Our draft platform supports custom player lists uploaded in a CSV format. Want to customize the pool of players available in your draft room? This article will tell you how to get it done!
Here are examples of some of the unique draft pools we've seen on Drafty:
- Olympic nations
- Oscar nominees
- Video game tournaments
- Pokemon
- Season ticket game dates
If you can put together your own list, you can draft it on Drafty!
Things To Know
CSV Format
Your submitted player list must be in a CSV format, which is a universal spreadsheet file format. You can export a CSV from any spreadsheet software (e.g. Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers) and many text editors (e.g. Notepad, VSCode).
Import Preview
When you select the file you want to upload, a table will appear that contains all the players detected in your spreadsheet. Review this table to ensure that player names, positions, and team affiliations were properly imported. Edit your file and re-upload as needed.
Player portraits (optional) will not appear in the preview.
In-Draft Player List Edits
You cannot edit your player list once you're in the draft room, so make sure you use the preview to find any oopsies and re-upload your file as needed. OR create a clubhouse and upload your custom list in your Draft Presets to help you iterate mock drafts more easily.
In a Clubhouse Draft you're able to import your player list from the uploaded version on your clubhouse in the Commish Toolbox.
Three Required Columns
Your spreadsheet must include three columns: (1) Name, (2) Pos, (3) Team
Try a mock draft to see how these three data fields appear in the draft room.
The column headings must appear in row 1 and match the following:
- Name
- Pos
- Team
These columns are optional:
- Portrait - in case you want to drop a headshot URL in for players to look nice in the draft room.
All other columns will be ignored. Each row after the first should contain player data to appear in your draft list. Players will be uploaded to your draft room in the same order as they appear in your spreadsheet.
Player Data in Table Rows
If drafting non-players, feel free to use the Position and Team columns for your own arbitrary notations (e.g. release year/director's last name for Movies, universe/franchise for Superheroes, or attack type/generation for Pokemon).
Each player field has the following character limits:
- Name (max. 36 characters)
- Pos (max. 12 characters)
- Team (max. 24 characters)
If you wish to make a player eligible for multiple positions, separate the position labels with a forward slash "/" and no spaces (e.g. "PF/C" is correct; "PF,C" or "PF+C" is not). This will ensure the appropriate position filters are visible in your draft room.
How To Submit
Once you've exported your CSV file, you'll upload it during your draft room setup.
Under Player Settings click Custom and then the upload box to browse for your file or drag-and-drop your file directly into the box.
If your file contents pass validation, a preview table will appear containing all of the recognized player rows. Double-check this to make sure the list is accurate and meets your expectations. If there are mistakes, edit your CSV file as needed and try uploading again.
If you have any questions, please contact support.
BONUS: Team Logos & Abbreviations
To achieve team branding for supported sports leagues, make sure you use common team abbreviations. Usually it will only be 2-5 characters long, as you might see on the scoreboard during a live broadcast. Any team name longer than 5 characters will remove all team branding and display full team names instead.
BONUS: Player Portraits
If you have a list of image URLs for each player you can include them in your CSV as a column with the heading "Portrait". It's pretty neat, but finding a list of images and pairing them to each player can be tricky business.