NFFC Message Boards

Normally we have all of our plans set in stone by the first week of January, but the state of the economy and the state of the fantasy football industry has us taking our time this year. Our two-event format needs a little tweaking if we are going to continue that way going forward and it starts with the price for each event. We've heard from enough of you that offering two $1,300 entry fee leagues will make it tough for you to play both this year, so we're still analyzing the NFFC Primetime now and should have more details soon.

Here are the changes we are looking to make in 2009 and I'm looking for your feedback on each of them. Please feel free to post your thoughts here and we'll nail this down shortly.

1. NFFC Classic will remain at $1,300 per team and we will keep the same league prizes and all of the overall prizes with the exception of one. We based last year's prizes on 392 teams and finished with 308 teams. This year we will base the guaranteed overall prize pool on 322 teams, which means there is $28,000 less to put towards the overall prize pool.

As a result, we will be knocking down the overall prize from $100,000 to $75,000. One prize will be affected, but we are still paying out over 75% and if we grow beyond 322 teams all of the additional prize money will be put right back into the overall grand prize. For those of you who love the 14-team format and want to see this survive and grow, hopefully you'll understand that we can do this together and reach $100,000 again if we can get more leagues each year. I don't want to affect the league prizes or the other overall prizes, so making this one change keeps the guarantee level manageable for us and allows us to grow this together.

2. We will be adding all third place finishers in each league to reach the Championship Round. This year we had 48 teams in the NFFC Classic Championship Round counting the wild card teams and if we had allowed third place teams into the Championship Round it would have been 66. The NFL has proven that any team can win it all once it gets to the playoffs and there's no reason for us not to go the same route. Adding more teams will make finishing third in your league more worthwhile and more profitable, will keep teams fighting longer each year, and will give more teams a shot at the $75,000 grand prize. Only 21.4% of all teams are still making the Championship Round in this new format, which is still a select few.

3. We will consider adding a third team to the year-end league playoff round if the team that finished second in that league in total points is knocked to third place. In other words, if one team finishes first in Total Points and the h2h champ didn't finish first or second in Total Points, then three teams will compete for the remaining $2,500. More details on this will come soon as I'm still working on this one.

4. FAAB Deadlines: There are three options for everyone to consider: 1) Just leave FAAB on Friday night for all weeks, including those in Weeks 10-13 where there are early games; or 2) Keep Friday night FAAB deadline on Friday all year and allow a Wednesday FAAB pickup in Weeks 10-13 ONLY for teams playing in the early games; or 3) Keep the setup we have now with Friday deadlines for FAAB in Weeks 1-9 and Wednesday FAAB deadlines for Weeks 10-13. Those would be the only players you could pick up with the Wednesday deadline. So in essence, you could have two FAAB periods during Weeks 10-13.

5. We'll need to write language into our rules allowing the commissioner to make an executive decision with free agent pickups before kickoff if the NFL ever cancels another game after our Friday night FAAB deadline. We can work on that together.

6. The NFFC will offer an online component for both main events this year so that participants can still compete in the NFFC Classic or NFFC Primetime main events from home. We'll work with MockDraftCentral.com to host these online drafts and will use a teleconference hookup to ensure that the online draft is held under the same guidelines as the live drafts. All participants will be randomly split into full online leagues and will be given an 800-number to call into for their league. An MDC.com official will handle all picks and once a team announces their pick, MDC will then "post" the pick on the site for all league members to see. Participants will have access to all current picks, team rosters and available players just like a live draft. This will work well for both main events.

We do not have the NFFC Primetime figured out yet, but we are definitely looking for feedback on that one. Remember, we had 252 teams last year and based our prize money on 390 teams at $1300 each. We can't do that again this year.

Here's a thought: $750 per team for the NFFC Primetime while basing the prizes on 300 teams. We could offer $2,000 plus no co-manager fees for any team that will do both main events and keep the same percentage of payouts for league prizes. Under this scenario, the grand prize would be only $40,000, but we'd add to that total for every league after 25.

It's tough to make it all work at $750 per team and still cover all expenses for live events and still create the type of overall prize structure everyone has come to know and expect from us. But this does allow for the doubleheader, allows us to grow both 12-team and 14-team formats and gives our participants more games to play once they've already paid for travel to the live events.

I would consider adding third place teams to the Championship Round in the NFFC Primetime as well, which means 25% of all teams would have a shot at the grand prize. The one change would be the choice of the "All Play format in the 12-team leagues as I'd seriously consider scheduling the "All Play" formats during Weeks 4 and 10 when the NFL had six teams each week on byes.

