Dues and payout ledger for fantasy leagues

The idea

Every fantasy league has the same September problem: the commissioner fronts the pot, then spends three months sending increasingly awkward Venmo requests to two guys who always pay eventually. LeagueSafe solved this in a corporate way, with fees, escrow, and forms that feel wrong for a 12-person league of mates.

The wedge is the public shame board: a league page with paid or unpaid in red next to every team name, visible to the whole league. Social pressure collects debts that DMs cannot. Around it, the two other jobs commissioners actually do by hand: tracking weekly side pots all season, and the end-of-year maths of who owes whom once side-pot winnings net against final placings.

Who pays

The buyer is the commissioner of one of roughly 30 million players’ leagues, with 100-plus dollar buy-ins at stake and personal money fronted; 10 dollars per league per season is a no-brainer they can even take from the pot. Timing is the whole channel: launch content in August, hit r/fantasyfootball and commissioner-tools threads, and let each league’s 11 other members see the product every time they check the board.

MVP scope

• League creation with buy-in, payout structure, and side pots
• Public league page with paid/unpaid badges and pot total
• Stripe Connect card payments straight to the commissioner, plus recorded Venmo/cash confirmations
• Weekly side-pot winner tracking accruing to a ledger
• End-of-season payout calculator that nets everything and minimises transfers
• Skip for v1: escrow or holding funds, roster/scoring integrations, league messaging, multi-year history

Build LeagueLedger, a Next.js web app that gives fantasy commissioners a public dues board and a payout calculator. Ship before September drafts.

Commissioner flow: create a league (name, sport, buy-in amount, member list by name), set the payout structure (1st/2nd/3rd percentages plus weekly side pots: high score, survivor), and get two links: a public league page and a commissioner admin page, both capability URLs; commissioner signs in with a Supabase magic link for recovery.

The public league page is the product: every team name with a PAID badge or a red UNPAID badge, days-until-draft countdown, and the pot total. Social pressure does the collections. Members open their own link and either pay by card through Stripe (funds to the commissioner's connected Stripe account via Stripe Connect Standard) or hit I paid by Venmo/cash, which the commissioner confirms before the badge flips. Never hold funds in the platform.

Season features: weekly side-pot tracker where the commissioner records each week's winner and the ledger accrues their winnings; end-of-season payout calculator that nets side-pot winnings against final placements and outputs exactly who owes whom, minimising the number of transfers.

Pages: Create league, Public league page, Admin page, Member pay page, Payout summary.

Pricing: 10 dollars per league per season via Stripe, paid by the commissioner at creation; the public page is free to view for everyone.