Everything you need to know about FAAB leagues — from understanding how they work and making strategic bids to managing your budget effectively throughout the season.
There’s no one way to play fantasy football. Between different draft setups, different league structures, different scoring systems and different lineup settings, each season carries its own distinct wrinkle.
For those who are just getting started with fantasy football or experienced players seeking something new and exciting, we present to you in detail one of those wrinkles: FAAB.
What Does FAAB Stand for?
FAAB stands for Free Agent Acquisition Budget — a more fair and balanced way to distribute players off the waiver wire/free agent scrap heap than the traditional waiver priority system.
Instead of one manager getting lucky by having top waiver priority the week that the league-winning running back happens to become available, the whole league gets a shot to add that player through a bidding process.
FAAB is now a core element of many leagues, and if it’s a part of how yours is set up, it will require you to seriously consider your roster strategy throughout the season, as add-drops will require a bit more thought.
How you manage your FAAB budget will be vital as it influences how flexible you’re able to be in the event of injuries, a bye-pocalypse or simply landing that title-winning star that nobody saw coming during draft night.
How Does FAAB Work?
In a FAAB league, each manager is given a post-draft budget to use on cultivating his or her roster throughout the season. That number is typically $100 or $200. On Sleeper, the default total is $100, but that is a customizable setting within the app.
Each week, there’s a private, blind bidding process for every player not on a roster, and players go to the highest bidder. Minimum bids can be as low as $0 if your league allows it (Sleeper does allow for that; elsewhere the default minimum is typically $1), which mimics a more standard free-agent pickup — provided nobody else bids on that player.
The process is effectively like the extension of an auction draft for the weekly waiver wire/free agent period, providing equal opportunity for all managers while leaving room for different strategies.
Do you want to save your FAAB until the end of the season, in anticipation of adding difference-makers for the playoffs? Or, do you opt to spend it all early, in hopes of beating everyone to the punch on the players that could boost your squad all season?
Consider a player like Rams receiver Puka Nacua, who largely went undrafted before his breakout rookie campaign in 2023. If you bid a big percentage of your FAAB budget for him after his 10-catch, 15-target, 119-yard debut, you probably were rewarded with a successful season.
How FAAB Works on Sleeper
In Sleeper’s season-long fantasy football game, FAAB works as follows:
Every league’s default budget is $100 and the default minimum bid is $0, but those can be adjusted by the league commissioner. The bidding process is a blind one, so prospective bidders can’t see what others are willing to pay for a player until after the transaction is completed.
If you want to add a player, you simply enter your desired amount and pick a player to drop (unless you have an open roster space). The highest bid wins, and that money is then deducted from the winning manager’s FAAB total. You don’t lose money from your budget for a bid that is not successful.
If there’s a tie for the highest bid, the tiebreaker reverts to a more traditional waiver wire priority. Once the week’s waiver period ends, you can see the winning bids in the league’s transaction history, which also shows you how many bids came in along with how much each manager was willing to spend.
As another element of strategy, you can trade FAAB on Sleeper, but you cannot exceed your league’s maximum total of it at any point — unless that maximum is changed by your commissioner.
3 Tips to Manage Your FAAB Effectively
Strategy is everything when it comes to finessing your FAAB. You’ll want to pick your spots — but not be too picky, or else you may miss the boat completely. Here are a few ways to manage your budget wisely.
Assess Your Team Needs
If your roster is stacked at a certain position but lacking elsewhere, you may want to consider reserving your big splash until players who fit a need become available. You might not fully have a handle on that until a few weeks into the season, when player roles begin to settle.
You could also consider that having a fourth stud running back would both cover you during bye weeks (or in the event of injury) and also loom as trade bait for another manager. Every roster’s outlook depends on the others in its league.
Regardless, don’t be shy if there’s a player you desperately want — just know that it could handicap you and your ability to add other players going forward, especially if it doesn’t work out.
Plan Your Budget Ahead
This is where strategy comes into play — and also knowing the makeup of your league and tendencies of the managers against whom you’re competing. You can’t plan for everything, but you should have a decent idea, for instance, if the waiver pool is thin due to league and roster size.
If the unowned player pool is typically shallow, then you’ll want to be prepared to spend big when a true game-changer becomes available. You’ll still want to have some emergency funds left for late-season needs, but you need to make sure you put yourself in position to be a contender first.
Keep an eye on your opponents’ budgets, too. Knowing how much everyone else has to spend could help inform your own bids.
Stay Informed
It sounds obvious, but given the increased stakes when it comes to your weekly pick-ups, being on top of all injury/suspension/demotion news becomes paramount. The last thing you want to do is waste FAAB dollars on a player whose opportunity proves to be far less fruitful than what you expected. Have your reliable sources handy and go to them often.
See also: 11 Strategies and Tips to Win in Fantasy Football
FAAB Frequently Asked Questions
FAAB Vs. Regular Waivers: What are the differences?
Typically, the waiver priority order is either the reverse order of your snake draft (so if you had the 12th pick in a 12-team league, you’ll wind up with the top waiver priority) or, in some cases, based on the reverse of the standings after Week 1 (last place gets top priority, and so on).
If you use your priority, you go to the back of the line and then have to either hope other managers are asleep at the wheel so you can land impact players off waivers with a lower priority or just know that you’re not getting the guy you want. The wait to climb back up the waiver order can be painful.
With FAAB, that’s all moot. Your draft or standings positioning has no bearing on which players you’re able to add to your team throughout the season. All that matters is your FAAB total and how high you’re willing to go to land the player(s) you desire.
As a result, it’s a fairer way of distributing the available talent each week, and it involves more strategy than just deciding whether to use your top priority place or not.
When does the FAAB reset?
Unless you are in a dynasty league or a custom keeper league, where commissioners may set original parameters, FAAB won’t reset during the fantasy season. The budget you’re given at the start of one season is what you have to work with for the full campaign. Bid wisely!
How does FAAB impact a league’s competitiveness?
FAAB should keep all managers more engaged throughout the season. Say it’s mid-season, you’re toiling in the standings and have a poor waiver priority under a more traditional league set-up. Your avenues to improve immediately are limited. But if you could bid your way to a season-changing stud, you could get right back in the mix. How FAABulous.
Get Ready to Flex Your FAAB
Now that you’re all caught up on the FAAB fad, start your fantasy football team and gain an edge with Sleeper’s user-friendly FAAB system by signing up on the website or downloading the app. Sleeper differs from other fantasy football apps with its sleek, ad-free interface and its dynamic chat and messaging capabilities that make your league feel more interactive, social and fun.
The player board while your league is drafting keeps everything organized and tidy, the news feed keeps you up to date on the latest on all of the key players and live scores and stats let you follow along as your team racks up points in real time.
