Ask The Commish: Dating Drama Player Dump

Commish,

Collecting dues is the worst part about being a football commissioner! I hate it! I have an owner who still owes his money. He’s never been late before, so I didn’t really think much of it when the season started. I’ve since asked twice. They’ve never been nasty about it, just said they’d do it. Hasn’t happened. I really don’t like conflict. I’m not sure what else I can do.

Start your manager search now. Find your candidate to take over that team. Next, you’re going to decide when your deadline is going to be. One week? Two weeks? I would recommend that as soon as you have someone to replace them, the seven-day countdown begins. I know I threw out two weeks, but I wouldn’t do that myself.

Then, send them an email letting them know that they have seven days to pay the pool money. If they don’t you will replace them. You’re going to be that specific. This is not a situation that lends itself to ambiguity. You’re telling them what they need to do, and exactly what happens if they don’t. If you’re comfortable with giving them a call to follow up, let them know in the email that you’ll be giving them a call to discuss the matter. You said you’re not into conflict, so a phone call might be a little much for you, but in situations like this you should always send an email to leave a paper trail. It’s a matter of record for you.

Be prepared to freeze the roster the second the deadline hits. As soon as you do that, send a message to the league letting them know what happened, and cite why you did what you did.

Good luck.

Commish,

I’ve been lucky enough to be the commissioner of my work league. Not really, not so lucky. I was dating someone who was also in the league. Things went sour and they left the league, but before they did they dumped all their players. I guess that was their farewell present or whatever. I didn’t know until someone texted me about it.  When I checked, some of the other people in the league had picked up some of the players. I put the players that were still out there back on the deserters team, and asked the others to turn over the players they picked up. Everyone did, but not without some more drama, like I needed more. I was accused of cheating??? I just wanted to put the team back together. I already knew I could get someone to take over the team. What were they supposed to do, take over a team with no players?

I really don’t have a question. I know I did the right thing. I was just curious if you would have done something different? I’m not sure how I could be accused of cheating, but whatever. You’re supposed to be “the commish” Lol, so I just wanted to see if I didn’t miss a trick or something. Hope I don’t have to do this again.

Yeah, I had that happen to me too once. I didn’t have any drama dating someone in my league, but I did have a person get pissed off and dump some (not all) of their players. I too had to corral the players and put them back on their original team. It appears my process went more smoothly than yours. I sent a letter to the league first letting them know what the player dump was all about. There was some behind-the-scenes crap going on that no one knew about, so when it went down, it was unexpected. I then told them I was going to retrieve the dropped players, and why it was necessary that I did so. If I recall correctly, I only had to get one person to give a couple of players back. The guy initially thought it was okay to pick the players up (it wasn’t some crazy full-team dump), but understood my explanation, so everything was cool.

You’re right. I think you did the right thing. You didn’t mention if you made an announcement to the league. If you didn’t, that’s the one thing I’d say you should’ve done. Your final act would be to send a basic letter stating what happened, reviewing the steps you took, and why. That’s it. Even though everyone would eventually find out what happened, you would still do this to document the moment. Emails are a great way to keep record of league events.

I’ve only had this experience happen in my league once. I hope this will be the last time for you as well.

Send your questions to The Commish: thecommishshow@outlook.com