General

How can I make a suggestion, request a feature or get some help?

Use the contact form.

How can I help support Fanle?

Start by spreading the word! Building the user base is important so get friends and family to sign up and host their leagues on Fanle. If you participate in other fantasy leagues, ask them move over to Fanle. Second, provide feedback on features you'd like to see and/or pain points you've experienced on other platforms.

Why does a Cloudflare page sometimes show up?

Unfortunately, the web is full of bots and malicious actors so a few of the pages related to logins, account creation, etc are protected by Cloudflare. This approach is an alternative to having CAPTCHAs on these pages which are much more intrusive to users.

All Leagues

How do I start a new league?

Starting a new league requires a user account with a verified email address. Once you have this, use the start league page to request an access code. The access code will be emailed to your verified email address. Using this access code, simply pick a league name and the type of league you want to start on the start league page. You can obtain up to 5 access codes for a season.

How do I start a league season based on a previous league?

If you are the commissioner of a league from the previous season, you will see the option to "Start League From Previous" on the start league page. You do not need an access code to start a new league season from a previous league. Starting a new season will copy over all aspects of the league include rules, scoring, participants, etc. These setting can all be changed for the new season. This will also "link" your league seasons allowing for historical results to be tracked.

How do I use the non-playing commissioner role?

If you are the commissioner of a league you can set any GM's role as "Non-playing Commissioner" using the GM Manager. This role allows the user to perform all commissioner activities without actually participating in the league. This is useful in Meta-leagues where one commissioner is managing multiple sub-leagues.

How many participants can I have for a league?

All leagues require a minimum of 6 participants to start the season. Season fantasy leagues have a maximum of 16 participants. Survivor and game picker leagues have a maximum of 100 participants. If you need more than that just contact us through the contact form.

What is an open vs invite only league?

Open leagues are searchable on the join league page. Any user can request to join an open league. Once a request is made, the commissioner can accept or deny the request from the Manage Teams page. For invite only leagues, the commissioner must send invites to users by submitting their email address into the site. The site will send the invite to the email address requesting a response (accept or deny) from the user. If the user accepts the invite, they are automatically added to the league. The commissioner can view all invites and cancel open invites at any time.

How do I invite players to join my league?

There are 2 ways you can invite other to join your league.

1. League Invite Codes: This link can be used an unlimited number of times. Just send the link to as many people as you want and they can join. The link can be seen by the commissioner on the 'Manage GM Info' page under the 'Commish' menu.
2. User Invite Codes: One-time use invite codes can be sent to users via email. Once used, the code is no longer valid. These invites can also be sent from the 'Manage GM Info' page under the 'Commish' menu.

Can Fanle.io do XXXXX?

Check out the Fantasy Leagues, Survivor Pool and Game Picker pages to see some of the main features. Not everything is listed there so if you don't see what you're looking for just contact us through the contact form with your question.

Why don't I see any results in the join league search?

Only open leagues are searchable on the join league page. All other leagues require an invite from the commissioner to join and are not visible on the search page.

League Types

Seasonal Fantasy

These are traditional fantasy leagues where players draft a roster of NFL players who produce points based on a scoring system. Fantasy leagues can be contested as total points or head to head.

In a total points league, the winner is determined based on the player with the most total points for the entire season. These leagues also have the option to use playoffs to determine a winner. Seeding is based on total points for the regular season. Playoff duration and number of teams are configurable.

In a head to head league, players compete against another competitor each week based on the league schedule. Playoff seading is based on win-loss record for each player in the regular season. The winner is determined by who wins the playoff. Length of regular season and playoff durations are configurable.

In both cases, fantasy leagues can also become dynasty leagues where a configurable number of players are kept from year to year.

Guillotine Leagues

Guillotine leagues are a form of fantasy league where the lowest scoring team each week is eliminated from the league. The league continues until only 1 team remains.

Survivor Pools

In a survivor pool, players select 1 team each week to win or lose (depending on the league setup). Pick correctly and you advance to the next week. Pick wrong and you are eliminated. The pool continues until only 1 player survives. Survivor leagues can be configured to allow replays and/or multiple incorrect picks before elimination.

Game Picker

Select game winners, winners vs spread and/or the under/over points total for NFL games depending on the configuration of the league. Points systems for each type of pick are configurable. The winner is determined by why has the most points at the end of the season.

Fantasy Scoring

How does team defense scoring work?

For points scored against your defense, there are 2 mechanisms for scoring. You can ues either or both these mechanisms.

