Paying Real Money for a Fantasy Player

[SanDiegoGuy]

Have you ever heard of anyone paying cash to buy a player off another team under the table, so to speak? Say agreeing to pay a guy $100 for a RB1 or WR1 in exchange for a couple of RB2s and/or WR2's (just enough to not raise too much attention to the trade)?

Is this fair game, if someone else finds out or not? Is it really anyone else's business if someone was that desperate to win? Is there any rule anywhere saying one can't promise something else in a trade? Is it any different than saying to someone, "If you do this deal, I will owe you one later." There are back door deals and secret handshakes done in business, politics, marriage, and every other facet of our society. It seems that money talks and suckers walk!

So would this be a complete "No-No" and destroy the very fabric of fantasy football, or just another "what you don't know can't hurt you" assuming under the table deals are done all the time in fantasy football.

[FiremanEd]

That's the same idea of 'I'll give you this guy for far less than market value, but you owe me 50% of the pot when you win.' I think that allowing that sort of behavior opens the doors to all sorts of other collusion situations and destroys the fabric of a league. Where does one draw the line and how do you police it.

This is a pretty clear 'No' in my books and not sure how a league could survive with this behavior. The league itself is an entity with all decisions that should occur within it, not outside of it. Open those doors and all hell breaks loose.

[operwapitsai]

A market description of collusion can be summed up as:
"Collusion is a non-competitive secret, sometimes illegal, agreement between rivals that attempts to disrupt the market's equilibrium. Collusion involves [people] that would typically compete against another, conspiring together which results in an unfair market advantage. The parties may collectively choose to restrict the supply of a good or agree to increase its price to maximize profits."

So what you are describing falls smack dab in the middle of what fantasy owners mean when they say collusion, the cardinal sin of fantasy sports.

[lukkynumber13]

That's absolutely collusion. No place for it in fantasy.

[GridironGuerilla]

I agree. There's no way i would ever allow that behavior in any league i play in or run. And yes, just like tanking it absolutely "destroys the fabric" of fantasy football. It This game wouldn't be at all fun if integrity wasn't a primary focus of the league. Anyone who disagrees isn't welcome in mine.

[Florida Man]

"Money talks and suckers walk" sounds like something Jose Canseco grunted to himself in a bathroom stall while some other dude jammed needles in his butt.

[John_Clayton]

I agree with the responses you have already gotten. It is full blown collusion and ruins all integrity of the league. If I found out this was going on in a league I participated in there would be a serious problem. This action is unethical and what could be defined as stealing. If there was a large financial commitment from league members or a substantial gain from the guilty party one could ultimately find themselves in a legal situation which may sound outrageous but I wouldn't consider for even a second that it would be out of the realm of possibilities associated with the consequences related to this action.

[dynastysports]

I agree with what others have said and would also add that most leagues account for this as long as the commission has a good set of bylaws. What I mean is all the leagues that I am the commish the section of the bylaws that governs trading explicitly says that players can be traded for a combination of players and picks only. I also have an additional line that covers this type of thing in the competitive balance section.

With that said I am sure stuff like this happens in leagues all the time just like in the arenas you spoke of. However, just like in those arenas if a Congressman was caught taking a bribe he would lose his seat, if a contractor paid off a city inspector to overlook work done poorly he could lose his license, or if a set of owners in the NBA/MLB/NFL work together to depress the value of free agent contracts they can be fined are penalized with cap hits, so too can the owners involved in this type of non-sense get thrown out of leagues. And btw I would 100% support throwing my best friend out of a league if they got caught doing this.

[vbbish]

We had an issue like this in our league last season.

An owner who was nonactive at best posted the following "All you suckers can stop sending me trade offers on Gurley, ill only move him for $100 cash"

It was immediately discussed with him that this sort of trade wouldn't be allowed. He failed to see the reasoning behind it and said he could do with his team what he wanted. 10-1 vote to remove him from the league sent him packing, and has since been replaced with a very active and much better owner.

Totally unacceptable

[Valhalla]

That said, dynasties can be built on collusion. House of Cards. Just don't get caught
I kid. I'm against this behavior unless it's league standard that outside assets and bribes are fair game...and then it's no longer just a fantasy league. In any normal fantasy league, this is a big no-no.

[onetwothree]

Collusion, integrity, etc what everyone else has said. Majority of the time it's pretty obvious when there's something fishy going on...

[lukkynumber13]

Is it any different than saying to someone, "If you do this deal, I will owe you one later." There are back door deals and secret handshakes done in business, politics, marriage, and every other facet of our society. It seems that money talks and suckers walk!

I can't quite tell if you're trolling or not, but you do realize that your allusion to back door deals in marriage and politics are reasons why this sort of thing is very destructive, right?

[SanDiegoGuy]

Is it any different than saying to someone, "If you do this deal, I will owe you one later." There are back door deals and secret handshakes done in business, politics, marriage, and every other facet of our society. It seems that money talks and suckers walk!

I can't quite tell if you're trolling or not, but you do realize that your allusion to back door deals in marriage and politics are reasons why this sort of thing is very destructive, right?

Well that is surely one way to look at it. Another is that being secretive, deceptive, and/or sneaky is part of our DNA. It is how most creatures exist and assure their survival. It is as natural as eating or sleeping. It is another one of those things society tries to suppress and control us with laws and religion pretending it is evil or sinful just like they do with various aspects of sex, natural meds like marijuana, euthanasia, etc.

[lukkynumber13]

Haha ok. So are we getting into a basic discussion of ethics, morality, depravity, and origin of man?

[Valhalla]

Well that is surely one way to look at it. Another is that being secretive, deceptive, and/or sneaky is part of our DNA. It is how most creatures exist and assure their survival. It is as natural as eating or sleeping. It is another one of those things society tries to suppress and control us with laws and religion pretending it is evil or sinful just like they do with various aspects of sex, natural meds like marijuana, euthanasia, etc.

Sorry, but this is a bit of an empty argument.
Various creatures "assure their survival" through mechanisms such as mass reproduction (like fish), and offering absolutely zero care to their young, just counting on a very small percentage of a massive number to survive. I suppose since those creatures do that it's cool for us to, as well. I heard this somewhere and am not looking it up to confirm...but certain female spiders eat their mate right after reproduction as an energy source. I suppose canibalism is cool for us then. Please point to the majority of creatures that assure their survival by being deceptive.
The fact is it doesn't matter what other creatures do for their survival mechanisms. We are humans and are vastly above that with our phenomenal ability to reason out more complex thought processes (well most of us anyways). Is there a trait in our DNA that makes us more apt to being deceitful as a survival mechanism? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe in all of us and maybe just in some. But...is there also a trait in us to work together for the betterment of a community in order to ensure survival? This seems more likely. Without many people striving for the overall betterment of a society, humanity would not advance as it has. If we were all more apt to be sneaks and thieves than honest contributors to a society, we'd still be killing each other with rocks trying to steal someone else's dinner.
In my opinion, a 'herd mentality' is almost assuredly engrained into our DNA, which flies in the face of what you say. Our makeup as mankind should repel us from cheating the overall good. Yet there are always outliers in everything.