What Is Going To Happen To High-Stakes Fantasy Football?

Erok · Post by **Erok** » Tue May 03, 2011 6:30 am

Ill let other NFFC owners comment on your suggestion above Mike, but I'm not sure duplicating what WCOFF set up is ever what I want to do here. I know some folks are used to the 11-week season and h2h for two weeks of playoffs, but is that really the best high-stakes format? Do you really think the best teams in each league win their league titles that way?

In the NFFC Primetime, we play 13 weeks of a regular season and if you have the best h2h record and most total points in your league you win $5,000. In another contest, you can go 11-0 in h2h and have the most total points after 11 weeks, win only $2,000, lose your first playoff game and barely get your entry fee back. Is that the best setup? I'm not a fan of league playoffs in a h2h format because honestly there's more luck in that format than the way we have it set up.

Maybe I'm wrong and I'd love to hear from more owners on this. But as a player, I want a setup where I get rewarded when I dominate my leaguemates. Why do I have to dominate them during the regular season and then hope for two lucky weeks of h2h play? Heck, I thought most of you hated straight-up h2h play!!!

We'd love to invite WCOFF owners to check out our rules, check out our playoff formats, check out our payments and compare them to the other contests. Mike, I'm not sure everyone wants a h2h playoff format to decide the league champion. Again, I might be wrong Mike, but let's find out. Let me know folks and we'll throw it into the think tank.
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ABSOLUTELY NOT! Do not ever change that playoff format. It is the fairest and best I have ever seen in 15 years of playing fantasy football. I absolutely love the three week points accumulation with the highest scorer being the champion. It takes the randomness out of it, especially if it is a high stakes league.

Cocktails and Dreams · Post by **Cocktails and Dreams** » Tue May 03, 2011 7:44 am

Originally posted by Erok:
Here's my two cents on the Live High Stakes Leagues:

I personally do not like the HUGE disparities in the payouts between 1st & 2nd & 3rd, etc, for the league prizes or the overall prizes.......I know everyone wants to dangle the $100,000 to the winner or $200,000 for first place, but to then make 2nd place $12,000,etc....???

That is terrible IMO, especially since the playoffs can be a total crap shoot at that point in the season with a whole new bunch of variables. I would much rather see a league winner get $6000, 2nd get $3000, 3rd get $1000, or something like that.

Then for the overall prize something like 1st is $50,000 , 2nd is $30,000, 3rd is $20,000, and so on and so fourth. I realize that the playoffs are a total crap shoot and that your odds are not that good to win the main prize that is why I would rather play in several satellite leagues accumulating a bunch of little prizes with better odds of cashing something. I'm sure others will argue the opposite side but to me this is more logical. I also agree with the poster that said the entry for the live event should be $1,000. More than that is too expensive for one league, and it isnt a big deal to me if the grand prize gets $100,000 or not.

Its just easier now for me to do the online leagues from the comfort of my home being Ive gotten married and had two kids over the past several years. To spend close to $2K to travel and do the live event is really too tough nowadays.

If the live event was $800 or $1000 I really would consider doing it again. I think the top 3 should be paid out and you can even argue the Top 4. I look at FF as an investment as I am sure many of you guys do on here. I like to believe I can put myself in a position to cash a decent amount of $ in every league I do, even though I dont win it all. I dont have to be the champ. I am looking for return on investment if I finish 2nd or 3rd, etc...

Curious as to how you other guys feel about this. I like the league only games and the main events. Both have their place, and it is up to you decide how you want to balance your fund allocation that fits your goals in my opinion.

particra · Post by **particra** » Wed May 04, 2011 8:41 am

If I had my way, i would split the League money 50/50 between h2h champ and points leader. If you get both, you get all of the money and 2nd place gets nothing.

For non-ME satellite leagues, I wouldn't even use a playoff system. Every one of those leagues would be set up as 16 weeks; 50% of pot goes to points leader; 50% goes to H2H leader under an All-Play system. 100% goes to the person that gets them both.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Wed May 04, 2011 9:00 am

Originally posted by Hells Satans:
If I had my way, i would split the League money 50/50 between h2h champ and points leader. If you get both, you get all of the money and 2nd place gets nothing.

For non-ME satellite leagues, I wouldn't even use a playoff system. Every one of those leagues would be set up as 16 weeks; 50% of pot goes to points leader; 50% goes to H2H leader under an All-Play system. 100% goes to the person that gets them both. I understand the mentality Bob and some players like to win as much as possible in every game they play. But from a game operator's standpoint, having only 1 of 14 owners in each league possibly winning any money at all is bad for retention of customers!! I hope you understand that. It's already tough to retain customers when 11 of 14 don't win any money. So I think you have to be smart with your payouts.

Full 16-week seasons with no playoffs sometimes can have many teams eliminated before the halfway point of a season. The hope of catching those top two teams can end sooner than the hope of having a shot at making the playoff round. But I hear why some folks would like that format.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Wed May 04, 2011 9:32 am

I'd be interested in hearing feedback from our NFFC players on this subject: If the NFL lockout does carry into July, what type of time-frame do you need to be able to plan your travel and hotels and finances to play high-stakes fantasy football this year? I know we can still put everything together if needed with a resolution before Aug. 1st, but can our players still make their plans if the owners wait that long or longer?? It's worth discussing now that it looks like we could be looking at a long legal fight before any serious negotiations begin again.

