Draft:Gold Plan

The Gold Plan is a new draft (sports) system that incentivizes teams to win even after playoff elimination. It was presented at the 2012 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference by Adam Gold, then a PhD Candidate at the University of Missouri.

The Gold Plan was debuted by the Professional Women's Hockey League in 2024 and the PWHL was first professional sports league to adopt the system.

Process
A teams draft priority is determined by total number of points gained after mathematical elimination from the league playoff system. With the Gold Plan teams that get eliminated early in the season have more games to play, and possible points to earn, over teams that make it farther into the season. The team with the highest point total is ranked highest and selects first, the team with the next highest goes second, and so on. Teams with earlier player selection will a better opportunity to pick higher quality players to join the team the following year. Team points are awarded by Group tournament ranking system with various adjustments for different sports such as hockey overtime (sports) using the 3-2-1-0 system.

Benefits
Under the Gold Plan teams are incentivized to win, this solves the problem of teams deliberately losing to gain an advantage in other draft systems, famously by the Indianapolis Colts in their 2011 season. The overall idea is for games to continue to be competitive and exciting to fans thereby driving attendance even after elimination.