There would be $4,400 available in league prizes under this format. Prizes could be $2,750, $1,250, $400 or something of that variation. Overall prize pool would have about $59,000 to play with, which would leave us something like $40,000 for first, $10,000 for second, $5,000 for third, $1,000 for fourth, and $700 free entries for 5th through 8th.

All NFFC Primetime free entries won in 2008 are still worth $1,300 in prizes and can be used for this main event with the remaining funds used for any other event or contest.

I'd love to offer both at $1,300 again, but the time doesn't seem right for that now.

Anyway, I'd love to see some feedback and see if there's a way we can start from here and grow both events together. Personally, I still like the two-event format and in Las Vegas I could see us even offering "Draft and Go" games throughout the weekend. The space is there and the die-hard players are there, so why not offer drafts throughout the weekend? There's more we can do, but hopefully folks will realize that we need to be smart with our guaranteed prize payouts and build this again. In 2004, we shot for 308 teams and had league payouts of $7,500 each. Now we have league payouts of $8,750 and thus we'll keep that level intact and grow the grand prize together.

Thanks for all your support through the years and let's make 2009 even better than 2008 together.

[ January 20, 2009, 09:12 AM: Message edited by: Greg Ambrosius ]

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:
2. We will be adding all third place finishers in each league to reach the Championship Round. This year we had 48 teams in the NFFC Classic Championship Round counting the wild card teams and if we had allowed third place teams into the Championship Round it would have been 66. The NFL has proven that any team can win it all once it gets to the playoffs and there's no reason for us not to go the same route. Adding more teams will make finishing third in your league more worthwhile and more profitable, will keep teams fighting longer each year, and will give more teams a shot at the $100,000 grand prize. Only 21.4% of all teams are still making the Championship Round in this new format, which is still a select few.

3. We will consider adding a third team to the year-end league playoff round if the team that finished second in that league in total points is knocked to third place. In other words, if one team finishes first in Total Points and the h2h champ didn't finish first or second in Total Points, then three teams will compete for the remaining $2,500. More details on this will come soon as I'm still working on this one.
Greg,

First of all, I think I speak for everyone when I say that we all appreciate your honesty in this situation, and that is just one reason why the NFFC is the best game around.

That being said, I am a little disheartened that the $100,000 grand prize for the 14 teamer is being scaled back to $75,000 (by the way, you may want to change that in your language of paragraph 2. above). However, you gotta do what you gotta do, and $75,000 is nothing to sneeze at! The best part IMO is that ALL the other prizes are still intact.

I for one am HIGHLY against adding a guaranteed 3rd team to the playoffs. I realize anyone can win it in the NFL, but we don't have the control they do. That being said, you know I am still in.

I really like the idea of scaling back the NBC 12 teamer, as even last year, it never had the same importance as the NFFC 14 teamer, IMO. Two teams at $2,000 is a great idea.

Although I read over it quickly, I didn't see any mention of the million dollar bonus. I assume that is still in play???

I think you've done the math and changed the entry and payout structures as rationally as possible given the state of the economy;

Though it's a departure from what we've done in the past, having three (3) teams from each league make the overall championship round will provide an additional incentive to compete in the NFFC when compared to other high stakes contests;

I share Billy's assumption that given the tweaks to the payout structure we still have the million dollar bonus;

Thanks for being proactive about 2009... the fact that you're thinking ahead, adapting, and responding to customer feedback is what I want in a contest

I'm feeling some responsibility here to do whatever I can to save the NFFC.
I don't know about the rest of you but this has become more than a contest to me.

The NFFC is about lifelong friendship!
It's about a once a year event that makes all the crappy days of the year worthwhile. To me it's Christmas in Aug/Sept and I would hate to lose it.

Here's my question to Greg: What can we do better as customers to help the NFFC grow and stay around for years to come?

I appreciate what you've tried to create here and I hate the fact that others are losing money promoting other high stakes contests in order to claim market share.

F..k them. This is our event. WE created KDS together. WE created 3RR together. WE created a canyon of online satellites together. WE can start leagues..grude matches..whatever.

This started out as Gregs vision and he let us all have a part of making it what it is now. That doesn't happen every day.

Sorry for the vent but I love the NFFC. Put me down for being on board to do whatever it takes to keep this event alive.

I can weather some lean years on the grand prize because I know this event will grow strong and be around for a long time if we stay the course.

