Create and run a league in DraftCenter
Use this manual as your operating checklist. You can change most choices later, so begin with the league basics, invite a small test group, and confirm the draft room before opening the league to everyone.
1. Create the league
Sign in, open Start a new league, and enter a name, season label, optional draft time, description, image, and access level.
- Choose Private for invite-only setup, Public to watch for a visible league that is closed to new managers, or Open to join for recruiting.
- Use Practice league while testing. Practice results stay out of career statistics.
- Choose what should happen to visibility when the draft starts. You can still change access later in Commissioner Tools.
- Select Create league. DraftCenter opens the new league and gives you commissioner access.
2. Set rules and teams
Open Setup and work through the commissioner workspace before anyone drafts.
- Choose the supported format or custom legal pool, draft type, league size, roster limits, budget or point rules, timers, and special mechanics.
- For bulk pricing, download the Pricing Template under Legality & Values. Fill New Price or Rank, upload it, review every proposed change, and confirm the import.
- Use the Commissioner Launch Checklist at the top of Setup to see what is configured, claimed, posted, backed up, and ready for draft day.
- Name teams and divisions if needed. Confirm that the legal pool is large and balanced enough for every roster.
- Set transaction limits, standings tiebreakers, schedule style, playoff size, and the league clock for match and claim deadlines.
- Save a recovery backup after major setup milestones. Use the spreadsheet export when you need a readable offline record.
- Commissioner Tools also shows Automatic Recovery History. Review the team, roster, result, season, and draft summary before restoring; type the exact league name to confirm.
3. Invite people and share responsibility
Use Commissioner Tools or Setup to distribute secure links.
- Copy a Manager invite for someone who will claim and run a team. Invite links expire, so create a new one if an old link no longer works.
- Use a Spectator link for view-only access. Spectators cannot draft, report results, or manage a roster.
- Invite a co-commissioner by email or promote an existing league member. Co-commissioners can help operate the league; only the primary commissioner can delete it.
- The primary commissioner can transfer league ownership to an existing manager or co-commissioner from Commissioner Tools. Review carefully: the former owner becomes a co-commissioner.
- If you need help, select the yellow Help button beside Commissioner Tools. For a direct request, open Commissioner Tools and choose Get help with this league. Review the optional safe diagnostics before submitting.
- Temporary support access is separate from league membership. Choose Review only for configuration advice. The primary commissioner may instead approve Review and edit tiers/pricing so DraftCentral support can apply a completed pricing file; that scope cannot change members, drafts, rosters, messages, results, or other settings and creates a recovery point and audit entry before saving.
- Ask every manager to sign in, accept the invite, and claim the correct team before draft day.
4. Prepare and run the draft
Treat the Draft Setup readiness messages as the final preflight check.
- Set the official draft date and time. For an unattended snake draft, wait until DraftCenter shows Automatic Start Ready before closing the site.
- Resolve every readiness warning: team count, legal pool, roster minimums and maximums, budgets, draft order, and claimed-team assignments.
- Use Start Draft Now when everyone is ready, or let a prepared scheduled draft start from the server clock. Auction drafts may still require commissioner action shown in the room.
- Pause only when necessary. If the draft happened elsewhere, use the manual roster entry and finalization tools instead of replaying every pick.
5. Operate the regular season
DraftCenter connects the schedule, reported results, standings, transactions, and league communication.
- Generate or edit the schedule, then have either participating manager report each result. Review corrections consistently.
- Use Transactions for trades and free-agent activity. Claims process on the configured league clock, or a commissioner can process them early when appropriate.
- Use the League Board for durable league-wide messages. Managers can share their own Twitch or YouTube battle from League Home without commissioner approval.
- Optionally connect a league Discord channel in Setup and choose which announcements it receives. Personal Discord notifications are configured separately by each member.
6. Run playoffs and close the season
Finish the competitive record before starting a new season.
- Confirm regular-season results and standings, generate the playoff bracket, and report each playoff result and award selection.
- After the final, choose End season. This freezes the champion, standings, rosters, bracket, awards, transactions, and history in the archive.
- Review the archived season before choosing Start next season. Starting the next season resets active competitive state but keeps the completed archive.
- Download a final spreadsheet and recovery backup for your records.