The first is the "Points Against" scoring which is a negative number which is multiplied by the points against to create a score. There is a "break even" point which determines at what score against level the points become negative. For example, assume the points against are set to -0.5 and the breakeven is 20. If the score against your defense is 16, the points are (16-20)*(-0.5) = +2.0. If the score against your defense is 28, the points are (28-20)*(-0.5) = -4.0.

A second mechanism is to use the performance bonus section to award fantasy points based on thresholds of points scored against your defense. For example, you could award 3 point for scores against of 20 or less and award 5 points for scores against of 10 or less. Since performance bonuses are cumulative, a score against of 17 would yield 3 fantasy points, a score against of 8 points would yield 8 fantasy points.

In both cases, you can determine if points scored against your defense while they are not on the field (i.e. interception returns by opponent or special teams scores) are included.

What about special teams?

Your have the option to include special teams scores as part of the team defense score. This would include punt/kickoff returns and blocked kick scores.

Draft

What type of drafts are available?

There are 2 types of drafts available on Fanle: standard and auction. Standard drafts are the most common and are based on a draft order where each GM selects a player in order. Auction drafts are based on a nomination process where players are nominated for auction and GMs bid on the player. The highest bid wins the player.

How does the draft timer work in standard drafts?

In an standard draft, there is an optional timer that can be set at various time intervals from 1 to 5 minutes. There are 2 options for the behavior of an expired timer. The first is to skip the pick which allows the next GM in the draft order to select. The skipped pick can be made at any time by the skipped GM. The second option is to auto draft players for the GM when the timer expires. The behavior of the expired draft timer must be set before the draft but the timer can be paused and restarted by the commish at any time during the draft.

How does the auto draft work?

If auto draft is enabled, the GM will be automatically assigned the highest ranked player available at the when the draft timer expires. Player ranking is based on ADP (average draft position). Priority is given to filling starter positions first. Additionally, kicker and defensive team positions are only drafted to fill the minimum starter requirements.

Auction Draft

How does an auction draft work?

In an auction draft, players are nominated for auction based on an order similar to a traditional draft. A nomination is effectively an opening bid for $1 for a player. The player nominated must be an eligible selection for the nominating GM. All GMs have a starting draft budget from which they can bid with the highest bid being the winner. GMs cannot overspend this budget and must draft a full roster. The maximum you can bid on any given player is shown in the draft apps.

How do the draft timers work?

In an auction draft, there is a nomination timer and an auction timer. The nomination timer specifies how long the GM has to nominate a player. If the timer expires, this nomination is skipped and the next GM will nominate. Once all nominations have been completed, the skipped nominations will re-open.

The auction timer determines how long the actual auction process last where GMs can bid on the nominated player. At the end of this timer, the highest bid will successfully draft the player. In addition, there is a bid reset time which is the minimum amount of time that will be available on the auction timer after the last bid. For example, if the bid reset timer is 15 seconds and a GM makes a successful bid with 4 seconds left on the auction timer, the auction timer will reset to 15 seconds. If the auction timer was above 15 seconds, it would continue with it's current countdown.

Both the nomination and auction timers can be adjusted during the draft by the commish directly in the draft app. The nomination timer can be turned off completely.

What happens once a GM has a full roster drafted?

Once a GM has completed their full roster, any remaining nomination spots will be redistributed among the remaining GMs based on which have the fewest roster spots filled. This ensures that only GMs with empty roster spots can nominate players.

Free Agents

How are free agents aquired?

The free agent process starts with setting the weekly deadlines for free agent request. Using the Free Agent Manager, the commish can set different deadlines depending on when the first NFL game is for a given week. For example, a typical week with a Thursday night game as the first game could have a Thursday 3pm pickup deadline. For Thanksgiving week, the deadline could be earlier to accomidate the typical 12:30 kickoff time for the first game. Once the deadline has passed, the free agent requests are processed based on the league's chosen methodology. An optional second pickup session can be set as well. This can be configured in the League Settings to pick up waived players only or all available players.

What free agent methodologies are available?

Free agent request can be process using 4 methods:

1. Rotating priority
2. As the default option, rotating creates a priority order for processing request. When a request is granted, the players move to the bottom of the priority order. The initial order is the reverse of the draft order. The commish can manually adjust the order at any time.
2. Worst-to-first priority:
3. Same as rotating but the priority order is reset each week based on the standings at the start of the week with the lowest place team having the highest priority.
3. First come, first serve:
4. Free agent request are processed based on when they were submitted with the earliest submission being prioritized.
4. Auction bidding:
5. Free agents are aquired based on auction bids.

How are free agents request processed?

See Free Agent Auctions for more information on how auction bids are processed.

