How to Play

Base Price

Set at the start of each season from consensus expert rankings (ADP). Elite players start around $100. Deep bench players start as low as $2. Base prices do not change during the season.

Performance Multiplier

This is the engine. It starts at 1.0 for every player and shifts each week based on actual vs. projected fantasy points:

• Outperform projections. Multiplier rises, price goes up after settlement.
• Underperform projections. Multiplier falls, price drops after settlement.
• Meet projections exactly. No change.
• Bye week. No change.

The multiplier is sticky: strong past performance carries forward and only fades if the player continues to underperform. Clamped between 0.2× and 2.0×.

Injuries & Bye Weeks

If a player does not record any stats for the week (due to injury, coach's decision, or a bye), they are treated the same as a bye week: no change to the performance multiplier, no change to price. This applies whether they were projected for 5 points or 15.

• Long holders. If your player misses a game, your price is stable. No downside from the miss itself, but you also see no growth. A player who misses several weeks will not gain a multiplier boost until they actually perform again.
• Short sellers. An injured player who does not play produces no stats, which means no underperformance signal and no multiplier drop. Your short gains nothing while daily interest charges accumulate. See Section 5 for more detail.
• Bye weeks. All players on a team share the same bye week. Their multiplier holds exactly where it is through the bye. The market treats it as a neutral week.
• Projections and injuries. Player projections come from our projections provider and are refreshed several times early in the week. If a player is projected for points but ruled out before Sunday, the latest available projection is used at settlement. A player with a revised-down projection who still plays is more likely to underperform; one who is ruled out entirely is treated as a bye regardless of their projection.

No Trade Impact on Price

Buying or selling shares does not move the posted price. Everyone pays the same current price for buys. Prices only change at settlement, which runs after each day's games go final, never on an individual trade. (Leagues can opt into Instant Buy (Hardcore Mode) where buys fill the moment you place them instead of in the nightly batch, covered in Section 4. Even then, the posted price updates at settlement, not per trade.)

By default, leagues enable Deferred Demand mode, which adds a small demand component (up to +30% premium) based on how many shares of that player are held across the league. The demand component is recalculated at each daily settlement, so the price you see is frozen and predictable between settlements. Individual trades never move the price. (During the IPO, demand is recalculated after every round, so buying a popular player early is rewarded as later rounds bid the price up.)

Selling: You Can't Cash In Your Own Demand

When you sell, the demand portion of your price is calculated excluding your own shares. You still get the full benefit of demand from everyone else who holds that player. You just can't profit from demand you manufactured by buying the player up yourself.

For a normal-sized position this is a difference of pennies, so you'll effectively see the posted price. It only matters if you hold a large slice of a player's float: cornering a player no longer lets you inflate its price and sell into the inflation. Your portfolio value reflects this same "what you could actually sell for" number, and the trade screen previews your exact sell price before you confirm.

Limited Share Float

Each player has a finite number of shares available per league: League Size × 100 shares. Once all shares are held by members, no more buys are possible until someone sells. Selling returns shares to the float immediately.

How It Works

• Positions targeted: QB, WR, and RB only. TE, K, and DST are excluded from automatic selections.
• Selection strategy: The system buys the highest-ranked available players first, diversifying across positions so no single position exceeds 40% of your round budget.
• Budget: Autodraft attempts to spend your full round cap (including any rollover) each round.
• Priority queue: Auto-generated orders respect the same priority queue as manual orders. Your priority position determines fill order regardless of how your orders were created.

Controlling Autodraft

• Toggle autodraft on or off from the IPO lobby before the draft starts, or from the IPO live page sidebar during any round.
• If you want to pass on a round without triggering autodraft, lock in with no orders. Locking in signals you are present and choosing to pass.
• Submitting even one manual order for a round disables autodraft for that round. The system only acts when you submit nothing.

What happens by default

• Trading stays open. You can buy, sell, short, and cover normally.
• NFL preseason game stats do not move prices. No surprise hits from a Week-2 preseason fluke.
• Demand drift records daily. Buying pressure still nudges posted prices (on demand-enabled leagues) and a daily heartbeat keeps charts continuous.
• Projection updates can move value. If a player's outlook changes (depth chart shifts, training-camp news, injury reports), the price reacts even though no real games have been played.

Opt-in: Pre-season Performance

If your league wants preseason games to count, the commissioner can flip Preseason Performance on in league settings. With it enabled, preseason game stats run a real settlement (the same formulas as the regular season), and the performance multiplier moves accordingly.

This is off by default because most members expect prices to wait for "real" football. Turn it on if your league wants the noise.

When does Week 1 actually start?

The market flips out of the pre-season window the moment the first regular-season game finals. From that point on, settlement runs after each day's games and prices move on the normal performance formula.

Buys Batch, Sells Are Instant

Buy orders queue and are processed together in a daily batch. They compete for a limited share float, so they're filled in priority order and you never need to race to be first. An order placed days in advance is treated identically to one placed an hour before the fill run.

Sells, shorts, and covers execute immediately while the market is Open. They don't compete for the float (selling returns shares to it), so there's nothing to batch for fairness. Executing them on the spot keeps the available float live and visible for everyone's buy decisions, and lets you sell one player and immediately redeploy the cash. (During Halts, all order types queue; see below.)

The daily buy fill run executes automatically at 4 AM ET while the market is open. A fill run also fires immediately when the market reopens after an overnight settlement, so post-settlement buys don't sit until the next 4 AM run.

Hardcore Mode (opt-in): a commissioner can switch on Instant Buy when the league is created. With it on, buy orders fill the moment you place them at the posted price instead of waiting for the daily batch, which rewards split-second trading and reacting to news as it breaks. The tradeoff is the "no need to race to be first" fairness you give up. The setting locks once the draft begins, and sells, shorts, and covers are already instant either way. The posted price itself still moves at settlement, not on each trade.

Priority Queue

When multiple members want the same player and the float is limited, a rotating priority queue determines fill order:

• Priority is assigned 1 through N (1 = fills first).
• After each fill run, the last-place member moves to first place, and everyone else shifts down one position.
• This mirrors the waiver wire in traditional fantasy: whoever was last to benefit gets the next advantage. No one is permanently disadvantaged.

Player Lock After Games

Once a player's game goes final, they are locked for trading until the next morning's settlement reprices them. This applies to all order types: buy, sell, short, and cover.

This prevents front-running the price update. If you know a Thursday night player had a breakout game, you cannot queue a buy before the price moves. You have to wait until the next settlement reprices them, at which point everyone is on equal footing for the new price.

Players whose game has not yet kicked off this week are not locked. You can queue orders on Sunday players freely on Thursday or Friday.

During Market Halts (Games in Progress)

While games are in progress the market is Halted. Every order type queues during a Halt: buy, sell, short, and cover. The instant execution of sells, shorts, and covers only applies while the market is Open. Orders can only be placed for players whose game has not yet gone final, and they fill in the next daily fill run once the market reopens. Existing holdings are unaffected during halts.

Cancelling Orders

You can cancel any pending order before it fills from the order history panel on your portfolio page.