Fantasy College Wrestling League

goferphan · 10-02-2007, 03:44 PM

So gg121and2 has kind of inspired me to think about new ways to market our sport and to at least get other people talking and thinking about it. I know its going to sound a little bit funny but let it sink in for a minute and then respond.

My idea...Fantasy Wrestling.....(cricket, cricket)

I know it sounds a little bit silly but the more I think about it, the better the idea seems. We can start it out on this website or even create a seperate website. Since we still have a little bit of time, we can try to put together the basic "draft" and the scoring system involved. It would certainly be a very "trial" thing with flexbility to change the rules as we go along but with the idea to have a real solid program put together for next year.

What could be better than drafting wrestlers from other teams. Then we are truly pulling for the "sport" of wrestling rather than any given team all the time. We will all learn quite a bit about other teams, programs and wrestlers in this way and even possibly get other people to join us just for the sport of it.

I can see it now...do I go with a guy like Ness who has a knack for pinning quite a few people or a guy like rivera that can rack of tech falls against alot of his opponents. Do I go with a guy who is talented but doesn't make weight from time to time and/or a guy who has alot of talent but has been prone to back injuries?

Let me know if this sounds crazy but I think it would be a pretty cool idea.

We could do a draft where you can go out and pick two 149 lb'ers right out of the gate if you think Metcalf and schlatter are going to kick everyone's ass or you can get a 125 lb'er and a 184 lb'er in the first two rounds because these guys don't lose. I think you have to go two deep at each weight class and if one of your guys goes out, you can tap into the supplemental pool OR if you choose two and they both go down, you wrestle without a weight that week.

Just thinking out loud here. Now I know the first thing people might say is, "great idea gofer, go ahead and set it up and I will play". A few problems with that:

1) I have little to no computer skillls
2) I just had my third little boy two weeks ago.
3) I have a full time job and a seperate business that I run so time is hard to come by.

I am willing to help with trying to structure this on paper but can't probably take it from there to computer.

I am willing to turn over the creative piece to a guy like Schlottke who seems to have the acumen to help create this.

I am willing to take volunteers to form a small creative committee to help get this off the ground via blog space if needed (Yes Big, I mean you...)

If nobody thinks this is a good idea, no big deal but somehow I think there are a core group of you who think this might fly.

Let me know and lets double back in a couple of days. If nothing else we can just do a small pilot test of this with a small group of wrestling nuts and then see where it goes. I have no intention to profit from any of this and will say now that if there is some creative $$$ that needs to be raised to get this started I will ante up $1,000 to get it rolling. Whatever proceeds could eventually be raised from this I would donate to USA Wrestling or even to put aside for some struggling programs.

Who is with me?

Jensens, Big, Wiltz, Trusty, GG1, JT1, Spider, Bluestater?

Wiltz · 10-02-2007, 03:47 PM

Sounds interesting. I know Dr Gonzo had proposed Fantasy wrestling last year but, nothing ever came of it.

goferphan · 10-02-2007, 03:50 PM

Yeah, I don't want anything too complicated to begin with...just five to ten guys drafting a team and then I suppose we have to decide which matches during the week are going to count so that we can figure out how to do a weekly score so that we can have "dual" meets. That could get complicated with tournaments and teams wrestling on different nights but I think if we kept it to a few major conferences at first and decided how to draft and how to score, we could certainly get something done.

It would also be part of the strategy for people to look at matchups before deciding who to start...

Champ Kind · 10-02-2007, 03:58 PM

The hardest thing to do is a scoring system and then updating it. There are a multitude of ways to do a draft, that would be the simplest thing of the whole process.

Schlottke · 10-02-2007, 04:03 PM

I've been playing with developing this for a couple months in my spare-spare time (the time that I don't spend on here or my other "for fun" sites)

The way I broke it down so far is this:

You'd track margin of victory (DEC, MAJ. DEC, TECH, FALL)

This would keep our data to a minimum. Preventing mistakes in results from significantly effecting the score. Since we don't have a database to pull scores directly from (......Jason Bryant....

just kiddin'- ) this is the easiest method with the least amount of data entry.

You'd build a squad of 13 guys but can only use one at each weight. Better pick your backups wisely, know which wrestlers get hurt the most... this also keeps users from loading up on 2 great wrestlers who never wrestle each other..

points are scored just like a dual, and you compete against one other person that week.

It would be simple enough in this form to run simply on the forum. I have a script that can randomly generate matchups across a set # of users.. (i.e. it will generate a map of who plays who for th next X number of weeks.)

Criteria in Ties is done the same as a college dual.

We could even break the users up into "conferences" with one "conference leader" who manages the reporting for their league.

This is the way I intended to release the product, if you guys have other ideas, spout them off. I planned on figuring out a draft date pretty soon.

goferphan · 10-02-2007, 04:04 PM

well, scoring could be fairly simple...if your guy techs a guy, your team gets 5 points at that weight for the week, if your guy inj defaults, you get 0...at the end of the day if your team scores 35 points and the other scores 32, you win the match...there could be a tie breaker...

if your guys are a tournament, you could do a reverse order thing where first place gets 10 pts, 2nd gets 9, 3rd gets 8...etc...like I said, don't complicate it at first...you could give bonus points like other team tournaments do for pins, tech falls and majors but that would be as complicated as it gets...

we could also take tournaments off and stick to dual meets to begin with...i can see how you could make this complicated but you could also simplify it at first to see how things play out...

it would behoove people to not necessarily all pick guys from one team as for example iowa state, iowa, minnesota, okie state all have REALLY hard schedules...you might think about picking up a guy from CMU that has some tough matches but also is a ranked wrestler who will be getting some matches against lesser opponents...no different then when Peyton Manning gets to play against the Viking's Pass Defense...yes, I meant that to hurt to all of my Viking brethren...

goferphan · 10-02-2007, 04:07 PM

disregard alot of my last post, I like JS's scoring system but still, some of my ramblings apply...I like the idea of 15 wrestlers to a squad...you could get racked one week with 13...in a charging league (somewhere WAY down the road) you would give people 10-12 and then let them pay a buck to "buy" a fill-in wrestler for the week...

goferphan · 10-02-2007, 04:08 PM

that being said, if JS is on board and already has some ideas, I have no problem helping with some funding if that will help...i will also do some leg work if that is necessary or even be on a "rules" committee if we are working through some issues...

Trusty · 10-02-2007, 04:08 PM

I'm in, I asked about this in Misc Wrestling a few weeks back and eazzee said he was going to look into it.

Schlottke · 10-02-2007, 04:09 PM

I'll have to watch this thread play out and then start deciding on how to take the project. Keep coming up with ideas though- I'd rather incorporate as much of everyone's opinion as I can (without bloating it too much), because it will make everyone enjoy their particular addition that much more.

Fantasy College Wrestling League

Fantasy League Jensen