For non-auction free agent requests, the request are processed based on the free agent methodology set by the league. For each request, the requested players are checked in order for availability until one is successful. The player is then added to the GM's roster and the GMs priority is moved to the lowest. For priority based methods, if the request is unsuccessful, the GMs next request is checked. This is repeated until a successful request is made or all requests for that GM are checked. The process repeats until all request are processed.

What can cause a free agent request to be unsuccessful?

See Free Agent Auctions for more information on why auction bids can be unsuccessful.

For non-auction free agent requests, the request can be unsuccessful for several reasons including 1) lack of roster space, 2) the player requested is already on another GMs roster, 3) the player requested would violate the leagues roster configuration, 4) the dropped player is not on the GMs roster or 5) the dropped player is a starter in a game that has already started.

Free Agent Auctions

How does free agent auction bidding (FAAB) work?

FAAB is a free agent methodology which allows all participants to bid on free agents each week. Each player has a starting budget for the season which is set by the commish. The highest bid for a given player each pickup session wins and the amount of the bid is deducted from the GM's remaining budget.

How are equal bids handled?

A free agent priority is used to break ties. The intial priority is set based on the reverse of the draft order but can be adjusted by the commish. Each time a player is won in a free agent auction, the winning GM is moved to the bottom of the priority list. The GM with the highest priority wins the auction in the case of a tie.

What determines the exection order of the auction bids?

Free agent auctions are ordered based on bid values moving from highest to lowest. The first auction will be for the highest bid of any player requested. After competion of that auction, any request for that same player are closed since they were unsuccessful. The next auction would be for the highest bid on an open request. The process is repeated until all auction request are either filled or closed due to an unsuccesssful bid. In the case of equal bids with different GMs, the free agent priority is used to determine which auction goes first. In the case of equal bids with the same GM, the auction order is based on a priority set by the requesting GM and can be seen in the free agent request screens.

What can cause my auction bid to be unsuccessful?

An unsuccessful bid can be closed due to several reasons including 1) lack of auction funds, 2) another GM having a higher bid for that player, 3) the player being replaced in the request having already been replaced on a different auction bid, 3) lack of roster space, 4) the player requested is already on another GMs roster, 4) the player requested would violate the leagues roster configuration, 5) the dropped player is not on the GMs roster or 6) the dropped player is a starter in a game that has already started.

Guillotine Leagues

How are the weekly eliminations performed?

The weekly elimination is based on the player with the lowest score for that week. If your league starts eliminations after week 1, the total score up to that point will be used for the first elimination. If there is a tie, the elimination tiebreakers, in order, are 1) total points for the season 2) maximum available score for the season 3) maximum score available for the week 4) earliest player to join the league.

What happens to the roster of the eliminated team?

All players on the roster of the eliminated team become free agents and can be acquired through the normal free agent process. It is recommended to use FAAB to ensure fair distribution of these players.

Survivor Leagues

What happens if there is no winner?

In cases when the final players are all eliminated in the same week, there is no single winner. Using the league management page, the commissioner has the option to extend the season to make the eliminated players alive again. This can be repeated as many times as necessary to achieve a single winner.

Game Picker Leagues

How does the game picker scoring work?

Each correct pick earns points. All incorrect picks earn 0 points and ties (push) receive half the correct pick amount. Correct picks earn points based on either the auto balance setting or manual scoring setup by commish.

What is auto balance scoring?

For auto balance, the goal is to balance the scoring such that the odds related to picking game winners are accounted for compared to picking vs spread and picking over/under. For picks vs spread or over/under, correct picks are given 1 point. In theory, these picks should be 50/50 odds. For straight up game winners, the points earned are based proportionally on the moneyline such that the resulting points are equivalent to a 50/50 odds case. For example. if the moneyline calculates the favorite to be 4/1 odds (80% chance of winning), the points earned by chosing the favorite would be 0.5/80% = 0.625. This way, on average, the pick of this favorite will earn 0.5 points which is the same as picking vs spread and the over/under. This is the default mode for new leagues.

What is manual scoring?

For manual scoring, you can set the scoring for each pick type using a value from 0 to 1 (including up to 3 decimal points) as the points earned for correctly picking that pick type. This is useful for leagues that either (1) want to emphasis certain pick types or (2) only use straight up picks and do not want to account for the game odds. This is common in straight up game picking leagues where you would manually set the game picker scoring to 1 so that the player with the best pick record would win.

Add Site to Mobile Home Screen or Install App

Why should I add Fanle to my home screen or install app?

Adding an website/app to you home screen on mobile (aka Progressive Web App or PWA) provides several benefits.

1. Required to receive push notifications to keep you up to date on league events
2. Directly launch the app from an icon similar to native apps
3. Increase screen content by limiting the amount of browser chrome shown
4. Adjust permissions and settings similar to native apps as they show up in the Settings menus on mobile devices when the app is added using Safari on IOS or Chrome on Andriod

iPhone: Add site to home screen using Safari.

