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As long-time NFFC veterans know, the NFFC Classic is our baby. It is our signature event that we introduced to the industry in 2004 as the only 14-team national contest. It remains the industry's only 14-team national contest and today it's more of a dinosaur than a baby.

Our baby is now 16 years old and we finished 2019 with 252 teams and an $85,000 grand prize. In 2004, we had 224 teams and a $100,000 grand prize. The industry has moved on to 12 team national contests and so have we with $200,000 grand prizes now in the NFFC Primetime and in the Rotowire Online Championship. In a way, we are making it harder for even our most loyal customers to stay in the 14-team format.

The history of how we got into the 14-team format is interesting. In 2004 when I introduced the National Fantasy Baseball Championship, I wanted a tougher competition and decided to create a 15-team mixed league national contest. It gained some momentum and the format accomplished what I had set out to do, so when we decided to compete in the football space an equally challenging 14-team format seemed about right. Plus the WCOFF already had a stranglehold on the 12-team format and I just didn't think people would compete in multiple formats that were the same. I think now as I look back I was wrong, but we debuted with the 14-team NFFC Classic nonetheless.

The Classic peaked at 364 teams (26 leagues) all drafting on the same day in 2007, but the numbers began to fall after that. In 2009 we introduced the NFFC Primetime with 182 owners doing both contests. It was the last year that the Classic outdrew the Primetime (294 teams vs. 276), but we still had 280 teams in 2017 and 2018, which were sellouts as we reduced the grand prize from $100,000 to $80,000. We could make the Classic work as recently as 2018, but this year showed that this format is straining to maintain those levels, so it's time to look at everything.

We all know that there is a die-hard audience for this tough, 14-team format and I don't think we'll ever abandon it. As several folks said to me in Las Vegas, it's the contest we are most known for and the NFFC just wouldn't be the same without a 14-team national contest. But that's where we need to work together. For all its efforts and hard work, it can't be a break-even contest and we can't just keep expanding by having fewer owners take more teams. We need more than 150 unique owners and by reducing the grand prize again it makes it tougher and tougher each year to attract the number of teams to make the guaranteed overall prize pool work. In fact, it doesn't work.

So we've had some tough internal discussions recently about the future of the NFFC Classic. I'm sure some of you have had the same discussions within your groups. We want the Classic to grow and survive, but I don't think it can under its current prize format. We are looking at several scenarios for 2020 and I'll present them shortly. Now is as good a time as ever to start the discussion, so be ready.

The choices for 2020 will be posted shortly and we look forward to your feedback. Don't be afraid to post your comments on these boards, just like you did starting in 2004 when NOBODY was shy to post their thoughts. Thanks all and LONG LIVE THE NFFC CLASSIC!!!

And look for a followup survey that will be mailed to all recent NFFC Classic members. Those results will help us find the path that works in 2020 and beyond.

The NFFC Classic WILL be around in 2020, but we are trying to find the right mix of higher league prizes and a worthy overall prize pool to make this work. This is where we need your help.

We will be sending out a survey to all recent NFFC Classic owners later this morning and we'd appreciate it if you'd respond and give us your comments. Again, changes need to be made to the guaranteed prize pool to make the Classic work and that could result in a lower grand prize in exchange for higher league prizes. Finding that right mix is the input we are looking for.

In other words, would you shy away from a grand prize at $70,000 or lower even if that meant higher league prizes? Or would higher league prizes be a positive since we currently only pay the Top 10 overall anyway? Would a MUCH HIGHER league prize be more appealing and attract more players or would it be a turnoff because the overall prize pool would be much lower? That's what we need to figure out.

We have come up with three scenarios for 2020 based on 252 teams (18 leagues) like this year. One has higher league prizes with a much lower grand prize that still honors the overall Classic champion. The second scenario has a lower league prize increase with a $70,000 grand prize. And the third scenario puts all of the prize money within the league while still honoring an overall champion without ANY overall prize money.

Please pick one and provide your feedback. Here you go:

Option 1 ($15,700 in league prizes):
League Prizes:
1st - $10,000
2nd - $4,000
3rd - $1,700

Overall ($65,100 in prizes):
1st - $35,000
2nd - $7,000
3rd - $4,000
4th - $3,000
5th - $2,500
6th - $2,000
7th - $1,600
8th - $1,500
9th - $1,300
10th - $1,200
Consolation - $6,000 to top 3

Option 2 ($13,100 in league prizes; $900 more per league than 2019):
League Prizes:
1st - $8,000
2nd - $3,400
3rd - $1,700

Overall ($110,600 in prizes; just reduced 1st by $15,000):
1st - $70,000
2nd - $15,000
3rd - $5,000
4th - $4,000
5th - $3,000
6th - $2,000
7th - $1,600
8th - $1,500
9th - $1,300
10th - $1,200
Consolation - $6,000 to top 3

Option 3 - Just League Prizes:

1st - $12,000
2nd - $5,000
3rd - $2,000
No overall prize pool, but the Championship Round will run to determine the overall NFFC Classic champion.

Feel free to post your comments with your choice for 2020. Thanks all.

