[IBL] idea for a new protest process

[Sean Sweda]

Every time we have one of these I think to myself -- "we really need a  
better system".  I'm a firm believer that a league like this must have a  
mechanism to overturn significantly imbalanced trades, given that the  
consequences of these deals are magnified enormously due to perpetual  
ownership of players.  I understand that some will disagree, but let's  
table that for now and posit that if a protest mechanism is a necessary  
evil how could it work better?

The primary area of concern I see is the means by which a protest is  
registered:

1) Any protest system relies on a filtering mechanism by which the owners  
of the league look at a deal and make a determination about the level of  
imbalance.  Additionally, some may decide that even though a trade is  
imbalanced that the parts that are moving are inconsequential enough that  
it does not merit a protest.  We only require one team to register a  
protest, which means whoever has the lowest threshold is making the  
determination.

2) Another problem is that there's no downside to being the protesting  
team, so long as you don't particularly care if you're irritating the two  
owners who made the deal.  The protesting team doesn't pay any price if  
their filter for imbalanced trades is lower than the consensus.

3) Finally, once one team triggers a protest the other teams that also  
believed the trade to be imbalanced tend to tune out.  Therefore it is  
never clear to either the trading teams or the Review Board whether there's  
a widespread consensus that the trade is imbalanced.


Idea for an improvement, addressing the above:

Require teams to post collateral in order to protest.  Lower the amount of  
collateral required per-team as more teams join the protest.  If the  
protest is upheld the protesting team(s) get back their collateral, if the  
trade is upheld they lose the collateral.

example:
if 1 team protests a deal they must put up a 2nd round pick
if 2 teams protest a deal they must each put up a 3rd round pick
if 3 teams protest a deal they must each put up a 4rd round pick
if 4 teams protest a deal they must each put up a 5rd round pick
etc.

If a team does not have the required round pick they can post a pick one  
round earlier in the following draft (e.g. if I don't have MCM#2 2018 I can  
substitute MCM#1 2019)


What does this do?  It puts the burden on the owner with the lowest  
threshold to find other people who are in agreement.  It should also  
establish a significance level for trade protests, as nobody is going to  
want to risk losing picks of higher value than the players/picks actually  
involved in the trade.  Finally, this system encourages consensus and I  
believe the resolution process would be much less painful if both the  
trading teams and the Review Board knew that a large number of people were  
in agreement.


I'm sure there are other issues with the protest system that could be  
improved, this just jumped out at me as a re-alignment of incentives that  
would be a big improvement.

Sean