For the fantasy expert or long time player these draft types will all have been used at some point, and nothing new, but even I was involved in new draft format this year and it is good to know what options exist and are becoming more popular.  I thought it would be good to breakdown all the options available to those just getting into fantasy sports.

The Live Draft:  Conducted in person, or in an online draft room.  Always the most fun if you are among friends, as there is usually as much trash talk and pick comedy as there is actual drafting.  For the novice or expert this is obviously the most common and needs little explanation, as you are simply in a real, or online room together making your fantasy picks based on a pre-determined draft order.  Most draft orders in a live draft will follow a “sanke” format where in round teams pick 1 to 10, but then round 2 starts with team 10 going back to 1, and so on.  Many variations of this can be included if you have keepers, etc.  That’s where the fun begins.

The Auto Draft:  Most easily conducted if you have an online draft room doing the work for you.  Instead of showing up in person, you send in, or input a list of players ranked based on how you would like to draft each. The draft itself still goes in a pre-determined draft order, but with each team owners pick, the computer (software or draft room)  is simply choosing the player who is ranked the highest and still available.

The e-mail (or slow) draft: A nice substitute if you have many team owners far apart from each other and/ or have  very busy work schedules.  Again a pre-determined draft order chooses who picks when, but instead of doing it live your favorite commish starts an e-mail thread with everyone in the league and you submit your pick when it is your turn by replying to all in the same thread.  Normal rule of thumb is owners have between 12-24 hours to make their pick once their turn begins, but that is based on the preferences of each league.  The biggest plus of this format is more time to research picks if someone you wanted was just taken or you have had little time to prepare.  Biggest minus is the format normally takes weeks to complete, and can be frustrating for team owners who are used to the fast pace of live drafts.  Many online draft rooms will also now support this format by allowing the commissioner to adjust the time in between picks up to 24 hours (hence the name slow draft).

The Auction Draft:  This was the first year I have participated in an auction draft, and I happened to be involved in two fantasy football drafts.  If you love fantasy sports and have not tried an auction draft, I highly recommend you do so.  These have traditionally always been done in a live draft in person setting, but auction draft room software is becoming available online to handle all of the financing and player tracking.  In an auction draft there is no purpose to a draft order beyond having an order of who nominates which player for bidding each turn.  Whichever team is chosen to go first nominates a player for a set amount.  The floor is then wide open for any other team to raise that nominated bid.  The highest bidder wins the player.  Pretty simple concept overall.  Most teams are given an arbitrary $100 or $200 total budget to work from to complete your roster.  What makes an auction draft so interesting and worth trying?  Unlike a live draft where you are able to participate at one point of each round when your turn comes up, in an auction draft you are involved in as many turns as you choose to bid on, which can be every single player if you so desire.  You need to pay attention to every single player nominated to gauge their value, instead of just crossing off a bunch of names before your turn comes up.  There is also a lot more strategy that goes into an auction draft versus a regular snake draft.  In a regular draft you have a good idea where most players are going to fall.  In an auction draft you can choose to pay big for couple star players and rock bottom for low tier players to fill out a roster, or go middle of the road and pay mid-level dollars for many players and get more talent/ depth overall or completely random based on how that specific draft plays out.   Most importantly you have to have some plan on how to spend your draft dollars, or you are sure to run out before your roster is complete, or you will have money left on the table which is useless once the draft is done.