📋 Commissioner setup guide

Draft Room — Commissioner Setup Guide

Every Draft Room setting explained — annual per-league licensing, live draft (order/timers/skip/auto-advance/planned picks), the player pool, flat/age-weighted/custom/NFL-fantasy scoring, keepers, the Death Pool add-on, and entry-fee pots that preserve non-monetary prizes.

Draft Room league commissioners · 8 min read

Draft Room is a live, on-the-clock draft — your group drafts a pool of names (real NFL/MLB players, or any custom list) onto teams, then scores all season on whatever ruleset you choose. Keepers can carry a limited number of names forward year to year, so the league builds its own history.

It runs three ways: a general Draft & Keeper League with your own scoring categories, an NFL Fantasy League that auto-scores off real weekly stats, or a Death Pool (drafting real people, scoring on Wikidata-confirmed deaths). This guide covers every setting the commissioner controls, including the annual per-league license and the entry-fee pot.

Creating your league & licensing

Draft Room is a licensed module — one annual subscription per league, separate from your plan.

Flavor: Draft & Keeper League (general engine, your own scoring), NFL Fantasy League (drafts the live NFL roster and auto-scores real stats), or Death Pool (drafts real people, add-on).
League name & subtitle: The league’s display name, plus an optional subtitle (e.g. "The Reaper Cup").
Roster size (X) & keepers (Y): How many names each team drafts per season, and how many of those a team may protect and carry into next year’s draft. Set keepers to 0 for a fresh draft every year.
Annual licensePro: Running a league requires an annual subscription for that league (renews yearly, cancel anytime) — billed once you try to create it if your org doesn’t already have an available license or isn’t on the Organization plan. Manage or cancel it anytime from "Manage license" in the console.
Death Pool add-onPro: Drafting real people requires the Death Pool add-on license on top of the base Draft Room license — buy both at creation, or turn Death Pool mode on later once your org has the add-on.

The player pool

Player source (Draft & Keeper): Use the live NFL or MLB roster (real players with headshots/teams, searched live — nothing to pre-load) or keep adding your own custom names one at a time.
Load the PGA field: One click adds every player from the golf library to a custom pool, for golf-flavored drafts.
Death Pool prospects: Search real people by name via the Wikidata-backed picker (shows description, birth date, and whether they’re already deceased — ineligible), or add a name manually if it isn’t on Wikidata (loses automatic death-tracking).
Ownership: Exclusive = each name can be drafted by only one team (the usual rule). Shared = multiple teams may draft the same name and all score for it.

The live draft

Player pool mode: Closed = teams draft from a list you loaded ahead of time. Open = no fixed list — the team on the clock adds anyone live via Wikidata search (death-pool style).
Seconds per pick / re-pick seconds: How long a team has on the clock before the system auto-picks their top queued prospect, and how long they get to choose again if a pick is rejected.
Pick pacing (auto-advance): Manual (you advance every pick), Auto (advances a few seconds after each pick so everyone can see it land), or Instant (moves to the next pick immediately).
Pick confirmation: Off = picks stand immediately. Member vote = everyone gets a timed 👍/👎 on whether the pick counts (a no-vote counts as 👍, a 👎 majority auto-rejects, you can override); optionally reveal who voted. Commissioner approval = you approve or reject every pick yourself.
Skip / defer & planned picks: Skip a team’s turn to the end of the draft if they’re away from keyboard. Any team can also pre-build a "My Board" queue and lock in a pick ahead of time so the clock never catches them off guard.
Big Screen: A castable, cinematic broadcast view of the live draft — order reveal, on-the-clock team, and picks landing in real time — with an optional custom background image, alongside the commissioner console.

Scoring

General leagues build their own categories; Death Pool and NFL Fantasy have dedicated built-in engines.