Thoughts?

King of Queens · Post by **King of Queens** » Wed May 04, 2011 9:58 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:
I'd be interested in hearing feedback from our NFFC players on this subject: If the NFL lockout does carry into July, what type of time-frame do you need to be able to plan your travel and hotels and finances to play high-stakes fantasy football this year? I know we can still put everything together if needed with a resolution before Aug. 1st, but can our players still make their plans if the owners wait that long or longer?? It's worth discussing now that it looks like we could be looking at a long legal fight before any serious negotiations begin again.

Thoughts? I would say anything 21 days or more would be enough for me to pull it off. Plane tickets tend to get very expensive with less than 3 weeks until departure.

How about we plan on meeting up in Vegas regardless of what happens? A couple friends of mine have some unfinished business at Margaritaville.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Wed May 04, 2011 10:24 am

Originally posted by King of Queens:
quote:Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:
I'd be interested in hearing feedback from our NFFC players on this subject: If the NFL lockout does carry into July, what type of time-frame do you need to be able to plan your travel and hotels and finances to play high-stakes fantasy football this year? I know we can still put everything together if needed with a resolution before Aug. 1st, but can our players still make their plans if the owners wait that long or longer?? It's worth discussing now that it looks like we could be looking at a long legal fight before any serious negotiations begin again.

Thoughts? I would say anything 21 days or more would be enough for me to pull it off. Plane tickets tend to get very expensive with less than 3 weeks until departure.

How about we plan on meeting up in Vegas regardless of what happens? A couple friends of mine have some unfinished business at Margaritaville. [/QUOTE]Sounds like a plan and I do agree on your timetable. I think the venues we have picked will work with us on holding space as long as possible for us because they know what is going on with the NFL, too. I think we'll be fine there.

I took RT to Jimmy Buffet's in March and we rocked with the house band on the first night. A pile of nachos, some margarita's and some greasy food sounds good to me!!

Let's do it. And I think that unfinished business will still be there on both weekends.

eliasond · Post by **eliasond** » Sun May 08, 2011 6:01 pm

I agree with the comments a couple of posts back about not liking the steep decline of payouts after 1st place.

When you have 322 teams and the overall champion gets $100K and 4th place only gets $2,500, and 9th place gets nothing, that to me is too steep a decline. I know there are league prizes, but if you play 3-4 events and win one league, you barely break even to cover all of them.

It's not horrible to set it up this way, I understand the marketing aspect and all, it would just be my preference to spread some decent money around to several of the top finishers, instead of a big windfall to one person.

I'll give you my sob story to illustrate the point -- kind of -- I also just like telling the story! In 2009 in the Main Event, we drafted the best team we've ever had (Miles Austin, Vernon Davis, and Sidney Rice all within Rds 13-16, along with Peyton, Grant, and Vincent Jackson from the earlier rounds), dominated our league by over 100 pts, finished 5-8 H2H (that's another story), and finished 2nd overall in the entire contest in the regular season by only a couple of points. So didn't win that bonus, then had a couple of average weeks in the playoffs, finished about 15th if I recall and got nothing for that. Luckily the H2H champ in our league was even more average than we were in the playoffs so we did win the extra $2,500 for league champ. It is funny now to look back and think that we could have easily just barely broke above even with this team!

Bottom line -- me and my co-manager are charter members of the NFFC and aren't going anywhere else, so whatever Tom and Greg decide is fine with me -- I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in. Maybe a few more dollars and spots to the top overall point leaders in the regular season for each contest, if the playoff prize structure is set in stone?

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Mon May 09, 2011 2:22 am

It's tough to satisfy every aspect of the prize payouts based on 322 teams, which the Classic is right now. Having a grand prize less than $100,000 in this competitive marketplace is not the right plan, but I hear what you're saying. The goal is to grow this contest beyond 322 teams and any additional prize money from there will go to 2nd to 10th overall and other aspects of the overall prizes. I don't believe we need to enhance the grand prize at this point beyond $100,000, but there are other aspects of our overall prize pool that could use some more muscle.

In the NFBC, we had 390 teams this year and 435 last year. We increased the league prizes slightly and bumped up the overall prizes, while leaving the grand prize at $100,000. That would be the same plan in football -- for the Classic and the Primetime -- if demand exceeds expectations.

Old School · Post by **Old School** » Mon May 09, 2011 5:38 am

Hey Tom and Greg

So happy that you guys got the reigns back from you-know who. A long as you guys are running the show, I'll be back to play in the NFFC every year.

That is providing there's football.

I have a bad feeling we will see see no football this year. I actually blame the players union. The last CBA was so one-side in their favor, that football was headed for a disaster. They are the ones that hired a sleazebag lawyer and brought it to the courts.

I hope I'm wrong. Football was one of the few escapes from the harsh realities of life.

BTW, I personally think the playoff format of the NFFC is the best and most fair. Please don't change .