Post
by Greg Ambrosius » Sun Aug 07, 2011 4:10 pm
As someone who was just involved in an Asset Acquisition, I have to admit this whole process over there is tough to understand. From the moment I first talked with LSI to the day we legally transferred the assets it took six weeks. And that's with lawyers involved with a publicly traded company and yours truly. Granted, it was one entity selling to one owner, but still, it was 42 days from start to finish.
And during that whole process we were able to communicate with our players so that once I legally owned the NFBC/NFFC our players were signed up and ready to go on Draft Day. There was never any loss of continuity, never any loss of communication, never any loss of trust. And when we announced our move to STATS shortly after the Asset Acquisition was approved, we all moved forward together.
I suppose things can work out on short notice over there, but even this latest non-communication is hard to understand. Why are there always insinuations that a deal is done and then no official statement? Why now are the rollovers being considered as pay teams? If a new entity is buying the contest and changing the guaranteed grand prize to a lower amount, wouldn't those owners who rolled over their money be allowed to cash out if they wanted to? And is there enough time to even reach less loftier guaranteed prize levels after all that has happened?
I'm sure there are more questions than answers, but this uncertainty continues to keep many good owners in limbo. As I said above, there's like 1,000 fewer teams signed up for HSFF leagues now than there were last year. Hopefully this all gets cleared up quickly so that folks can get paid and commit to the contests they want to play in. Without the money, it's tough for these good owners. Without any information at all, it's even tougher for them to plan ahead, whether it's with them, us or someone else. It's frustrating for everyone. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like this before or anything handled this way before. Have you?
Sorry for wondering about this out loud, but with all the delays and everything involved with multiple owners and prize payouts, why wouldn't someone just start up a new contest with less baggage and debt rather than buy into this entity? I mean, someone could easily offer a $250,000 grand prize and solid league prizes much easier and months earlier with the same kind of risk, wouldn't you think? And all the rest (including baseball prizes) wouldn't have to be part of it, right? I guess our four and five letters are more valuable than I ever thought!!! Maybe that's good news for us in the biz.
Again, good luck everyone. I know so many of you are holding up your final plans until you know more and I hope you all get paid in full, but let's all move forward soon. It's time.
Founder, National Fantasy Football Championship & National Fantasy Baseball Championship
Twitter: @GregAmbrosius