An Example

Almost 14 months ago, I wrote here about Ambrose's DiamondMind auction/contract league. Of course, this was a sort of meandering post that touched on a lot of things. It's DiamondMind, so it uses last year's stats--hence there isn't a lot of waiver wire scrounging. Also, rosters are 40 players and there are 28ish teams. It's a pretty deep league that, also, has its own website along with its own constitution.

For in-season purposes (for obvious reasons), Ambrose's league is totally useless. But the auction and salary structure is sort of interesting, and I'm providing it here ONLY AS AN EXAMPLE. (I'm dividing all the numbers by 100k):

• Players have salaries in increments of $1. The minimum salary for any player is $1.

• All players have initial salaries that are determined in an auction held in February/March, with the highest bidding team acquiring rights to that player. The player's salary remains the same for the duration of the season, unless they are released back to the Free Agent Pool, but all players have a minimum salary of $1.

• On January 31, teams must decide which players they will retain for the coming season. Players who are retained automatically receive a 10% raise. However, there are minimum salaries for players who have been out of the free agent pool for 3 years ($10), 5 years ($50) or 7 years ($100).
  

EG: A player is drafted at $3
Year 1: $3
Year 2: $4 (10% increase, but $1 increments)
Year 3: $5 (10% increase, but $1 increments)
Year 4: $10 (10% increase, but $10 minimum)
Year 5: $11 (10% increase)
Year 6: $500 (10% increase, but $50 minimum)
Year 7: $55 (10% increase)
Year 8: $100 (10% increase, but $100 minimum)
Year 9: $110 (10% increase)
Year 10: $121 (10% increase)
Year 11: $133 (10% increase ... and so on)

• On February 1, all teams receive their funds for the new season, based on their performance the previous season, which is added to any funds they have retained from past seasons. The monetary distribution can be seen HERE.
• On February 1, all players retained on your roster are paid in full for the season. The remaining money in your bank account may be used to bid on Free Agents at auction, as added value in trades, or rolled over to the following season, EXCEPT ...
• All teams are required to keep at least $10 in a lockbox for the beginning of the season. Each team will have $5 released to them once season play commences. The remaining $5 is released after the trade deadline.
• On April 1, the total payroll of each team will be noted. Teams are then restricted to a salary cap no greater than 40% above the sum of their salaries as of that date. For example, if the sum of your team salaries at season's start is $500, that sum may not, through trade or auction acquisitions, exceed $700 during the course of the season.