So, let’s be all starry-eyed and assume that the People’s Bills becomes a reality. How should we draft players, where each citizen-owner receives a vote? Well, voting theory is a complicated topic, but one possible method stands out: range voting. How would this work for draft picks? Each shareholder is given a (rather large) list of potential draft picks. Then, he or she rates each potential pick on a scale from 0 to 100, in terms of how much he or she likes that player. And this can be any number, so for example, you could value Bill Buffalo at 48.2, or whatever you like. Once everyone has listed their ratings, we add up the ratings for each potential draft pick from all of the shareholders. When it’s the Bills’ turn in the draft, we pick the available player with the highest total value. In this way, the shareholders’ aggregate desire – the will of the people – is enacted. Of course, this method entails a bit of work for the owners, owing to the large number of potential draft picks. But, if you’re owning part of the Bills, we know you’re devoted.
Please let us know what you think of this method for the draft in the comments.
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April 26, 2008 at 12:41 am
Selecting players in the draft may be a bad example of how shareholder participation could work. A good GM doesn’t pick players in isolation from one another. Instead, he juggles a bunch of priorities to come up with a list. Further, his second and lower picks could depend on whether or not he got the player he wanted in the first round, etc.
If shareholder-fans were going to contribute to this process, focus groups or something similar would be better than voting.
You’re right to say that voting theory is a large topic (and I’m not a fan of range voting, except where the voters are serving as a panel of unbiased experts and have no reason to game the voting process, but that’s another matter) . I’m just not sure this theory can be made relevant to drafting new players.
April 28, 2008 at 2:18 pm
These are all great points and having people to vote could certainly become a byzantine process for something like the NFL draft. Thanks for your comments.