BOBCATS4EVER LEAGUE OFFICE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

League prepares for third season, which promises to be best yet

Changes to names, rules highlight offseason

Preseason caucus set for August

BEACON FALLS, Conn. — As the nation slowly begins to shift its focus back toward football, so too does the Bobcats4Ever Fantasy Football League. In about one month, the league’s 12 franchises will prepare to draft for a third season.

To help the league’s owners and legion of fans get back into gear and set the scene for the upcoming season, Commissioner Kyle Brennan has a series of announcements pertaining to the start of league business.

“I’m thoroughly excited for the Bobcats4Ever Fantasy Football League’s third season,” Brennan said. “We have a powerful and clear Constitution in place after our productive owners meeting in January, a fascinating draft lineup and a terrific defending champion — all of which look to make this fall our best season to date.”

While the league is still coming into shape for this fall, Brennan advises owners and fans to disregard any divisional or schedule alignments automated by Yahoo!’s engine. The league office will straighten out all such issues once all owners have re-registered their teams.

Among the announcements are new team names, reminders of rule changes passed in January, proposals for the preseason caucus and a look-ahead toward the season’s structure.

TEAM NAME CHANGES

• The league’s newest owner, Ted Sellers, took over the franchise formerly known as BAHGAWD, whose name stemmed from the original ownership of the recently engaged Andrew Gau. After one year of ownership each by Gau and Michael Auletta, Sellers was granted the franchise by vote of the league’s ownership. Sellers has renamed his team Mealz on Wheelz. The team will remain in the Normal Division.

• Food Network Football Inc., the company owned in majority by Andrew Fletcher with Mark Cuban as a minority owner, announced it has renamed its team You’ve Been Chopped. It is the third team name in as many seasons for Fletcher’s franchise.

RULE CHANGES

• Vetoes: The most prominent rule change came with regard to the league’s transactions. Trade vetoes must now be submitted in writing to the Commissioner within 24 hours of the trade’s acceptance. Owners may not veto a trade in which they are involved. Six vetoes are required to nullify a trade.

• Schedules: The divisional alignment will remain unchanged, but the league will move to a balanced power schedule based on the previous season’s divisional standings. All teams will play all teams once for a total of 11 games. Teams will then play two divisional opponents a second time based on a set power agreement. This year’s two-time opponents are as follows.

Normal Division
No. 1 Small-Town Americans (vs. 2, 3)
No. 2 HOW BOUT DAT SALAMI?! (vs. 1, 4)
No. 3 Mealz on Wheelz (vs. 1, 5)
No. 4 Team Spillzzzzzz (vs. 2, 6)
No. 5 Deacon Blues (vs. 3, 6)
No. 6 Thanks Obama! (vs. 4, 5)

Jewish Division
No. 1 Fear Boners (vs. 2, 3)
No. 2 Calle Ochocinco (vs. 1, 4)
No. 3 You’ve Been Chopped (vs. 1, 5)
No. 4 Hit Schticks (vs. 2, 6)
No. 5 Second Floor Shits (vs. 3, 6)
No. 6 Mr. McGibblets (vs. 4, 5)

• Status quo: Several scoring change proposals were presented at the January owners meeting, including a change to defensive points allowed and field goals, but none were approved by ownership. The keeper system already in place was also reaffirmed with no changes, with the exception that draft-day trades including keepers and draft picks will be allowed.

PENALTIES

• Matt Eisenberg, owner of McGibblets, was convicted at the owners meeting of tampering and collusion during The Day of Vetoed Trades. Ownership concluded his penalty will be forfeiture of his sixth draft pick. (The ownership reasoned that a second-round penalty would be too high, but a sixth-round penalty would be too low because of the borderline tank-job Eisenberg pulled at the end of the 2014 season in which he stockpiled draft picks by trading away assets.) Therefore, the 47^th overall pick (pick No. 11 of the fourth round) will be a player of extraordinarily useless value (i.e. not rostered, third-string kicker, Tim Tebow, retired, deceased) automatically selected by the Commissioner at a time to be determined by the Commissioner.

• Eisenberg submitted a release in January claiming he would appeal the penalty. No formal appeal has been forwarded to the league office in the seven months since the aforementioned release, but the Commissioner has taken the liberty to make a decision prior to a potential appeal.

“Eisenberg can fuck off and read Article IX of the Constitution that he voted to approve,” Brennan said. “I’ll consider recusing myself when he recuses the phallus from his sphincter.”

PRESEASON CAUCUS

Unfortunately, the league was not able to put together a summer owners meeting. However, various discussions among ownership since the winter owners meeting has prompted several questions to be added to the customary preseason vote.

The Bobcats4Ever Fantasy Football League is also happy to announce it has once again partnered with our friends at Survey Monkey to quickly, accurately and privately gain the opinions of the ownership. The survey will be sent to owners in early August.

Topics on the preseason caucus vote will include:

• Draft date: It appears unlikely that ownership will be able to gather in one location for a live draft; however, the possibility remains for several factions of ownership to gather. First, ownership will be asked to select favorable draft dates between Sunday, Aug. 30, and Wednesday, Sept. 9. The draft will be conducted through the Yahoo! engine. The full draft order is available on the league’s website.

• Increase of dues: Ownership voted at the winter owners meeting to double the yearly entry fee to $40 while maintaining the existing payouts of 70 percent, 20 percent and 10 percent of the pot to the overall first-, second- and third-place finishers.

However, several owners have advocated during the offseason of increasing the league dues to $50 so the league can award points-based prizes. The proposal on the table would form a pool of $120. The team that scores the most points during each week of the regular season (13 weeks) would earn a $5 prize. The remaining $55 would be distributed at the end of the regular season to the three teams with the highest point total — $35 to the top team, $15 to the second team and $5 to the third team.

LEAGUE NEWS AND NOTES

• The league recently launched its official record book, which can be accessed at the league’s website. The records include highs and lows in victories, streaks, total points, single-game points, margins of victory and more.

• Also on the website, the Commissioner requests that all owners make an effort to submit a short biography for posting on team pages. The Small-Town Americans, Deacon Blues and Mr. McGibblets are the only teams currently with live biographies.

• The scoring settings and postseason setup from 2014 will carry into this season. The season begins Sept. 10, with the trade deadline Nov. 27 and the Bobcat Bowl on Dec. 27.

• The league extends official congratulations to Caleb Gindl, who safely returned from Myanmar (Burma) to become the full-time fantasy sports beat writer for the New York Post.

— B4EFFL —