The Basic Draft

Modified on Wed, 28 Jan at 6:13 PM

Bravara's Draft feature is a simple but powerful tool: it puts players on teams and keeps the available players list synced across all devices in real time.

Note: This guide covers the basic Draft feature included with all Bravara plans. For a full draft experience with rounds, pick order, draft boards, and snake/dynamic drafting, see our Draft Manager Guide.

What Draft Does

Draft has two core functions:

Assign players to teams - Admins can put any player on any team
Sync available players in real time - When a player is assigned, they disappear from the available list on every device instantly

That's it. You run your draft however you want—Bravara just tracks who's available and who's been picked.

Available Players

This is the default view for both coaches and admins. It shows all players who haven't been assigned to a team yet.

Real-Time Syncing

When an admin assigns a player to a team in Bravara, that player disappears from all coach and admin devices in real time. No more "that player was already picked" moments—everyone knows which players are available at all times.

Requirements: Real-time syncing requires a cellular or Wi-Fi connection.

Offline Mode: If connection is not available in the draft room, each coach can manually remove a player from the Available Players list on their device as players are picked.

Moving Players Between Teams

Admins can reassign players at any time (to fix a mistake or conduct a trade):

Tap on Available Players
Choose a team below to view that team's roster
Tap on the player you want to move
Move to another team by tapping the new team name
Or move back to Available Players by tapping Remove from current team at the bottom

All Evaluators Average

The All Evaluators average combines ratings from multiple evaluators into a single score, giving you a more objective view of each player.

Configuring Which Evaluators Are Included

On the website's Evaluators tab, admins can set each individual evaluator to Include or Not Include in the All Evaluators average. You customize this per your league's preference, for each division.

Examples of how leagues use this:

Some leagues include everyone's ratings in the average
Other leagues only include non-coach board member ratings
Some leagues don't include anyone—they don't use the All Evaluators average at all

Viewing All Evaluators Average

For Coaches:

There's an All Evaluators button in the app
Toggle it On to see the All Evaluators average
When Off (the default), coaches see just their own ratings

For Admins:

Admins see the All Evaluators average by default
There is no toggle—admins always see the combined view

Why This Matters

Before Bravara, many leagues would collect coaches' ratings at the end of evaluation day, manually enter them into a spreadsheet, average them out, then return results to coaches. The All Evaluators feature saves hours of tedious work.

Assessed Round

Assessed Round is a recommendation that helps reduce disagreements between coaches and admins about which round a coach's child should be drafted.

Important: In the basic Draft feature, Bravara doesn't track rounds—your league tracks rounds separately (on paper, whiteboard, Excel, etc.). Assessed Round simply tells you what round a player should go in based on their evaluation scores.

How It Works

Example: Coach Mike has son Ryan on the team.

Admin pulls up Ryan on their device
Tap on Scores at the top right
Admin sees the Assessed Round:
- Your Eval column: Shows the suggested round based on that evaluator's ratings (or a dash if no ratings entered)
- All Evaluators column: Shows the suggested round based on the combined average
Admin uses this information when the league reaches that round in their draft

Why This Reduces Arguments

It's harder for a coach to argue about Assessed Round when several other coaches and admins have all evaluated their child, and the average is what's used to make the decision. The data speaks for itself.

How Assessed Round Is Calculated

Assessed Round is based on the Overall category score. If there are 8 teams, then there are 8 first-round picks—those are the 8 players with the highest Overall scores.

Overall Score

The Overall score is a weighted average of evaluation categories designed to help achieve balanced teams.

Bravara provides a default formula for calculating Overall, but every league is different. With a paid plan, you can customize the formula or change which categories are included to match how your league evaluates players.

Team Totals

Team Totals is an admin-only feature that shows a real-time running average for each team during the draft.

Why This Matters

Team Totals helps admins identify if a coach (typically a newer coach) is falling behind competitively.

Example: A coach might be prioritizing their child's friends instead of choosing higher-rated players. They could end up with a weak team, which creates problems for everyone.

With Team Totals, an admin can notice this at the end of round 2 or 3 and have a quick side conversation with the coach to make sure they draft higher-rated players moving forward.

After the Draft

CSV Export

Admins can return to the website to download a CSV of the created teams. This export can be used to import rosters into other systems like SportsConnect or your league management software.

Tips for Draft Day

Before the Draft

Set up evaluator inclusion - Decide whose ratings should be in the All Evaluators average
Review Assessed Rounds - Know where coach's kids should be slotted
Test your connection - Make sure devices can connect in the draft room

During the Draft

Use Available Players as the source of truth - When a player disappears, they've been picked
Watch Team Totals - Keep an eye on competitive balance
Make corrections in real-time - Fix mistakes immediately while everyone remembers

After the Draft

Export your rosters - Download the CSV from the website
Review team balance - Check that teams are reasonably even
Communicate with coaches - Share roster information as needed

Summary

Draft keeps things simple:

Assign players to teams - Admin controls team assignments
Available Players syncs in real time - Everyone sees who's left
All Evaluators Average - Objective ratings from multiple evaluators
Assessed Round - Data-driven round suggestions for coach's kids
Team Totals - Keep teams balanced throughout the draft
CSV Export - Get your rosters out of Bravara and into other systems

You control the process—Bravara just tracks assignments and keeps everyone in sync.