Sitting with a pitiful record of 1-5, my fantasy football team doesn't have a great chance to make the playoffs. However, I am still interested in my league because of our voting rules about trades. In my league once a trade is agreed upon, the other teams have 2 days to review it and can vote to approve or veto. If 4 of the 10 teams vote against the trade, it does not go through. To me, this threshold seems to balance between decision making costs with external costs, especially since some teams never vote because they are less invested in the league (perhaps because they derive less utility from bragging rights or don't fear the punishment for the last place team). For example, if one team wanted to trade Tom Brady for a practice squad player, our league could easily rally the numbers to veto and wouldn't need to waste time coming to an obvious decision. On the other hand, if you make a trade, one or two people can't easily impose an external cost on you by denying it.
This past week was the first time a trade was rejected, and I was surprised. In my eyes, the trade seemed fair and clearly those involved in the trade did, too, otherwise they would not have agreed in the first place (because trade creates value). So, I stopped to consider why other teams might veto it. I noticed that the teams who vetoed were the 4 teams who currently had spots in the playoffs. It seems to me these four teams did not necessarily vote on if the trade was "fair," but more so on how the trade would potentially affect them. Although morally questionable, I think voting in this way is completely rational, so I cannot blame the playoff teams for their actions.
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