League Tycoon: Dynasty Salary Cap New League Year And Rookie Draft

Editor’s note: League Tycoon is an app or desktop based fantasy football platform, specializing in salary cap contract leagues and gambit leagues. They also have a unique “ranked fantasy football” ladder system which allows you to play against other managers at your skill level and move up based on your order of finish.

Last December I wrote a review of League Tycoon’s salary cap fantasy football platform.  After only one season of using their system, I was already a fan.  Starting the league was a snap, inviting managers was painless and the startup auction was a lot of fun.  I really enjoyed assigning contracts and although the season didn’t go my way, I was excited to get to the off-season so I could build my roster through trades, the rookie draft, and the free agent auction.

Even though the new year on League Tycoon is just a couple of months old, we’ve already had so much happen.  So, like my review at the end of last season, I thought I’d cover everything we’ve done to this point.

Returning Managers

11 of the 12 managers from 2023 returned for the second season.  Replacing the manager that left was a snap.  I typed his email address and he was added.  As I said back in December, the commish work is a breeze on League Tycoon.  I sent an invite to the 11 other managers to join back up and we were up and running for the year without any hassle.

If you read my earlier write-up on League Tycoon, you may remember my lone complaint about the site was they didn’t support teams having co-managers.  Great news!  They addressed it and I took advantage.  Since I didn’t make the post-season last year, I recruited fellow DLF writer Ryan McDowell to help steer things in the right direction.  Adding him to my franchise was a no-brainer, both strategically and in the literal sense.

The New League Year

On League Tycoon, the new league year begins on April 1st each year.  That date is incredibly important because it’s the deadline to tag players as your franchise player and the date that all player contracts are reduced by one and all player salaries increase.  When we started the league, we chose to increase salaries yearly by 15% which is the default but is completely customizable.  The opening of the new league year also signifies the first opportunity for managers to give players with one year left on their contract an extension, which is a great feature for team building.

I really thought the league year kicking off created a lot of anticipation for the season.  Our league chat on the League Tycoon app was buzzing with questions about when things would happen and some table talk about how teams should progress.

Rookie Draft Lottery

One of the coolest features of League Tycoon is the draft lottery ceremony.  It’s a virtual version of the NBA Draft Lottery where each team who missed the post-season has a specific amount of ping pong balls in the virtual hopper and they are drawn out to create the order of the rookie draft.  There are sound effects and the team’s logos are presented as the balls choose the order.  What’s especially great is that we set the date and time of the lottery but managers didn’t have to be there to see it live.  It was available for each manager the next time they logged on to the site or checked out the app.

Again, we kept to the suggestions of the platform and gave the team with the worst record 100 balls, the second worst got 80, then 60, 45, 30, and 15 for the remaining teams that missed out on the playoffs.

Since my team finished seventh in the standings last year, just missing the playoffs, I had some long odds to get the number one pick.  I was thrilled though when the graphic popped up of my team logo when the fourth pick was being awarded.  Moving up a couple of spots is huge considering this draft class and started my off-season on the right foot.

The team with the best odds actually got the second pick and the team with the second-best odds got the first selection in the lottery so there was a lot of drama.

The lottery was fun, entertaining, and created some great league comradery.  It’s something I would love to add to more of my leagues.

Rookie Draft

We chose to do a slow rookie draft with eight hours per pick so all 12 managers didn’t have to be online at one time.  The draft room is easy to navigate and fully customizable, including the ability to pause the draft overnight, remove a pick, and change the length of the clock mid-draft.

The app made it very easy to draft on the go as the players were easy to find by ADP but I noticed right away there is no confirmation screen when you click the “plus button” next to a player’s name.  I could see a manager scrolling and accidentally making a selection because he or she unintentionally clicked that button which could cause issues.  Fortunately, the commish has the ability to undo picks if this did come up, however.

We got done with the 48-pick draft in four days.  There were multiple trades including a few by our franchise.  Here is our haul…

Pick | Player | Salary ($3000 cap)
1.04 | WR Malik Nabers | $96
2.04 | WR Ricky Pearsall | $38
3.04 | RB Jaylen Wright | $19
3.07 | RB Bucky Irving | $19
3.11 | RB Tyrone Tracy Jr. | $19
4.11 | TE Theo Johnson | $10

Our strategy was to try to turn our four picks into as many as possible because the player salaries are so low for drafted rookies. Although there were many negotiations with managers – which was so easy using the chat on the app – we weren’t able to trade down in the first but got an excellent player in Nabers. We felt the value with Pearsall was too good to pass up in the second and spent the second half of the second round and early third trying to trade up to draft Jaylen Wright but he fell to us at the 3.04.

After that, we swapped Nick Chubb’s one-year, high dollar contract for a couple of late picks, packaged two fourths to move up for Tyrone Tracy Jr., and dealt $5 of 2024 cap space for the 4.11 to select Theo Johnson.

A very cool feature League Tycoon offers is the practice squad which allows managers to stash any drafted rookie with only 25% of their salary counting against the cap. Furthermore, unlike other players on our roster, practice squad players will not have their salaries increase between seasons and if we decide to cut the player, there is no dead cap penalty in future years. These benefits made it clear that acquiring as many picks as possible was the way to go so we were happy with the six selections we made.

You can see the full results of the rookie draft below.

What’s Next?

We’ve already packed so much action into this off-season but the most exciting part may still be ahead of us. We chose as a league to hold our Free Agent Auction in mid-June. There are so many star players available including Puka Nacua, Trey McBride, Joe Burrow, and Travis Etienne (just to name a few) that we’re strategizing to try to acquire.

After the auction, we also get to sign our new players to contracts before getting set for season two on this excellent platform. I’ll try to check in one more time before the season starts to recap everything but if you’re ready to join me as a League Tycoon, just head over there now and use the code DLF to get a free trial season just like we did when we started.

Overall Experience

I’ve really loved every part of my League Tycoon experience so far. The site is easy to navigate, the app is the best I’ve run across and the settings are commish-friendly and completely customizable. In December I rated League Tycoon nine stars out of 10 but since they addressed my co-managing concern, I have to bump it up. They get 10 stars from me and I’ll continue to use their platform year after year.