How to Play

Stock Exchange Fantasy Football: The Basics

Overview
The Stock Exchange game is a lot like other fantasy football games where you manage your own team and try to score as many points as possible each week based on real-life NFL games. The difference is the trading floor, which is a lot like a stock market where player prices move up and down based on supply and demand.

You start out with a budget of 200 fantasy dollars used to assemble your team at fixed prices on the pre-season trading floor opening July 30th.

Everyone who plays the Stock Exchange game is automatically entered into the global contest, dubbed the 2009 Stock Exchange Fantasy Football Championship. To win the championship, you need to score the most points over the entire season. There are also weekly contests and dozens of other leagues and contests to play in. Make sure to check out all the leagues as well as set up a private league to play against your friends.

Scoring
The 2009 Stock Exchange Fantasy Football Championship uses a points-based scoring system with the following points awarded for each statistical category. Statistics used in the game are updated throughout the day.  Stats corrections can occur within three days of the original game.  After three days we will update stats at our discretion.

Offensive 
Passing
 6 pts: Passing Touchdown
 0.03 pt: Passing Yard
 -3 pts: Interception
Rushing
 6 pts: Rushing Touchdown
 0.1 pt: Rush Yard
Receiving
 6 pts: Receiving Touchdown
 0.1 pt: Receiving Yard
Other
 2 pts: 2-pt Conversion (only the player that actually takes the ball into the End Zone will receive credit)
 -2 pts: Fumble Lost
 6 pts: Kick Return for TD
Kicking
 3 pts: Field Goal (FG)
 1 pt: FG > 39 yards
 0.1 pt: Each FG yard over 40
 1 pt: Point After TD (PAT)
 -1 pt: Missed FG < 30 Yds
 -1 pt: Missed PAT
Defensive
         6 pts:  Touchdown
         2 pts:  Safety
         2 pts:  Interception
         2 pts:  Fumble Recovery
         2 pts:  Blocked Kick (Punts, PAT, FG)
         1 pt:    Quarterback Sack 
  Points Allowed: 12 pts: To Start  -0.5 pts: Each Point Allowed by DEF

Tiebreakers are used for awarding prizes only.  Tiebreaker categories are listed below in descending order of importance:
1. Team's total offensive touchdowns
2. Team's total points allowed (the fewer the better)
3. Team's total kicking points
4. Team's overall yardage
5. Team's defensive touchdowns
In an extremely unlikely event that the tied teams are still tied after these 5 categories are considered, then these teams shall remain tied, and will split the value of the prize equally.

Team Setup
 
Positions
Each team has the following ten starting positions and three (3) bench spots (BN):
• 2-Quarterbacks (QB)
• 2-Running Backs (RB)
• 3-Wide Receivers (WR)
• 1-Tight End (TE)
• 1-Kicker (K)
• 1-Defense (DEF) 
Bench positions can be used to provide back-ups in case a starter is facing a tough match-up or a bye week. Managers are not required to field a full 10-player starting team if they think they can earn more points playing with a “light” team (e.g. no Defense).

Starting Budget
Each manager is given an initial budget of 200 fantasy dollars to purchase players for their team. This game money is only used within 2009 Stock Exchange Fantasy Football game and has no value outside of the game.

Pre-season Trading Floor
Beginning July 30th, after creating a team, managers can go to the pre-season trading floor to starting buying players. During the pre-season trading period, managers can buy and sell players as often as they want at fixed prices and without transaction fees. Initially, only approximately 200 players will be available on the trading floor. Then as opening day draws nearer, additional players and rookies will be released on to the trading floor as initial public offerings (IPOs).

After the market opens on September 7, teams will begin to realize gains and losses on their players and transaction fees will start to be assessed.

Pre-season Market Hours
The Pre-season Trading Floor is open 7 days a week 24 hours a day. Trading may be halted temporarily for 3-5 minutes every 3 hours to allow us to make market adjustments and from 12 midnight to 1am Pacific Time.

Team Management

Once the season starts, managers have to place a player in a starting position at least 10 minutes before his NFL team is scheduled to start in order to get credit for his on field performance. After this point, the player cannot be moved to a bench position or sold until the opening of trading Tuesday morning.

The Team History link shows every player who has started on your team and the game statistics each player earned for you. This page also details buy and sell prices as well as the gains and losses of all the players you have owned.

Trading Players

All trading, buying and selling of players is done on an open market. During the Pre-season, a player's value is primarily based on his projected performance, but once the market opens a player's price will be determined by the buying and selling in the market.