Custom scoring categories (Draft & Keeper): Define what earns or loses points — e.g. "Win +10", "Eliminated −5" — from a template or from scratch, then award them to any drafted entry by hand; points roll into the standings automatically.
Death Pool preset: Flat (same points for every hit), age-weighted (points = ceiling minus age at death, rewarding younger picks), or age brackets (your own point bands by age range).
Death Pool bonuses: Optional uniqueness bonus (extra points if your team is the only one that drafted that name), first-blood bonus (extra points for the season’s first confirmed death), and draft-position weight (rewards hitting on a late-round pick).
Death Pool tiebreakers: A reorderable waterfall (e.g. most hits, earliest hit, most recent hit) that breaks ties on points.
NFL Fantasy rulesetPro: Pick a reception-scoring preset — PPR (1 pt/catch), Half-PPR (0.5), or Standard (0) — or tick "Customize every stat" to set your own per-unit values for passing/rushing/receiving yards and TDs, interceptions, fumbles, field goals, and extra points.
NFL Fantasy auto-scoringPro: Weekly stats sync and score automatically once the season starts — draft-and-hold, no lineups or waivers. Re-score a week by hand from the console after a stat correction.

Keepers

Keeper cost: No cost (free to keep), costs a draft pick (uses your last-round pick), or escalating (the round it costs gets earlier — more expensive — each year you keep the same name).
Max keeper years: The most consecutive years a single name can be kept before it returns to the pool. Leave blank for no limit.
Franchise tag: Lets each team keep one name indefinitely, ignoring the max-keeper-years limit.
Starting the next season: Finalizing a season and starting the next opens keeper selection (up to your keeper count) before the fresh draft begins.

Entry fee, pot & prizes

Entry fee: An optional buy-in per team. Leave it at 0 for a free league. Players pay you through the app’s in-app payment step at join — you never route money through us.
Organizer cut: What your program keeps before payouts — a percentage of the pool, a flat total, or a flat amount per entry. Set on the Settings tab; the pot is always shown net of it. No Fundraising add-on required.
Prize pot basis & floorPro: Let the pot scale with the number of teams, or fix it, and optionally set a guaranteed minimum floor.
Prizes per place: Set a prize for each finishing place: a description (an item, bragging rights, "loser buys the trip") and, optionally, a cash amount as a flat $ or a % of the net pot. Leave the amount blank to keep it a non-monetary prize — both cash and non-cash prizes are preserved side by side and nothing is lost.
Allow "pay later": Let participants join now and pay later, instead of confirming payment was sent before they’re let in.

Details & finalizing

Draft date, time & location: Schedule info shown to your league, plus commissioner-only notes (hotel, buy-in details) and an optional public countdown on the league page.
Team sign-ups: Accept team sign-ups via a shareable link, with an optional close date, a team limit, and letting existing participants invite others while there’s room.
Finalize & compute payouts: Ranks the season’s standings, computes each cash prize from the amounts you set (places with no cash amount pay nothing automatically), and marks the season settled — winners then appear in Payout Assist with one-tap pay links.
Season payout history: Every finalized season keeps its own winners and payout status, even after a later season is finalized on top of it.

FAQ

How does Draft Room licensing work?

It’s an annual subscription per league — not part of your regular plan — that renews yearly and can be canceled anytime from "Manage license" in the console. The Death Pool flavor needs its own add-on license on top of the base license.

Can I run a Draft Room pool for money?

Yes. Set an entry fee and Draft Room builds a prize pot (entries × fee, minus your organizer cut) that you split across places as flat $ amounts or % of the pot — paid through Payout Assist. Death Pool leagues are private with no cash prizes.

Can I mix cash and non-cash prizes?

Yes. Each place gets a description (an item, bragging rights) and an optional cash amount. Leave the amount blank on any place to keep it a pure non-monetary prize — it’s preserved right alongside cash places, nothing is dropped.

How does NFL Fantasy scoring work?

You draft real NFL players from the live roster, and each earns fantasy points automatically from their actual weekly stats — passing, rushing, receiving, and kicking — rolled up to your team all season. It’s draft-and-hold: no lineups, benches, or waivers. Pick a PPR/Half-PPR/Standard preset or customize every stat value.

What are keepers?

A limited number of names (set by "Keepers (Y)") that a team can protect and carry into next season’s draft instead of returning them to the pool, optionally at an escalating pick cost or with a franchise tag for one permanent keeper.

What is a Death Pool?

A Draft Room flavor where you draft real people and score when they pass — detection is Wikidata-backed and admin-confirmed before points are awarded. It requires the Death Pool add-on license and never carries cash prizes.

Ready to run yours?

Set it up in a few minutes — every option here is right there in the wizard.

Start a Draft Room →