For May’s edition of Fantasy Intellectual Teams, I would like to have three leagues of eight owners each. As of this morning, we are a little more than half way there. I am thinking that each owner would pick 5 intellectuals, but we could have one of the leagues consist of 7 intellectuals on a team if enough owners want that.
As an owner, you really have to keep track of the intellectuals on your team, so that you can let me know when one of them has scored a “point.” Tracking your players is your cost in terms of time. There may be a dollar cost if you pick players for whom you need to buy a subscription. Note that intellectuals are chosen in a competitive draft, so you cannot count on getting the exact 5 players you would most like–a couple of them might be picked ahead of you by other owners. So you have to have more than 5 players in mind as possibilities before going into the draft. Although within a league a player can have only one owner, the same player could be owned in multiple leagues.
If you have not already indicated an interest in becoming an owner, leave a comment below to let me know. We need to draft teams before May 1.
Can teams trade after the initial draft?
That would be fun to allow as a feature down the road, but I don’t want it in the May version. I want to focus on getting the scoring process right, then worry about enhancements to the team competition.
Would be interested in playing if there is still availability?
I’d be interested in playing if there is still space.
I will be not be participating in the May draft so there will be at least one opening.
I thought that I would share my experience as an owner for anyone considering jumping in.
Being an owner was a great experience and I strongly encourage others to participate.
Arnold set a high bar for scoring but his explanations were always fair, transparent, and understandable. He was also very prompt in responding to scoring requests. He also offered some timely advice when I was about to make a bad free agent choice. Kudos to him for his support to owners. His time and effort and sincere dedication to this project are most laudable.
I was a weak owner due to (1) poor drafting, and (2) podcast backlog. With respect to the latter, I might still get some points if I find time to get through the dozen or so I still must listen through by the end of the month. Podcasts are probably the biggest and least rewarding part of the workload associated with ownership. I’ll be very happy to being able to get back to the Revolutions podcast which is about all that I have time for.
With respect to drafting, I can’t say much other to illustrate for you how you can go wrong. That is not to say that I regret promoting any of the players that I drafted, it is just to say that many important and highly valuable public intellectuals simply don’t communicate in a format that will score points.
Case in point, my first round pick John Cochrane. In my way of thinking Cochrane made the three most important valuable contributions to public discourse any USA based public intellectual so far this year: (1) his argument for doing away with non-profit tax deductions and exemptions, (2) his letter to the silly Yellen, and (3) his promotion of climate related cost-benefit analysis in a podcast with Bjorn Lomborg. Fantastic work, zero points.
My drafting strategy was to favor individuals who post frequently, were likely to be promoting a new book, or were associated with news stories that were likely to get a lot of play. In some cases this was rewarded (Eugene Volokh, Dave Henderson), in others not (Glenn Greenwald, FH Buckley). I also tried to favor lawyers and people with literature backgrounds as having greater likelihood of engaging in steel-manning but alas to no real point success. Also favored climate experts thinking climate change predictions would score betting points but this failed.
The new point system of course changes a lot of thinking with respect to drafting. Good luck! Two mood affiliation errors that I would warn against are Efficacy Affinity and Crapweasel Aversion. Producing work relevant to the real world or opening questions about settled issues (see the estimable Todd Zywicki on bankruptcy or the economic efficiency of the common law) is not correlated with higher scores. And crapweasels (the sort of intellectuals who litter their work with words like “sustainable” thereby stating “I don’t know or mean a thing that I am saying”) may nevertheless be big point scorers. Hopefully as FIT evolves a way will be found to address this.
So please do participate and help this project succeed by improving the public discourse. Your participation will make a difference.
I am interested in playing if there is still availability.