Crosstown Classic: Fall Turf Core + Draft League 2023

New league alert! Come out to play weeknight ultimate and be the first to try new field sites and a brand new league format in the Crosstown Classic! The new Core+Draft format will let you play with your friends and meet new people — opt to captain your own team with a hand-selected core or enter the draft as a free agent, to be selected by a core in a structure that promotes parity and increased access to teams. The league will be split into East and West divisions with a League Final pitting the best of the East against the best of the West. Choose your side and have fun!

What is a Core+Draft League?

This format is designed to merge the best parts of Bring-You-Own-Team and Direct Draft formats. The goals of the Core+Draft format are to increase parity between teams as well as to make it easier for those new to town or without a yearly Bring-Your-Own-Team team to participate in the league. Captains choose players to invite to a team core according to specific rules to limit overpowered cores, similar to the current Bring-Your-Own-Team format. Free Agents (those not in cores) are then drafted by teams to fill out the rest of the roster. The draft process also has rules in place to balance teams based on the strength of their cores

NOTE: This is a trial only — there are no current plans to use this format in any preexisting leagues.

Core Rules

• Captains create a core of 2-8 people, then draft free agents to fill out their teams
• Rankings are based on LAOUT self-ranking and lightly scrubbed to account for any obvious sandbagging
• No three players in a core can have a combined rank >30% of the league-wide average self-ranking times the number of people per team, rounded up (ex: with an average ranking of 6 and 14 per team this cap would be 30% of 614, or 25.2 rounded up to 26)
• No core can have a total rank >70% of the league-wide average self-ranking times the number of people per team, rounded up (ex: with an average ranking of 6 and 14 per team this cap would be 70% of 614, or 58.8 rounded up to 59)

Draft Rules

• Core members will be assigned draft slots based on LAOUT self-ranking
• Teams will be required to “draft” their core members in the round assigned
• If a team has multiple core members assigned to the same round they would draft them in the closest possible round, higher first (ex. four fifth-round players would be drafted in the fifth, fourth, sixth, and third rounds)
• If this is not possible (ex. if a team has two first-round core members) that team will automatically pick last in the next round they are eligible
• This means larger cores will lower-ranked players will have fewer picks, but they will be in earlier rounds. Smaller cores with higher-ranked players will have more picks, but they will be in later rounds
• Beyond this the draft is unrestricted, free agent ranks are not considered

Schedule