The Basic Settings page is where it all starts and is the first step in creating a custom league that you personally manage. As the league founder, or league manager, you can configure virtually all aspects of your league, from the scoring system to the style of draft. The first step is to name your league.
League Name: The league manager inputs what the league will be named. League names are limited to 32 characters and cannot contain foreign or HTML characters. League names are not unique, so there could be multiple leagues with the same name. The league name can be edited at any time during the season through the "Edit League Settings" tool.
Scoring Type: All Customizable leagues use the Head-to-Head Scoring System. In this system, each team in your league faces off against one other team every week of the season. However, your league might contain bye weeks. The winner of each of these match-ups is the team that accumulates the most fantasy points determined by the weekly statistics of the players in each team's lineup and the scoring settings of your league. Weekly results are tallied into an overall record and displayed on the league's standings page.
Manual Setup: The league manager manually sets all the league's settings using the league configuration wizard. ESPN's default values are set for every option and can be edited at the league manager's discretion.
Express Setup: If this button is clicked, the system bypasses the league configuration wizard and automatically sets your league up using ESPN's default system. The league manager can then go back and manually edit any part of the League Setup.
Number of teams in league: The number of teams in a league can be set from 4-20. The league manager can change the number of teams until one hour before the scheduled draft time. This is done using the league manager tools page, where you can adjust the league size by deleting or adding teams. Note: If the number of teams is changed the league's schedule will need to be reset.
The Divisions & Team Settings page allows the league manager to customize the number of divisions in the league, name each team and specify in which division each team will compete. Below is a list of all the options and details on how they work.
Divisions: The league manager determines the number of divisions in the league using the Divisions pulldown menu. There can be between one and four divisions in a league.
Both the number of divisions and names for each division can be changed at any point during the season from the "Edit League Settings" page.
Team Info: The number of teams listed here is equal to the number that was selected on the Basic Settings page. Team names consist of a combination of three elements - Location, Nickname and Abbreviation. When a team is displayed in the game, generally both Team Nickname and Team Location will be displayed (as in on Standings and in Box Scores), but on pages where there is limited space, only the Team Nickname is displayed. Note: After each team owner joins the league they will be allowed to edit the name of their own team.
Team Location - Max of 32 characters
Team Nickname - Max of 32 characters
Abbreviation - Max of 4 characters
Division - If the league has more than one division, specify the division designation for each team here. For reasons of fairness, it may be wise to make sure each division has the same number of teams.
These settings can be changed by the league manager at any time during the season.
The Owners Info & Send Invite page in League Setup allows the league manager to set the number of owners on each team, and to enter each owner's name and email address. This is also the page that is used to send league invitations and to monitor whether the invitations have been accepted. This page can be accessed all season long.
Owner Info:
# Owners (per team) - Max of 2 (two) allowed. The league manager has the option to add multiple owners OR each team owner can do this for their team.
Owner - Enter the team owner's first and last name.
Email - Enter the team owner's email address the league invitation is sent to.
Status - 'Joined' or 'Invited'. Displays the current status of each team's invite.
Note: After a team joins the league all team owners will be allowed to edit the name of their own team.
Invite Options: Invitations are sent in the form of an email which contains a unique URL. The person who receives the invite email must click on the unique URL (or copy and paste the URL into browser 'Location' field) in order to join the league. Below is a list of the options and details on how they work.
Send invites to - The league manager specifies who (if anyone) will be sent a league invite upon submit.
Send me a copy of each invite - 'Yes' or 'No'. If 'Yes' is selected the league manager receives a copy of each sent email invitation which, if necessary, can then be forwarded to the appropriate invitee. If 'No' the email is only sent to the invitee.
Send custom invitation - 'Yes' or 'No'. If 'Yes' is selected a text box will appear below where the league manager can enter a personal note that is appended at the bottom of the outgoing email invitation. If 'No' the system will send a standard message.
Note: If an owner's email address is inputted and an invitation is emailed to him/her, and then the owner's email address is changed on this page before he/she has a chance to accept it, the first invitation will become invalid and the owner must accept the second invitation.
Once an invitation is accepted (the team owner joins your league) the "STATUS" column will change from "Invited" to "Joined". The "OWNER NAME" column will also populate with owners name and the "EMAIL" column will be replaced with a "Send Email" link.
Important: Once an owner has accepted an invitation the email address associated with the team is defaulted to the address associated with that owner's ESPN.com member account. League managers can not change email addresses of owners. The owner needs to visit Member Services to make this change.