Mac finished eleventh place last season, which entitled him under league rules to institute a rule change without vote or question. Mac instituted “the great rebalancing”—a rule permitting the last-place manager at week ten to compel any one-for-one player trade with the first-place manager. During the current season, this rule caused widespread roster manipulation as managers sought to avoid first place. In week ten, the top three managers created a separate group chat and coordinated a scheme to bench their entire rosters. They also convinced Mac’s scheduled opponent to bench all players. Mac, then in fourth place with Jonathan Taylor already started in the Germany game, won his matchup and—because the top three all lost—ascended to first place.
The last-place manager now invokes the great rebalancing to compel Mac to surrender Jonathan Taylor for Joe Mixon, who has not played all season and will not return. Mac protests that the coordinated roster manipulation constitutes collusion in violation of the league rule requiring managers to field their best lineups. We hold that it does. The appropriate remedy is to reconstruct week ten standings as they would have appeared absent the collusion, then enforce the great rebalancing rule against whoever would have legitimately occupied first place.
I
Let us begin with what is undisputed. The top three managers created a separate group chat. In that group chat, they coordinated a plan to bench their entire rosters—not merely to field suboptimal lineups, but to start zero active players. They recruited Mac’s scheduled opponent to do the same. All four managers executed the plan. Mac, who had already started Jonathan Taylor in the Thursday game, won his matchup by default and leapfrogged into first place when the top three managers all took losses.
This is collusion. Not close-call collusion. Not gray-area collusion requiring careful doctrinal analysis. This is textbook, unambiguous, smoking-gun collusion of the clearest kind this Court has encountered. As we said in Ethan v. The League, 24-0802-1 (2024): “This is not subtle gamesmanship. This is not a gray area requiring careful doctrinal analysis. This is objectively, unambiguously, textbook collusion.”
The evidence is irrefutable. The managers created a separate group chat—a paper trail documenting their coordination. They did not merely discuss strategy in the main league chat where such conversation might constitute permissible trash talk or gamesmanship. They created a private channel specifically to coordinate conduct they knew other league members would object to. As one of us observed during oral argument, invoking The Wire: they took notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy. That alone demonstrates consciousness of guilt.
The conduct itself removes any remaining doubt. In Dave v. Joe, 21-1223-2 (2021), we held that a single manager’s decision to bench his entire starting lineup in exchange for receiving a player constituted impermissible collusion because “lineup decisions may not be transacted for consideration.” Here, four managers coordinated to bench their entire rosters simultaneously. They did not start weak players or make defensible lineup choices. They started zero active players. They fielded empty rosters. This wholesale abandonment of competition—coordinated through a separate group chat for the express purpose of manipulating standings to avoid the great rebalancing—violates every principle of competitive integrity this Court has articulated.
II
Before addressing the remedy, we pause to emphasize what we are not holding. We do not hold that the great rebalancing rule itself is invalid. To the contrary, the league adopted a mechanism permitting the eleventh-place finisher to institute rule changes without vote or question. Mac invoked that mechanism. The league agreed to the rule he proposed. As one of us observed during oral argument: “You made your bed.”
Leagues possess broad constitutional authority to adopt unusual scoring systems, governance structures, and competitive rules. See In re The Bullshit Scoring League, 20-1348-1 (2020) (approving league that prioritized punters over skill positions). We have no supervisory authority to void democratically adopted rules simply because we find them ill-advised, chaos-inducing, or likely to distort competitive incentives. The great rebalancing may be “diabolical,” as one of us termed it, but it is not invalid.
Indeed, the rule appears to have functioned exactly as designed—perhaps too well. The league wanted chaos. Mac delivered chaos. Managers across the standings manipulated their rosters all season to avoid first place, creating what one of us described as the amusing spectacle of everyone “jockeying to be in fourth place.” This is precisely the kind of strategic distortion that unusual rules generate, and leagues that adopt such rules must live with the consequences.
But living with the consequences of unusual rules does not mean tolerating coordinated collusion to manipulate their application. The great rebalancing contemplates that managers will independently make strategic roster decisions—perhaps starting weaker players, perhaps sitting stars to avoid first place. What it does not contemplate, and what no league rule could countenance, is coordinated conspiracy by multiple managers to bench entire rosters through separate group chats.
III
The distinction between individual strategic roster management and coordinated collusion appears throughout our precedent. In Zach v. Andy, 24-0810-1 (2024), we held that “a team that has clinched a first-round playoff bye may intentionally field a suboptimal or empty lineup for the strategic purpose of influencing playoff seeding and eliminating a league rival from postseason contention.” The key word is “may”—singular. An individual manager acting in pursuit of his own strategic interests may make roster decisions others find objectionable, provided he fields a complete roster rather than leaving positions empty.
