Well, the renewal deadline has come and gone. Unpaid teams have been taken away from their owners to join the orphan ranks. The orphan marketplace has temporarily been shut down. It’s time for the annual DataForce Fantasy Football Orphan Auction, an event everybody looks forward to each year! It’s located at Keepers->OrphanAuction on the full-screen version.
What is an orphan? It’s simply a team in a multi-year league that has been abandoned by its owner. A sad state of affairs. These need new homes, and we help place them in homes to keep the leagues alive.
Here’s your chance to uncover a diamond in the rough, a fantasy football team with great potential, and get it on the cheap! When you buy a team “used”, you don’t have to pay a deposit; you pay the purchase price to the prior owner in lieu of the deposit.
How Does the Auction Work?
Let’s get this out of the way first: You do not pay ahead of time to bid on teams! You do not need money in your account to place bids!
Orphan auctions at DataForce are “sealed bids” (blind bidding) auctions. Bid on as many teams as you like–bidding on a team is not a binding agreement to pay–but we trust you not to place bids on teams that you aren’t really interested in owning that that price.
That said, please feel free to place bids on more teams than you plan to acquire! Place ten bids hoping to win two of the ten, if you like! We certainly understand when you when more than you want and have to let some go.
You can adjust your bids anytime up until the auction closes.
At the end of the auction, DataForce will assign teams to the highest bidders, and ask for payment. Just let us know very quickly if you aren’t able to keep any team you win.
Remember that payment must include the entry fee for 2026! You are bidding to own the team, but you can’t play the game without paying the 2026 entry fee!
When you buy a team at the auction, you’re buying from the prior owner. They get the money from the proceeds of the sale. The 2026 entry fee, of course, goes to DataForce.
Which Teams Go On the Auction?
You’ll find hundreds of teams to bid on–this is a big, big event–and here’s where they all came from:
- Teams that were formerly listed for-sale-by-owner on the marketplace now go up for auction. If you’ve been watching these teams but the price was too high, now is the time to make your move.
- Teams that were dropped by the owner, but not listed on the marketplace. These are brand new listings, unseen before this.
- Teams that the owner failed to renew, drop, or pay for before the renewal deadline (Saturday, May 8) are added to the marketplace. These, too, are first-time, never-before-seen, teams.
So there will be lots of fresh meat to choose from!
What’s New This Year?
A few things have changed this year for the 2026 auction.
The biggest change is that we’ve divided the auction in two. Half the teams will be placed on auction #1, running from May 10 through May 14, and half will go on auction #2, running from May 19 through May 23.
Selection of the teams for each auction is completely random..
Another big change is that for-sale-by-owner ends when the auction ends. Teams that remain unsold after the auction go back on the marketplace, but not as FSBO sales. This is important because … buying a team at the auction instead of afterward on the marketplace preserves the team deposit in your name!
This year, we introduced “community deposits” that belong to the league, not to any individual team. At the end of the auction, unbought teams have their deposit moved to the “league community.” Learn more about community deposits on this newsletter from December.
The big takeaway for orphan buyers is that you inherit the deposit when it’s purchased before or during the auction! Any team deposit on the orphan you buy remains safely tucked away under your name, and gets returned to you if for some reason the league folds.
The third change of significance is that minimum bids have decreased; it’s no longer 10% of the deposit, but a graduating scale based on league level. Here are the new minimums:
- Copper: $1
- Bronze: $5
- Silver: $10
- Ruby: $15
How Do I Find My Perfect Team?
Tools! We have tools!
- Start with the filters box, checking just the options you’re interested in, to narrow things down.
- Look for the “Order teams by” dropdown to sort the page the way you want. Sorting by “My Bid” is a great way to see everyplace you’ve placed a bid.
- The “Find With” option lets you target specific players and/or draft picks. The best thing to do is just play with this a bit, noting that you can make two selections and combine them with “and” or “or”. For example, look for all teams with A. J. Brown or a top-3 pick.
- New this year, you can download a CSV file of all the orphans at auction. Look for the little black-and-white downward arrow directly under the “Keepers” tab.
We have lots of tools available to search and sort once you find your way to the orphan auction!
How Do I Pay If I Win?
When the auction ends, you’ll see on the auction page each team that received one or more bids, with the high bid for each. If that matches what you bid, you’re probably the winner, but not necessarily: A tie bid goes to the person that places their bid first.
We’ll contact each winning bidder immediately after the auction ends, and if that’s you, you’ll have 48 hours to make payment, using the Keepers->RenewTeams page. If for any reason a bid is not or cannot be honored within 48 hours, our software selects the next highest bidder, and gives that person 48 hours to pay for the team. This process continues until there are no potential buyers left, and if a team remains unsold or unpaid, we give it a price and move it back to the marketplace.
More Q&A
How much should I bid on a team? Half the deposit, or half the entry fee, is a good rule of thumb for a decent team. Pay a little more for good teams, and pay more than the entry fee for teams that are so good that you couldn’t draft it any better yourself. We have had teams that sell for three times the price! We’ve also had many, many teams that sell for the minimum bid.
Can I buy my own team back? Yes, you can! You can put a bid on your own team to make sure it doesn’t sell to someone else for less than that. You will pay a $5 “rebuy fee” to get your team back, but that’s all it will cost you (besides the 2026 entry fee) because the proceeds from the sale come to you.
Can I bid in two teams in the same league? Yes, but of course you can’t own two teams in the same league. If you win more than one, you’ll have to make a choice. That said, please do not bid on a team if you don’t have every intention of buying it at that price! That just slows down the process and frustrates other bidders.
How do I learn more? There’s a handy orphan buyer’s guide, at the top right of the Orphan Auction page.
🏈 Leagues Forming Now at DataForce Fantasy Football! 🏈
Ready to draft? We offer the widest variety with the best prize payouts anywhere!
Come check out what we have available in our lobby and Orphan Marketplace.
Join the fun and draft your winning team today at DataForceFF.com!
Lee Harmon
Commissioner
I love the challenge of building an orphan to league winner. I find I an most proud of those ‘ships.