The Beginning of the 2012 Season

Welcome to the new Animalia Champions League homepage. It may not be the greatest, but it should work nicely for our winter acquisitions. This is how it will work:

1) Your keeper and contract extension decisions are due by 12am PST on February 16th. Should you not submit them by then, all your players from last season will be kept without having any of their contracts extended. Should that put you over the salary cap of $260, I will extend contracts on your most expensive players whose contracts would decline until the salary cap is reached. If that doesn't get you there, then I will start dropping players until your salary is brought in line.

2) Once keeper decisions are submitted, I will update everyone's roster page and contract info and include a free agent page that will feature all those players that have been released outright and their contract asking price (what they were set to be paid for an extension or last year's salary, whichever is higher). As of that point, free agent acquisitions can be made. EDIT FOR CLARIFICATION: All players who were not on a roster at the end of last season do not have an asking price and will only be able to be attained during Winter Acquisitions by way of an auction. These players will NOT be listed on the free agent page as there are thousands of such players. Instead, the only ones listed on the free agent page are those that have an asking price. However, should someone initiate bidding on a player who was not on a roster at the end of last season, the bidding will be reflected on the page of current free agents that are being bid upon.

3) Free agent acquisitions can be made one of two ways:

1. If a team meets a free agent's requested contract price, the player will sign with that team immediately (first come, first serve). 
2. If a team bids for a free agent at a value lower than the player's requested contract price, the offer will be publicly posted (but team name withheld). As of that point, a maximum 14-day timer begins. All other teams have 14 days to beat the offered price. At the end of the 14 days, each team that made an offer will be emailed the current bid and given a final 24-hour period to make their top bid. Top bid at the end of that 24-hour period gets the player. Again, if any of the bids meet the player's requested contract price, the bidding would immediately stop and the player would be awarded to whoever made the bid.

 If you have any questions, please let me know. Obviously, this is our first offseason doing this, so should any issues arise, we'll work them out.

EDIT: Note that all of our open teams have been claimed for this season. No additional managers are needed, please welcome the new owners of the Green Bears, Sloppy Sloths, Felix's Cats, and the yet-to-be-renamed Underlines!

Enjoy!