To participate in a live draft, select a date and time when you know that you'll have a couple of free hours to spend at the draft. If you are choosing a time for a Custom League, you should coordinate with your other league members to find the time that works best for all of you.
You'll need a Java-enabled browser in order to participate. Test your system.
If you won't be present for the entire draft, go to your team page or the Draft Central section and custom-rank players with the Pre-Draft Rankings tool. Your custom rankings will be used if you can't make a selection at any time during the live draft. If you choose not to rank players, our default ratings will be used when you can't make a selection. See the Autopick Draft Details section for more information.
When it's time for your draft, go to your league page and select Enter Live Draft. Please arrive 10 minutes ahead of your scheduled time, as the draft will start promptly and may go rapidly if only a few managers are logged in.
Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, it may take up to five minutes for the draft applet to load into your browser. If you use AOL as your ISP or access the web from behind a firewall (ask your system administrator), you may be unable to participate in a live draft.
During the draft, you can view any team's roster by selecting the team name from the Drafted Players drop-down box. A list of how many players have been drafted at each position will appear in a column to the right of the roster.
You can also set up a draft queue for yourself. This list of players, which supersedes both custom and default rankings, will be used to make a selection if you do not draft a player during your allotted 90 seconds. To add a player to your queue list, select a name from the list on the left-hand side of the screen. The chosen name will appear in the draft box and the player will be added to your queue when you click on the Add to Queue button.
In addition, all of your custom rankings will be viewable by changing the sort criteria found in the drop-down box.
During the draft, you'll see a number of indicators when it is your turn to draft. Your team name will appear in the yellow box in the upper left-hand corner of the screen, your team icon will turn yellow, and the player selection box will turn yellow.
To draft a player, select a name from the list on the left-hand side of the screen. The chosen name will appear in the draft box and the player will join your team when you click on the Draft button. You have 90 seconds to select a player. If you do not draft within the allotted time, the computer will automatically give you a player based on your queued list, pre-draft rankings, or our default ratings if you have not queued players or submitted your own rankings list. See the Autopick Draft Details section for more information. Once you click the Draft button, you cannot "undraft" a player, even if there is time left in your allotted 90 second selection period.
To see which player Yahoo! Sports would recommend based on our default rankings, click on the Suggest button. The player's name will appear in the draft box. Click on the Draft button to select that player.
To chat with other managers during the draft, type your message in the entry box and hit Send. All messages will appear in the chat box. Draft choices will also be shown here.
When the draft is complete, you will see a message telling you the draft is over. Click the OK button to quit and close the applet. To see the complete draft results, go to your league page and select Draft Results. All of the selected players will be listed under the name of the team that drafted them. If there are any discrepancies, be sure to send us feedback.