Is it time to be concerned about the NFFC?

[TheReckoner]

Also Tom.... Does the NFFC have a position on the VA Bill? And how will it effect the NFFC?

[Greg Ambrosius]

I rarely post here, and think the world of Tom and Greg, but their long silence on the upcoming NFFC season is concerning me at this point. We have all seen the new fantasy legislation that has been passed by a few states and being considered by others, and now the fear arises that there may not be an on-line fantasy season after July 1st (at least in those states that have passed new legislation already or the near future). Perhaps, the days of online season-long fantasy football is coming to an end, when one considers the extraordinarily high "registration fees" being required by each state in the current and pending legislation. Whatever the case, I would hope Greg & Tom will quickly address these issues that will allow us to make other plans to either attend legal live drafts, or to switch to other venues/on-line sites.

Let me personally apologize to everyone for the silence over the last two months on the NFFC boards. It's never intentional and honestly we had hoped for an early March launch just like last year. But we launched a new game in baseball and it became all-consuming from a programming standpoint and a monitoring standpoint that we all just got engulfed on a daily basis. We are still working on that contest as we speak to make sure FAAB goes off as planned on Monday, but hopefully once that is done we can finally launch the NFFC site.

That's certainly no excuse for being away from football for the last month, but we promise to unveil everything on Monday and to get us drafting in the next week to 10 days. We are as excited about the upcoming season as you guys are and we expect football to follow baseball's lead. We jumped from just over 7,000 teams in baseball last year to over 8,300 teams this year. That's a lot of new members coming to our contests and we expect many of them to check out football this year as well. It was a massive undertaking this year, but it was a huge success and now we move onto football.

Again, look for all contest offerings no later than Monday and be ready for Registration this week. We will be drafting before the NFL Draft and we'll have our Signup List active soon. Sorry for the late start, but the NFFC is ready for its 13th season and we expect it to be another record-breaking one. Thanks all and good luck.

And as I stated on the other thread, here's the draft dates:

New York Hilton: Sept. 2-3
Las Vegas Bellagio: Sept. 2-3
Las Vegas Bellagio: Sept. 8-10

[Greg Ambrosius]

Also Tom.... Does the NFFC have a position on the VA Bill? And how will it effect the NFFC?

It's a very good question and one we're talking with the FFPC, FFWC and other season-long game operators about. The law doesn't take effect until July 1st and we are trying to talk with legislators to let them know what this bill does to small business operators. Basically instead of punishing Fanduel and Draft Kings they have enabled them. With a $50,000 license fee, they are the only two companies who will be able to pay this, thus eliminating ALL of their competition in the state. Indiana has the same setup. Those two companies are rejoicing because Virginia and Indiana have found a way to eliminate all competition with these bills and have helped both companies, not hurt them. $50,000 to eliminate all of your competition is a drop in the bucket for these two companies.

Dave and Alex have created a new trade association to fight back on these bills and I've been out of the loop during all of this. Let me catch up on all of this and see where we're at, but I sure hope we are able to get these states to understand what they've done and to update these bills before they become law. We'll see if that happens.

Right now it's almost impossible to know what 50 different states are doing to combat DFS. Unfortunately, some of these bills are throwing season-long under the bus as well and NOBODY is fighting for our games. I mean, we are collateral damage to what happened in DFS last year and it's just not right. We'll give an update when we know more and again we are working with our peers in this space to come up with a sound plan. Look for more details soon. Thanks.