitration upheld the trade of Peyton Manning and Edgerrin James for TJ Houshmanzadeh, Jon Kitna and Travis Henry because the "trade adequately benefited both teams." The court noted that the team trading Peyton Manning also had Derak Anderson on his roster at quarterback, and that team had a tremendous weakness at wide receiver.

(4) In the case Commissioner v. Foilage and W&P, Index No. 991-T, the Court of Fantasy Football overturned the trade of Hines Ward, Shaun Alexander and Brandon Jacobs from Foilage to W&P for Joe Jurevicius and Warrick Dunn. Because this trade weakened Foilage in both the wide receiver and running back positions, the court noted "this trade is amongst the most nonsensical this court has ever reviewed."

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The SportsJudge.com Team also wishes to salute fantasy football expert John O'Malley on O'Malley's Tallies, which was rated as the "Most Read SportsJudge Blog" for the second month in a row.