But what one manager may do independently, four managers may not coordinate through separate group chats. In Commissioner v. Danny, 21-1234-1 (2021), we held that “offering material compensation to induce waiver wire manipulation constitutes textbook collusion,” and we emphasized the “critical distinction” between “strategic coordination that operates within the fantasy football system” and “transactions that introduce external considerations or material compensation to induce roster moves.” While that case involved material compensation (beer), the principle extends to any coordinated scheme where multiple managers act in concert rather than pursuing independent strategic interests.
The managers here did not act independently. They created a separate group chat. They coordinated their conduct explicitly. They recruited Mac’s opponent to participate in the scheme. This is precisely the kind of coordination our precedents condemn. As we held in Ethan v. The League: “Eleven league members—including eight who are eliminated from playoff contention and have no competitive stake in the outcome—have coordinated a scheme to claim all available defenses for the sole purpose of denying Petitioner access to a roster spot he needs to field a complete lineup in the semifinals.” The coordination itself—particularly when documented in writing through a separate communication channel—transforms what might be permissible individual gamesmanship into impermissible collective collusion.
The managers compounded their violation by benching all players rather than merely fielding weak lineups. There is a meaningful distinction between starting Trey Tucker over Alec Pierce—a defensible if suboptimal choice—and benching every player on your roster to guarantee a loss. The former represents strategic roster management within the rules. The latter represents wholesale abandonment of competition in violation of the explicit league rule requiring managers to field their best lineups. When four managers coordinate to abandon competition simultaneously, they engage in conduct no league can tolerate.
IV
The appropriate remedy follows from established principles. Where collusion distorts competitive outcomes, we reconstruct those outcomes as they would have appeared absent the collusive conduct. See Dave v. Joe (voiding trade and reversing playoff qualification obtained through collusion); Josh v. Commissioner, 22-1135-1 (2022) (requiring trade to stand despite injury after commissioner retroactively amended veto thresholds).
Here, the Commissioner should reconstruct week ten standings using each manager’s prior week lineup—specifically, the highest-scoring lineup each manager fielded in week nine. For players on bye weeks in week ten or unavailable due to injury, the Commissioner should substitute the highest-scoring eligible player from each manager’s bench. This approach accomplishes two objectives: it eliminates the collusive empty rosters while avoiding speculation about what lineups the managers “would have” set absent their coordination.
Once the Commissioner reconstructs week ten outcomes using these lineups, the great rebalancing rule applies to whoever occupies first place. If Mac legitimately earned first place through his roster construction and Jonathan Taylor’s performance, then he must make the trade. If another manager would have occupied first place absent the collusion, then that manager faces the consequences of the rule the league democratically adopted. But Mac should not be forced to surrender Jonathan Taylor for Joe Mixon based on a first-place finish he achieved only because four managers coordinated to bench their entire rosters in violation of league rules.
Some might argue that Mac deserves this outcome as poetic justice for creating the rule that distorted the season’s competitive dynamics. There is admittedly a certain dark humor in the architect of chaos being consumed by his own creation. During oral argument, we acknowledged that “the funny answer here being removed from it is like it’s funny that this guy made the rule and he has to trade Jonathan Taylor for Joe Mixon.” The schadenfreude is undeniable.
But we are not here to dispense karma. We are here to enforce league rules and remedy collusion. Mac’s role in creating an ill-advised rule does not strip him of the protections against collusion that all league members enjoy. The great rebalancing may be diabolical, but it is not a license for other managers to coordinate violations of the separate rule requiring competitive lineups. As we emphasized during oral argument: “obviously it’s fucked up.”
* * *
The managers’ scheme was as sloppy as it was brazen. They created a paper trail in a separate group chat. They documented their coordination. They made no effort to generate plausible deniability by fielding weak but defensible lineups. They benched every player, making their collusion unmistakable. As one of us observed, this violated the first rule we articulate in every Fantasy Court segment: definitely don’t tell anybody what you’re doing, and certainly don’t put it in writing.
Had the managers exercised more subtlety—meeting face-to-face in an unrecorded conversation, then fielding weak but defensible lineups—they might have avoided detection. The line between permissible roster manipulation to avoid the great rebalancing and impermissible coordination to manufacture standings is admittedly fuzzy. But the managers here did not approach that line. They obliterated it by creating a documented conspiracy to bench entire rosters simultaneously.
The league agreed to live with the chaos of the great rebalancing. But chaos does not mean lawlessness. The rule requiring competitive lineups remains in force. Coordinated schemes to violate that rule—particularly schemes documented in separate group chats and executed through wholesale roster abandonment—constitute textbook collusion. We hold that the Commissioner must reconstruct week ten standings, determine who would have legitimately occupied first place, and apply the great rebalancing rule to that manager. Mac may yet face the consequences of his own creation, but only if he earned them through competition rather than through others’ collusion.
Week ten standings shall be reconstructed. The great rebalancing shall be enforced against the legitimate first-place finisher.