The league prizes are a fair reward. 4x your entry fee isn't bad. Only 5 people have won the 14 team 100K to date. A whole lot more have cashed the 5K check for the league title.

Sure I want the biggest grand prize we can get but I also know that if we build this thing right it could exceed our expectations.

2009...I'm in!




[ January 19, 2009, 02:41 PM: Message edited by: Route C ]

I don't have any problem with the 3rd team being in the main playoff hunt.

Most of these teams will finish at the bottom of the main playoff, just like low scoring h2h winners do.

A team that had a lot of injuries, battled through them, and charges hard at the end should be rewarded. That's why we play the game.

In Year 2, I had a team go from 10th to 3rd the last three weeks after having 6 main players go down by Week 2.

Thanks for considering 3rd playoff team when h2h is 3rd or lower in points. If the h2h winner beats both these teams, it is no fluke then.

Whatever you choose for FAAB, keep it simple and the same for all weeks. It's very hard to change gears in season to those that have a life.

Originally posted by Route C:
I hate the fact that others are losing money promoting other high stakes contests in order to claim market share.

F..k them. This is our event. WE created KDS together. WE created 3RR together. WE created a canyon of online satellites together. WE can start leagues..grude matches..whatever.I concur 100%. The ROI player got what they wanted, but they can't comprehend how damaging it is to the high stakes segment in the long run.

I sit on both sides of the fence. One day, and maybe that day is here now, you guys will wake up and realize that if these companies don't make a reasonable profit, they're not going to be around too long.

And that companies that enter the market with even worse profit margins can't grow because it takes CAPITAL to grow.

It's sad, but was oh so predictable a year ago that they would be screaming to their customers this year that they can't sustain business at these margins. Good luck to all of you that support this product, but don't be surprised the day they close there doors.

Signed,
Celebrating my 25th year in this business.

Originally posted by BillyWaz:
I for one am HIGHLY against adding a guaranteed 3rd team to the playoffs...I am against that also.
The 3rd team that gets in should be the team with the second best record anyway. Not some team that had 2 good weeks and outscore him by 10 points, but lose 4 or 5 more games.
Do you really want to have that argument again?
6-7 or 5-8 teams do not belong in the playoffs.
"Playoffs" is an old Yiddish term that means "some teams are already out of it cause they blew chunks."
There is a very nice bracket for 5-8 teams.

NBC: I think moving the all-play weeks to bye weeks would (How do I put this nicely and with utmost respect?) be for the frickin' birds.

I'd keep the waivers the same as they were.
I'd rather them run at 5 like the year before last so I am free Friday nights.

I'd just remember that if God himself decides they ain't playin' in Houston, then they ain't playin' in Houston.
No special FA periods need to be created.
Dude, that's why they call him God.

Everything else sounds OK.

Originally posted by Route C:
I'm feeling some responsibility here to do whatever I can to save the NFFC.
I don't know about the rest of you but this has become more than a contest to me.

The NFFC is about lifelong friendship!
It's about a once a year event that makes all the crappy days of the year worthwhile. To me it's Christmas in Aug/Sept and I would hate to lose it.

Here's my question to Greg: What can we do better as customers to help the NFFC grow and stay around for years to come?

I appreciate what you've tried to create here and I hate the fact that others are losing money promoting other high stakes contests in order to claim market share.

F..k them. This is our event. WE created KDS together. WE created 3RR together. WE created a canyon of online satellites together. WE can start leagues..grude matches..whatever.

This started out as Gregs vision and he let us all have a part of making it what it is now. That doesn't happen every day.

Sorry for the vent but I love the NFFC. Put me down for being on board to do whatever it takes to keep this event alive.

I can weather some lean years on the grand prize because I know this event will grow strong and be around for a long time if we stay the course.

The league prizes are a fair reward. 4x your entry fee isn't bad. Only 5 people have won the 14 team 100K to date. A whole lot more have cashed the 5K check for the league title.

Sure I want the biggest grand prize we can get but I also know that if we build this thing right it could exceed our expectations.

2009...I'm in!


Thanks Jeff and you are one of our more passionate NFFC members who honestly loves the setup and friendships we've made together over the last five years. Thanks for the invitation to help, but honestly all I'm asking for is some understanding by everyone as to why we need to lower one prize, the grand prize from $100,000 to $75,000.