Option 2 ($13,100 in league prizes; $900 more per league than 2019):
League Prizes:
1st - $8,000
2nd - $3,400
3rd - $1,700

Overall ($110,600 in prizes; just reduced 1st by $15,000):
1st - $50,000 flatten the top 5 prize pool, $50k is a solid overall but spread more over top 5
2nd - $25,000
3rd - $10,000
4th - $7,000
5th - $5,000
6th - $2,000
7th - $1,600
8th - $1,500
9th - $1,300
10th - $1,200
Consolation - $6,000 to top 3

I think $50,000 is a perfect overall prize.


Wayne

+1 on the KJ Duke proposal - that looks perfect to me. I like the league structure where you can make almost 5x the entry fee and I LOVE the flatter overall prize structure but still with the chance to win $50K.

eliasond wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 18, 2019 9:23 am

+1 on the KJ Duke proposal - that looks perfect to me. I like the league structure where you can make almost 5x the entry fee and I LOVE the flatter overall prize structure but still with the chance to win $50K.

I am in favor of any proposal that improves the health of the NFFC Classic and we have no problem with flatter payouts. However, the industry has certainly gone for bigger carrots recently as that has become the selling point. Nobody has ever complained that one contest we all know has first place at a huge total and second place is 10% of that. Most of the prize money is in that selling point first place prize and people seem to love it.

So should the Classic be the only contest out there with flatter overall prizes and a smaller selling point grand prize? Help me with this one. I'm not against it, but help me with it!!!

I like KJ's proposal too

I like KJ's proposal too. Understood that the big grand prize is a very real draw in the 12 teamers, especially to new participants, but the people whose sign-ups are driven by that big grand prize are more likely to be gravitating towards the Primetime anyways.

I'll post a couple of replies that came to me via email:

"I like higher league prizes while still having a worthwhile (maybe flat) overall prize for the Classic. I like the idea of a $50,000-$60,000 top prize as referenced on the message board. While the high first prize is a great marketing ploy I think your average Classic player is more of a grinder than the online, cultine and probably even Primtime player. We look past the top prize to see how the overall contest structure can be beneficial to our overall portfolio. With that being said I love the idea of a more balanced payout to the overall 1-10 with more money allocated to league prizes. A total reduction of 1/3 to the overall prizes seems logical to me so long as most of that money is allocated back in the individual leagues. I can say I enjoy the Classic more than anything else I do in FF because of the difficulty and enjoy a 14 team league because you get to go deeper into rosters."

Here's one more:

" I voted for option 3 with the highest league prizes, however, I suggest allocating an additional $600 or so from each league (perhaps $200 from each money winner) and put that towards the final Classic Champion. It's hard to get people to play hard in the Championship Round without some monetary prize."

One more:

"While I am for $50K Grand Prize, I don’t like the flattening aspect. $15K is fine for 2nd place…put the extra money towards 1st place in league money…increasing it to 9K."

I know this may sound blasphemous, but... is it possible that the biggest obstacle to attracting and keeping participants in the 14-team format is the fact that the same number of teams make the playoffs as in 12-team leagues (3). Much discussion has been had over the years on the "lottery" that the overall playoffs are. Would people be more willing to play this format if - when deserving - 4 (or more) teams from each league made the playoffs instead of just 3? At least in the League playoffs, if not also the Overall?

Note on the above "when deserving" phrase: If you read some of the prior discussions in the links below, what I proposed for this was whenever any number of teams in a league were within 2% of the points of the last team from that league who made the playoff by points. And though this may sound a little challenging to convey in written rules, I think most players might be quite pleased to realize that they have another way to make the playoffs when they were really quite close to those who did. It's really just a league-specific variation on the current 15% Overall Wildcard solution. I mean, while the 15% solution is nice, I've always found it a little odd because most of the other playoff spots (at least the non-H2H ones) are awarded based on individual league points - not in relation to points scored across ALL the other leagues.

My son, Kevin, and I still love the Classic format because of its challenges: we all come away from the drafts with a hole (or 2 or more!) in our teams that we know we have to work hard to fill throughout the year. And because of the 14 teams still drafting 20 rounds, the waiver wire is thinner and our job even tougher. THIS is why we like it. But there are too many ways to have a good team and be on the outside looking in with just three playoff teams from each league.

Even the 15% wildcard feature doesn't fully address the issue some players may feel about just barely not making the playoffs in their league. Let's face it, some leagues are just tougher than others. So having an arbitrary "top 15%" from across ALL leagues doesn't help the team who came within a few points of the last points-based playoff team in their perhaps brutally-challenging league as much as it does teams in softer leagues, where the top few teams could really vastly outscore the top teams from other, more evenly-distributed-by-points leagues.

Here are some discussions from seven years ago with suggestions to tweak how Classic playoff teams are determined:
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=11544
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=11400&p=181180&hil ... ze#p181180
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=11544&start=40#p181701
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=11400&hilit=classi ... 20#p181115

And if there's no desire to alter how many teams make the Overall Playoffs, then perhaps at least letting a 4th team cash in each League Playoffs would help retain more players? Or, as in the suggestion links above, maybe not every league's 4th place team gets in, but just those within a predetermined percentage of the last points-based team?

When we discussed this seven years ago, I get it that there wasn't much desire to change things. But it sounds like the Classic is in some trouble now seven years later. So maybe it now will require some more drastic changes to survive?

I also understand that the die-hard vets probably won't favor this; but I doubt they're the ones we're most at risk of losing. The "casual" 14-team fan (if that even exists) may simply want better odds of cashing. And if we really want the Classic to survive, it's quite possible we need to think outside the box a bit to get to the heart of why it's losing entries.