If more managers buy a player, his price goes up. If more managers are selling a player, his price goes down. Since player prices will go up and down, the value of each team may also go up and down as the season progresses. Just remember, a player's monetary value doesn't count toward a team's score, and shrewd roster management is the key to success.

Market Hours (Updated!)
The Trading Floor is open 7 days a week from 9:30 am to 3:00 am EST (6:30 am to 12:00 am PST). Trading may be halted temporarily for 3-5 minutes at the top of each hour to allow us to make market adjustments.

Transaction Fees

After a manager has made his first 10 purchases or after he has spent his initial 200 fantasy dollar budget, a fantasy dollar transaction fee is charged each time a player is bought or sold according to the following schedule:

Team Value                                                 Sell Transaction Fee 

<= 235.00              fantasy dollars        0.10 fantasy dollars
235.01 to 250.00  fantasy dollars        0.75 fantasy dollars
250.01 to 265.00  fantasy dollars        1.00 fantasy dollars
265.01 to 280.00  fantasy dollars        1.50 fantasy dollars
280.01 to 300.00  fantasy dollars        2.50 fantasy dollars
300.01 to 325.00  fantasy dollars        4.50 fantasy dollars
>= 325.01              fantasy dollars        8.00 fantasy dollars

Watch List Tool
This tool allows managers to track players they are considering buying for their team. It also shows game statistics and pricing information. The watch list tool is free to all of our users this season!

Advance Buy and Sell Orders (New Premium Feature!)
With Advance Buy and Sell Orders, managers can submit up to four (4) trade orders a week to be executed at the next Tuesday market open. These orders can be a mixture of buys and sells and will be executed between 6:31 AM and 6:35 AM PT in the order that each manager specifies. Managers can also specify that orders be executed at the prevailing market price or set a maximum buy price or minimum sell price.

The Advance Order page can be used to change order priorities, modify order settings, cancel orders and view order history.

All users will be given a two order free trail. Additional Advance Buy/Sell Orders can be purchased in packs of 6, 12 and 25 orders. Any orders that you don't use this season can be used in the 2010 Football Stock Exchange game.

Minimum Team Value
Like real world markets, it’s possible to both gain and lose money when players are bought and sold on the trading floor. So, managers need to develop strategies for both maintaining their team values and starting the players that will score them the most fantasy points.

To ensure that nobody gets knocked out of the game with a few unlucky roster moves, there will be a minimum team value of 165 fantasy dollars. If a team falls below the minimum at the close of trading on Monday, the team’s balance will be increased to meet the minimum Tuesday morning.

Leagues and Contests

With Stock Exchange Sports, each team can participate in an unlimited number of leagues and contests while simultaneously competing with the world in the Championship contest.

Stock Exchange offers several different types of leagues and contests to satisfy the competitive needs of all the team managers:

2009 Stock Exchange Fantasy Football Championship Season
Everyone is automatically enrolled. Compete against your friends, colleagues and the world for full season prizes and bragging rights.All new teams that are created during the season are automatically enrolled
 
Private Leagues
From the Join Leagues page, managers who want to be the commissioner of their own league can create a standard private league. Within this page, managers can click the "Create League" button, where they will then be directed to the create league page. From there, the manager will create the league name, password, and can also specify the start and end dates for the league. The commissioner also has the ability to upload a league photo, remove players from the league, and edit the Commissioner's note on the league home page.

Paid Leagues
Match up with 11 other randomly assigned players to complete for cash prizes. A variety of entry fees, weeks and prize levels are available. Go to the Join Leagues page for more information.
 
Free Bragging Rights Leagues
Free public leagues that are limited in size. If you want to try out your fantasy skills against a small group of other managers, but don’t want to put any cash on the line, this is the league for you.
Go to the Join Leagues page. Limit to two entries per manager.

My Standings Pages
Once within a league or contest, go to the My Standings page to see how they are doing in all of their leagues and contests. The My Standings page displays the list and rank of all the leagues and contests that a manager is in.

2009 Stock Exchange Fantasy Football Championship
The highest scoring team in the Championship League will earn the title of the 2009 Stock Exchange Fantasy Football Champion.

One Team per User
Currently, the Stock Exchange game only allows for one team per user and your one team can play in any number of leagues and contests. However, we may add one or more additional leagues during the season that will require a new team specifically for each of those leagues.  Any additional team will not be able to compete in the overall Championship, Weekly Contests or other Leagues or Contests.