For five years, I've guaranteed the $100,000 grand prize based on more teams than I finished with. Honestly, this is because in Year One I shot for the moon and when all of you guys agreed to stick with me at $100,000 instead of $200,000 for the grand prize, I played catch-up the rest of the way. That year I just lowered one prize, but to even stay there I needed to reach 364 teams to pay out 75%. Considering I started at 224, then 280, then 308, then 364 and back down to 308, I didn't fare so well for the company. And so reality has set in that something has to give in football or it just won't work.

It's possible that something could come about in the next month that allows us to stay at $100,000, but I thought it would be smart to let everyone know that it's more likely that we try to sell out both events at 322 teams and 300 teams and if we grow above those levels together that the remaining prize money will go back towards the overall grand prize.

The 12-team format has the potential to grow at a lesser price point, but I realized last year that my main NFFC guys/gals are the ones who will make that event succeed or fail. If they don't play both, then it's tough to fill that up because there are enough 12-team contests out there for folks to choose from. But doing two different national contests in one day is something nobody else offers, so let's make it affordable and see what this brings.

Again, spread the word and let folks know that the NFFC is back for 2009 and if enough folks think this format has merit, then we'll finalize it and get the Registration page set up. Personally, I'd like to make the 12-team event more prominent, but let's see what this price point does and if more NFFC veterans can do both contests then we'll build from this in future years and separate ourselves from the competition.

Only time will tell, but I know one thing: Last year's guarantees almost killed me and I'm too young to die!!

EVERYTHING SOUNDS GOOD GREG AND LIKE BILLY SAID WE ALL APPRECIATE THE HONESTY.

I PERSONALLY WOULDN'T LIKE TO SEE A THIRD TEAM IN THE HUNT AND THIS COMES FROM A PERSON WHO FINISHED SECOND IN POINTS IN THE 14 TEAMER AND DIDN'T MAKE THE PLAYOFFS.


I KNOW IT IS STILL A LOW NUMBER THAT WILL MAKE IT BUT I WOULDN'T WANT TO "SATURATE" THE PLAYOFFS.


ALSO I STILL THINK SINCE THE NFFC MAIN EVENT SHOULD BE MOVED TO THE LATER START SINCE IT WILL BE YOUR "BIGGER" EVENT.


OTHER THAN THAT, THAT IS ALL I CAN THINK OF FOR NOW.

Originally posted by JohnZ:
quote:Originally posted by Route C:
I hate the fact that others are losing money promoting other high stakes contests in order to claim market share.

F..k them. This is our event. WE created KDS together. WE created 3RR together. WE created a canyon of online satellites together. WE can start leagues..grude matches..whatever.I concur 100%. The ROI player got what they wanted, but they can't comprehend how damaging it is to the high stakes segment in the long run.

I sit on both sides of the fence. One day, and maybe that day is here now, you guys will wake up and realize that if these companies don't make a reasonable profit, they're not going to be around too long.

And that companies that enter the market with even worse profit margins can't grow because it takes CAPITAL to grow.

It's sad, but was oh so predictable a year ago that they would be screaming to their customers this year that they can't sustain business at these margins. Good luck to all of you that support this product, but don't be surprised the day they close there doors.

Signed,
Celebrating my 25th year in this business. [/QUOTE]I think we both can admit that we've seen this industry on the roller-coaster long enough to know that when one portion of the industry is hot everyone jumps in. And when it's no longer hot or when a few companies damage that area, then folks move on to the "next hot thing."

But that's life in business. I know the WCOFF and its participants didn't like me in 2004 when I chose to provide a new live event product and the companies who emerged in 2008 were just offering products that they felt were still underserved. More power to all of them who gained market share in Year One and are planning for Year Two.

Football is a players' paradise right now because the payout percentage is so good. No game operator made as much money as their champions in 2008, that's for sure!! And that's okay for the players because they don't need to worry about whether we make money or not. That's our job, not theirs. I'm just saying that I think we have an okay product here, we have five years of history to build on and I'm hopeful that our current participants stick with us for 2009, even if they still compete in all of these other events.

I'll admit that I enjoy our baseball event much more right now because it's a more stable marketplace. The fact that we're currently the only live high-stakes event in that market doesn't hurt, either. But I think football still has great promise for us and NBC Sports, and we're just hopeful that our customers stick with us as we try to grow beyond 300 teams per event. If we grow to the levels we all think we can with these events, then the grand prizes will be back near $100,000 and $50,000+ again.

[ January 19, 2009, 03:34 PM: Message edited by: Greg Ambrosius ]