7 creative ways to determine your draft order

January 29, 2015January 29, 2015 Ryan

Letting the website randomly determine your draft order is the missionary position of the NRLCEO world; it gets the job done but lacks any real excitement.

Whether you are more adventurous or merely have little to no trust for your league Commissioner, you are only limited by your own creativity in finding more fun and exciting ways to manage your draft.

Remote

The Nines

What better way to determine a fantasy football draft order than football? The Auckland Nines now mark the beginning of the NRL calendar. In 2014 we used the Nines as a great backdrop for Draft Day. With the shift to an earlier competition in 2015 this was less practical, but it still leaves the competition as a great way to set a draft order. Depending on your league size, everyone can pick out a team (or two) and ride them to victory.

Tip: Given there isn’t a finishing order for all teams, use For and Against or Total Points Scored to do your rankings.

Geoguessr

For those not acquainted, Geoguessr is an online game based off Google Street View. Essentially, you are plonked in a random Street View location somewhere in the world, and have 60 seconds to guess where you are. This happens 5 times and you are scored based on your overall accuracy of your guesses. The great thing about Geoguessr is that the locations are random but it still involves a skill element. It also can be done remotely if not everyone can get together at the same time.

Tip: If using this method get in some practice and learn which colour road lines the main continents use. Also, f*#k South Africa looking like outback Australia.

Greyhounds/Races

The races can be a great way to determine draft order and can be as flexible as you make it. Have an involved group of friends? Go to the races and make a day of it. Want something simple? The finishing order of a single race can do.

Having an eight person league the greyhounds are a great way to help with draft order. You can pick a race at random and give each person a runner or do a 3-2-1 points system over an entire card.

Tip: Most races won’t immediately publish a complete finishing order. Unless you are all watching, a 3-2-1 over a greyhound card may help prevent disputes.

In Person

Ticket Challenge

Go to your local Timezone, each load up a card with $20 and see who can win the most tickets. Most tickets gets first pick (and decides how to spend the tickets!)

Tip: Ski-ball. Always Ski-ball.

Using your pets

Feel more comfortable wearing a foil hat than having someone else determine your draft order? Use your pets for a fun and impartial way to select positions.

To determine our draft order in 2014, we got each member to place a sock in a circle on the floor of the lounge room. We then placed our pet ferret in the middle (under a bin of course – no one was getting to aim Blinky) and the order in which he ran away with the socks helped determine the draft rankings.

Tip: Work out rules beforehand. 8 people making loud noises and trying to stop a rivals sock being chosen scared the crap out of our pet!

Sporting Contest

What better way to determine fantasy order than a real sporting contest? Unless like me you look around and realise you are both fatter and slower than many of your opponents. The difficulty with using a physical event to determine a draft order is finding something which everyone in your league will find agreeable.

For our league with a mix of both athleticism and gender, strength and speed contests were out. A basketball free throw shooting competition worked out as a great idea. 10 shots, and tie breakers sorted by a shoot off. Heckling allowed.

Tip: Anything which one person is decidedly better at is out. Look for sports people haven’t played or scoring events such as darts which give everyone a shot.

Weight loss

This season for our League we are deciding our draft order with a weight loss challenge – Biggest Loser style with highest % loss a win. With less than three weeks to go before a romantic valentines day draft it seems only two people have lost any real weight. I just need to give Warnie’s mum a call, grab some diuretics and I should be able to coast to a comfortable third overall pick.

Has anyone got any other exciting/original ways of determining their draft order? Let me know in the comments or hit up @aussiepiston on Twitter.