Hey Razzballers,

Question for the league managers out there. How do y'all go about selecting a draft date and time?

I'm in a 12 team league that has been playing together for about 8 years. In the past two years, we've experienced incredible difficulty finding a time. People are unwilling to shift schedules or sacrifice just a few hours of a weekend.

I usually list Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the last two weekends in March before the season starts:

Friday, 3/15:
Saturday, 3/16:
Sunday, 3/17:
Friday, 3/22:
Saturday, 3/23:
Sunday, 3/24:

Then I ask for any times of unavailability. These guys are marking "UNAVAILABLE" for entire days (and in some cases, entire weekends), implying they are literally busy from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to sleep. That makes it impossible to find a day that suits everyone.

Any suggestions on programs or strategies I can use to prevent this from happening?

Throw out a draft date that fits most and tell everyone to deal with it.

Usually I just announce a date and let everyone give their input. I change it once I have schedule information for individuals, and then I tell everyone to alert me at least a week in advance if they might need the date to be rescheduled. At some point, though, you just have to dictate.

I agree with hollywoodnights. I pick a date that works with me and let everyone else tell me it DOESN'T work. If no one speaks up, I'll just assume it's OK.

If it comes to a point where 1-2 guys can't make it and you've truly tried every other option, you have to tell them to just set their preset top 300 and autodraft.

If three or more people can't make it, you may want to consider working to find another suitable date because that's 1/4 of your league.

Sometimes the answer is 11 p.m. drafts and just put the lowest draft timer possible.

What we do is have it the Saturday before the 1st game of the season at 8pm. Everyone knows when it will be waaay in advance so they can reschedule around it. Sometimes things come up and we work around it but it mostly works out ok. One year we couldnt all agree and ended up doing a slow draft over a week or so. It worked, but kinda sucked. Thats when we scheduled an annual Draftday. Draftday is the best day of the year. Like Christmas morning. Unwrapping all my players for the next 6 months.