Q: This is an e-mail from one of our players concerning a trade: “Mike needed a RB because Gore got hurt and I needed a WR because Bowe is hurt. Most likely, we will trade our players back once they are healthy again. Please note that this is not collusion, as we both aimed to make our teams better and meet a need, which is the point of a trade.” They believe this isn’t collusion. Do you believe this is collusion?
A: Collusion is defined as “an agreement, usually secretive, which occurs between two or more persons to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair advantage”
By this definition, collusion can still occur if two parties are aiming to “make their teams better”. It is the “limit open competition” part that makes this collusion since the two teams are working together to gain an unfair advantage over the rest of the teams in your league. The trade must not be allowed.
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I’ve been puzzling over this issue myself, but don’t find the explanation here to be satisfactory. What this ruling says in effect is:
NOT ALLOWED: a temporary trade that is mutually beneficial to both owners.
ALLOWED: a permanent trade that is mutually beneficial to both owners.
I have trouble seeing why one of those is an “unfair advantage” while the other is not. I understand that the temporary trade /feels/ wrong, but I can’t seem to think up a rational argument against it.
Yeah its definitely a difficult issue to rationalize. In our opinion, the “unfair advantage” is a result of the temporary nature of the trade. If you consider that this trade would essential lead to no roster changes at the end of the day (since the two owners would eventually swap their players back) then it is really more like Team A is borrowing a RB for a couple weeks as opposed to trading for one. In that context, the transaction seems a bit more shady, since no league would allow Team A to loan a player to Team B for a week in order to help Team B win. That would be cheating, and an example of collusion. Just because both teams are doing the same thing doesn’t make it fair. Remember, no one is arguing that either of the teams involved are cheating. Its the rest of the owners who are put at a disadvantage but this “trade”. Thoughts?
Btw, love that you hyperlinked ‘”some dork” on your site to Matthew Berry’s profile page.
But this argument seems to be saying: Because Team A borrowing from Team B is illegal, then a situation where they are both borrowing from each other is also illegal.
With that logic, it seems like I could invalidate normal trades like this: Because Team B giving a player to Team A is illegal, then a situation where they are both giving players to each other is also illegal.
I think the fundamental issue is that these “borrowing” transactions lead to a situation where two teams have effectively pooled their rosters. While other teams need to deal with their individual roster restrictions, these two teams have increased their roster size/depth by acting in concert. I think that is the selling point for me.
As for the shot at Matthew Berry, I’m glad you enjoyed it
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