SportsHub Technologies, LLC has acquired the assets to the NFBC, NFFC and NFBKC from STATS LLC and is ready to spur our contests' growth through tech upgrades and promotional partnerships. All of our contests will get a complete overhaul; everything from the way we pay out our prizes going forward to the way we host our online drafts.
SportsHub Technologies might be new to our customers, but they're not new to the industry. Run by CEO Rob Phythian, one of the founders of Fanball.com in the 1990s, the company has added several well-known businesses in the past 18 months. SportsHub has acquired the assets to CDM Fantasy Sports, Sports Technologies LLC, and League Safe. Now you can add the NFBC and NFFC to that list.
Here's why Tom and I are so excited by the move:
* Technology, technology, technology. Everyone involved with this move agrees that the online growth potential is huge with the right tools and platforms. The team at Sports Technologies has built games for the NFL, NASCAR, NCAA March Madness, PGA Tour and other leagues. We will have programmers dedicated to all of our products full-time and we'll be able to improve our current contests and add new games as well. You're going to see a very dedicated community of players with a whole host of fantasy games and more.
* Timely payments. This move ensures that our customers will never have to wait six weeks again for payment. In fact, thanks to the LeagueSafe ewallet system, future payments will just be deposited into your Player Account where you can decide what to do with the prize money. For the first time in our history, our customers will have the opportunity to manage their winnings in their Player Accounts and to use for future games if needed.
* Expanded user base. Being able to promote all of our games to the folks at CDM, League Safe and Sports Technologies can only grow our customer base. And I think we'll create some lower-priced entry point games that will be attractive to a lot of these customers. Stay tuned.
* Mobile growth. Online and mobile technology will grow by leaps and bounds. Starting with football 2017, you'll see every aspect of our contests touched by new technology. That goes from registering for contests to drafting in our contests to managing your teams in our contests. Programmers are working on all of this as we speak.
* State by state legislation. We will be compliant in every state and have already applied for licenses in many of the states in question. Doing this as a company with multiple games makes the most sense as more and more states put stipulations on our industry.
* In-season games. There are plans for additional contests beyond just our season-long format. You may see weekly games in the near future. There will be more options under this new company umbrella and it's sure to grow in future years as consolidation becomes a big part of our industry.
Anyway, we'll have more information coming soon. I can't thank STATS enough for the past 13 years together. We would never have had the NFBC without STATS. They were there for me in 2003 when I worked at Krause Publications and pitched this idea to several folks. Nobody thought much of my idea, but STATS took the chance and built the web site and ran all of the games for us from 2004-09. Then after a shaky 18-month turn at Fanball.com (Rob had already sold the company), STATS was willing to take us on in 2011 and ran all of our games for the last six years. They assumed ownership at that time and worked with Rob on this asset transfer.
We will continue to work with STATS during this next year and in fact the NFBC will continue to be run on the STATS platform using all of the same software as last year. We won't have time to integrate software changes for this baseball season, so we will build out our new platform and debut it in football 2017 and then build out basketball and baseball after that.
The programmers working on this product are fantasy players and understand every new item we presented before them. They understand why we need timers added to owners in Draft Champions Leagues. They understand how important it is to easily make your picks and sign up from your phone. They understand why it's important to build Lineup Pages with all of your teams on one page and Score pages with all of your live scores on one page. They are excited to add all of these new features while building the best online draft room in the industry.
Nothing against STATS, but we never had the dedicated resources to add all of these upgrades these past few years. They are a data company and that is their prime focus. We all know that the sites need help now and that we need to make it easier for all of you to manage your teams during the season so that you can have more teams during the season. And we have to make online drafting simple, easy and fun. We now can do that with the resources we have through SportsHub and especially the team at Sports Technologies LLC. That's what's so exciting about this deal.
I know it's change again. I know it's going to be a pain to move our game sites and our Message Boards to new locations. But we're with a fantasy games company now whose sole purpose is to create and run the best games in the industry. Spoil us with some love and attention boys.
We could use it.Thanks to STATS for 13 wonderful years (give or take 18 months). You guys were the best.
And welcome to SportsHub Technologies. May this be our last and most successful transfer ever. I truly believe it will be. Thanks all and enjoy this upcoming season.