1. While viewing the website in Safari, tap in the menu bar.
2. Scroll down the list of options, then tap "Add to Home Screen".
• Note: The icon appears only on the home screen of device where you add it.
3. Now launch the site through the home screen icon and look for the push notifications request dialog on any league home page or the user settings page.
4. See more info open_in_new from Apple

Andriod: Install App to device using Chrome.

1. While viewing the website, tap more_vert in the menu bar.
2. Scroll down the list of options, then tap "Install App" or "Add to Home Screen".
• Note: When using the "install App" option, the icon will not automatically be placed on your home screen. You can browse your current installed apps and add it to your home screen just as you would any native app.
3. Now launch the site through the app icon and look for the push notifications request dialog on any league home page or the user settings page.

Push Notifications

What are push notifications?

Push notifications allow websites to send notifications to your device similar to how native apps work on mobile devices. This allows you to receive important information in a more timely fashion and without visiting the site. Web notifications are set on an individual browser and device basis. You only want to setup one browser on a given device to avoid receiving duplicate notifications. Each device needs to have a browser capable of enabling web notifications to receive them on that device.

Why do I need permission?

Push notifications to any browser and device require explicit permission from the user. This is in place to avoid websites spamming notifications to user.

Websites can generate a request for you to allow notifications from that site. If you deny the first request, the site can no longer request access and you must manually set the allow permission (see below).

Requirements for push notifications

On mobile, iPhones support web push notifications as of IOS 16.4 while Android support started in Chrome 117

On desktop, Mac supports web push notifications as of Safari 16.0 while Windows and Linux support started in Chrome 42 and Firefox 44

A few things to note...

1. On mobile, the site must be "added to your home screen" through Safari on IOS and or "installed" using Chrome on Andriod. You must launch the site from the app icon to setup push notifications.
2. In some limited cases, there are 2 Safari features that may be needed in your device but not turned on by default. The features are Permissions API and PushAPI.
   1. To access the features, go to Settings -> Safari -> (scroll to bottom) Advanced -> Experimental Features
   2. Once there, be sure Permissions API and PushAPI are both turned on.

How do I manually allow (or disallow) push notifications?

All Platforms: The best way to stop receiving push notifications is to turn them off in the user settings page. This will allow you to customize the notifications you receive as well as easily turning them on/off in the future. If notifications are denied in the browser, you have to manually enable them for future use and in the case of mobile that involves uninstalling and re-installing the app.

** If you have previously denied push message permission when prompted, you can manually change them on Desktop but on Mobile a reinstall of the app is required. See below for more info.

Desktop: You can normally enable notifications on desktop using icon shortcuts to the left of the URL in the URL bar. For Chrome and Edge, click on the LOCK icon. In firefox, click on the permission icon. In Safari, use the preferences option in the Safari menu. In each case, a menu will appear with various settings including notifications.

For more detailed instructions, see these resources for Chrome open_in_new, Edge open_in_new, Firefox open_in_new and Safari open_in_new

Mobile: If you want to stop receiving push notifications on mobile, the best option is to turn them off in the user settings page. This will allow you to customize the notifications you receive as well as easily turning them on/off in the future. If notifications are denied in the browser, enabling them in the future requires a re-install of the app.

If you do want to change the notification settings outside of the app, there are two separate permissions that must be managed.

1. App Settings: Once the website is added to your home screen through Safari (iPhone) or Chrome (Andriod), it will show up as an app in your settings just like native apps. Select the app in your settings and update the notifications settings (and others). On Android, turning off notifications in this manner will also turn off the browser permission which cannot be turned back on (see below).
2. Browser Settings: The native browser running the app has a separate permission requirement. This is the prompt you received when initially setting up notifications on the app. If you disallow the initial notification permission prompt within the app, there is no way to reprompt the user to turn on notifications. This is an intentional design feature of the browser to avoid websites spamming user with permissions request. The only way to get browser permissions after denying them is to uninstall and re-install the app. This will remove any current permissions on the app, which will allow you to be re-prompted for permission.

I'm getting duplicate notifications!

You only need one browser per device to be subscribed to notifications. Each browser has it's own notifications so you will receive duplicate notifications on that device if you subscribe from multiple browsers on that device. If this occurs, you need to revoke the notification permission from one of the browsers (likely the one you don't use often). Use the links above if you need assistance.

Why are some notifications cut-off?

Each operating system has it's own limitations on what content web notifications can include and their length. If a message is truncated, it's a limitation enforced by your device. Notifications can typically be expanded to show more information than their original display provides.