The popularity of fantasy games has grown tremendously in the last decade. Building on the success of fantasy baseball and football, PerformanceBike.com has put together a Fantasy Cycling League that will get you more involved in the sport of cycling. The ability of the internet to deliver immediate sports statistics and stage by stage results takes interaction with the cycling world to a whole new level, increasing enjoyment by providing a more personal experience for all fans of cycling.
What are Fantasy Games?
Fantasy games are a way for individuals to compete against each other to see who has the
best managing skills in any given sport.
The first order of business in creating any fantasy league is collecting its members. As "team managers," these individuals draft real-life, professional cyclists to be members of their respective teams. The statistics cyclists generate in their real races are collected, and fantasy points are awarded based on these numbers -- the better a cyclist finishes the more fantasy points he accrues for his owner's team. In fantasy cycling, these points
determine a winner. The team that accumulates the most points or victories over the course of the race is declared the winner.
Creating a Team
There is a one team per person limit that can play in each event in PerformanceBike.com's Fantasy Cycling game.
To register a team, click on the Fantasy Cycling League link off the Inform frontpage. To access your team after registering, go to the Fantasy Cycling League frontpage and log in using your username and password. You can then enter your preseason team setup page. Once here, a team owner has the ability to name and create his team.
When choosing team names, please keep your location and nickname clean. Your team may
end up in feature articles and top-10 lists that are posted on the frontpage of Fantasy
Cycling. Team names must be unique for every team. No two franchises, may share the same combination of location and nickname.
Because of the large number of participants, individual riders may be used in several different teams. Because one team drafts a rider, that does not preclude another team from drafting that same rider.
Like a real pro team manager you must field a complete team with certain monetary constraints. This makes the contest more realistic. Each participant will be given $4,000.00 to spend for the draft. You can use as little or as many of these points as you want but you must select 9 riders for your team. Teams with less than 9 riders will not be accepted. Teams that exceed the 4,000.00 limit will not be accepted. In this same spirit of realism you will only be allowed to field one team per event.
Team rosters can be altered up to the closing date of the draft - to be determined by administrator.
Once the draft has been closed no team changes will be allowed. *NOT ALL RIDERS LISTED IN THE DRAFT WILL BE STARTING THE RACE. IT IS UP TO YOU TO KNOW WHO IS RIDING AND WHO IS NOT. SELECT YOUR RIDERS CAREFULLY.
Rider cost is based loosely on UCI point totals, but the cost of a rider is ultimately determined by the administrator of the Fantasy Cycling League.
Scoring
The top 15 finishers in a race or stage of a tour will be awarded points in the following format:
1st place: 25 points
2nd place: 20 points
3rd place: 18 points
4th place: 16 points
5th place: 14 points
6th place: 12 points
7th place: 10 points
8th place: 8 points
9th place: 7 points
10th place: 6 points
11th place: 5 points
12th place: 4 points
13th place: 3 points
14th place: 2 points
15th place: 1 points
Overall Race Winner - 50 points
Overall King of the Mountains - 25 points
Overall Sprinters Jersey - 25 points
For the Tour races you will receive 20 extra points if one of your riders takes the leaders jersey, 10 points for the climbers jersey, 10 points for the sprinters jersey. These points will only be awarded once per rider.
Example: If you have Ivan Basso on your team and Ivan has the yellow jersey for 12 days in the Tour you will only be awarded 20 total points.
You will not get 20 points for each day that he is in the yellow jersey. If Ivan takes the yellow jersey, loses it and then takes it again you do not get an additional 20 points. The same rule applies for the other jerseys.
In the event of a tie at the end of a contest the winner will be determined by the highest placed rider on the General Classification and continue down the standings until a winner is determined. If two or more teams tie on point totals the team with the highest finisher on GC wins.
Example: If one team has Ulrich as its highest finisher and the other has Basso as its highest finisher and Basso wins the Tour then the team with Basso is the winner.
If the teams have identical team leaders we will go down the result list until a winner can be determined. If an identical team has been selected the winner will be decided by a blind drawing.
NOTE: Any cyclist that is suspended from any race for the use of drugs, will lose all fantasy points previously awarded.
