Sometimes, you may need to reduce the size of an existing league. Maybe a couple of managers aren't returning next season, and rather than replacing them, your league has decided to continue with fewer teams.

You can reduce the number of teams in your league, but there are a few important steps you'll want to follow first to make sure the correct teams are removed.

Important: When you decrease your league size, Sleeper removes the teams at the bottom of the list in Member Settings. Because of this, you'll need to make sure the teams you want to remove are occupying those team slots before changing your league size.

Your league will need to be in pre-draft mode before you can decrease the number of teams.

If your league has already completed its draft, you can create a supplemental draft to temporarily put the league back into pre-draft mode. Once you've finished reducing the league size, you can start the supplemental draft and end it without making any picks.

If you're also planning to redistribute player

s from the departing teams, you may want to hold a dispersal draft instead.

If you're interested in doing a dispersal draft, learn more about that here.

If you simply want to reduce the number of teams in your league, follow the steps below.

First, remove the members who will not be continuing in the league.

Go to:

League Settings → Member Settings → Tap the username → Remove from League

Do this for each owner whose team will be leaving the league.

Next, go to Member Settings and look at the order of the teams.

Sleeper will remove teams beginning at the bottom of this list when you decrease the league size.

For example, if you're reducing a 12-team league to 10 teams, the teams currently occupying the 11th and 12th team slots will be removed.

If the teams you want to remove aren't already in those slots, you'll need to swap their rosters into the appropriate positions.

On the Sleeper mobile app, go to:

Commish Settings → Edit Rosters & Draft Picks → Switch Players to a Roster

Select the team currently occupying the 11th spot and swap its players with one of the teams you want to remove. Then repeat the process for the team in the 12th spot.

If your league allows draft-pick trading, you'll also want to review any traded future picks involving these teams.

Depending on your league's rules, you may need to manually move or otherwise account for those picks before removing the teams. Make sure everything is where your league wants it before decreasing the league size.

After you've moved the rosters into the correct team slots, return to Member Settings and reassign the remaining owners to their proper teams.

Before moving on, double-check everything.

At this point, the teams you plan to remove should be at the very bottom of Member Settings, while all continuing managers should be assigned to their correct rosters.

Once you're certain everything is in the correct place, go to League Settings and decrease the number of teams.

Using our example, you would change the league from 12 teams to 10 teams.

The two teams occupying the 11th and 12th slots will be removed, and the players on those rosters will immediately be dropped.

Before reducing the league size, think about what you want to happen with the players being released from those teams.

Make sure your desired waiver settings are in place so those players don't unexpectedly become available as free agents.

You can also temporarily lock all roster moves before reducing the league size. This gives you time to make any additional adjustments or prepare your waiver/dispersal process before managers can add the newly available players.

Once everything looks correct, you can unlock roster moves and continue with your league as usual.