Here are the rules for the debut NFFC Online Championship. They will be posted on the home page shortly:
Section I: Official Rules and Regulations of the
NBC Sports NFFC Online Championship
1. Overview: The NBC Sports NFFC Online Championship is a skill based, season long competition that will consist of individual leagues, each comprised of 12 teams/managers. The NFFC Online Championship will run from Week 1 through Week 13 in a league format, with each team playing every other team once in head-to-head competition plus two weeks of “all play”, and a Championship Round consisting of the top two teams from each league for a shot at the guaranteed $20,000 grand prize. Teams will be grouped into 25 separate leagues (300 teams). The NFFC may increase the Leagues up to a maximum of 50 (600 teams) if demand warrants it with the prize pool increasing at the same level. All playoff teams will carry their weekly scoring average from the first 13 weeks of the regular season into the Championship Round and add that score to their point totals in Weeks 14, 15 and 16 to produce their playoff scoring total. The team with the most points in the Championship Round wins the $20,000 grand prize.
2. Draft: All NFFC Online Championship League drafts will be held online at
www.MockDraftCentral.com from Tuesday, Sept. 1st through Wednesday, Sept. 9th. Participants can enter as many Online Championship leagues as they’d like and be eligible for the league and overall prizes. For a complete list of available NFFC Online Championship Leagues, click on the REGISTER link on the NFFC home page, go to the second page and click on VIEW ONLINE CHAMPIONSHIP LEAGUES. The entire list will show up.
If an NFFC participant inadvertently leaves the draft with an illegal lineup (for instance, was without a kicker or tight end) then the NFFC will drop the last pick made by that team (or more picks if needed) and add the last player at that position on Fantasy Sports Magazine's final Cheat Sheet on Draft Day to make that lineup legal. The NFFC participant could replace that player after that error was discovered during the first FAAB period on Sunday, Sept. 21. All lineups must be legal before the season starts and the NFFC will correct all errors that may have been missed at the online draft.
3. Roster Requirements: Maximum of 20 players at all times. There is no Injured Reserve list in the NFFC Online Championship.
4. Starting Lineup Requirements: Starting lineups will consist of:
* 1 Quarterback
* 2 Running Backs
* 3 Wide Receivers
* 1 Tight End
* 1 Flex Player (RB, WR or TE)
* 1 Kicker
* 1 Team Defense/Specials Team (A complete NFL Team)
(If no Week One lineup is submitted, the NFFC will determine your starting lineup. After Week One, if no starting lineup is submitted, your starting lineup will be that of the previous week.)
A. League Management Web Site: You can access your league by going to
www.fantasyfootballchampionship.com. You will need a username and a password to access the game site. Contact
[email protected] if you are signed up for the contest and don’t have a username and password. All drafts will be held online at
www.mockdraftcentral.com and owners will receive free access to this site before Draft Day and for the draft.
5. Scoring: You can accumulate points in the following ways:
PASSING:
* .05 points for every yard passing (works out to 1 point every 20 yards).
* 6 points for every passing touchdown
* 2 points for every 2-Point conversion
* Minus 1 point for every interception and lost fumble
RUSHING:
* .10 points for every yard rushing (works out to 1 point every 10 yards).
* 6 points for every rushing TD
* 2 points for every 2-Point conversion
* Minus 1 point for every lost fumble
* 6 points for a recovered offensive fumble for a touchdown (RB, QB, WR, TE)
RECEIVING:
* .10 points for every yard receiving (works out to 1 point every 10 yards).
* 6 points for every receiving TD
* 1 point for every reception for WRs, Tight Ends and QBs
* 0.5 points for every reception for RBs
* 2 points for every 2-Point conversion
* Minus 1 point for every lost fumble
KICKING:
* 1 point for every extra point
* 3 points for every field goal from 1-30 yards
* 3 points for every field goal plus .10 points for every yard after 30 yards (i.e. a 47-yard field goal would be worth 4.7 points)
DEFENSE/SPECIAL TEAMS:
* 1 point for every sack
* 2 points for every interception or opponents' fumble recovery
* 6 points for every touchdown (interception return, defensive fumble return, punt or kickoff return, blocked field goal return, blocked punt return). All special teams and defensive points are awarded to the team responsible, not the individual player. Should a kicker, punter or field goal holder throw a pass off a fake attempt, however, the offensive output for that offensive play would go towards the individual player, not the special teams. Also, any lost fumble or "muff" on a specials team play does not result in negative points for that individual player.
* 2 points for every safety
* 12 points for a shutout by the entire team
* 8 points for allowing 2-7 points by the entire team
* 4 points for allowing 8-12 points by the entire team
* 2 points for allowing 13-17 points by the entire team
6. The Draft: The draft will be held online at
www.mockdraftcentral.com in a serpentine fashion for each round using 3RR (1-12 in Round 1, 12-1 in Round 2, 12-1 in Round 3, 1-12 in Round 4 and continuing from there in serpentine fashion) for 20 rounds.
* A. League Management Web Address: STATS, Inc. will manage the NFFC and provide real-time stats online. You can access your league via the Internet by going to
http://game.fantasyfootballchampionship.com.
* B. Lineup Submission: All lineups may be submitted on the league web site and must be entered prior to the scheduled kickoff for the game affected.
* C. Scoring: The National Fantasy Football Championship will use a head-to-head scoring setup. Scoring will be accumulated each week from your 10 starters. Scores in the NFFC are finalized with no changes possible after 6 p.m. EST each Thursday after the weekend games.
7. Free Agent Acquisitions: Any player who is not on a team roster within your league is considered a free agent for that league. The free agent system will be a "blind bidding" process for each individual league (Free Agent Acquisition Bidding or FAAB). Each team will start with an imaginary $1,000 FAAB budget, and will be permitted to bid for free agents on a weekly basis after Week 1 through Week 13. No team will be informed of any other team's free agent bids before they're announced and only the winning bid and the runner-up bid will be announced afterwards to NFFC owners. The team with the highest bid on any given player will be awarded that player. The amount of the winning bid will be deducted from the winning team's free agent dollars. For each winning bid, the winning team must drop a player to make roster room for the free agent acquisition. If a team's free agent dollars goes to zero, that team will no longer be allowed to bid for the rest of the season. No bid will be accepted that is larger than a team's free agent dollars. All bids must be in increments of dollars (no cents).
8. Bidding Time Frame: The bidding process will be held each week after Week 1 and continues through the end of the NFFC regular season. Bids will be accepted on the league web site from Tuesday at 9 am ET until Friday at 9 p.m. ET in each of those weeks. Rosters will be updated by 10 p.m. ET Friday with the results of all successful bids.
Starting in Week 10 when the NFL adds Thursday games, the FAAB deadline will be moved to Wednesday at 8 p.m. EST to comply with the Thursday games. No FAAB pickups will be permitted in Weeks 14 through 16. All winning FAAB bids on Wednesdays are final at that time, even if a scoring change is made after that which would affect tied winning bids.
9. Conditional Bids: You can also submit optional conditional bids in the event your bid for a player is unsuccessful at any time during the bidding time frame. The first conditional bid will become relevant only if you are unsuccessful on the first bid. Subsequent conditional bids will become relevant only if the previous conditional bid fails.
10. Tied Bids: If there is a tie bid, the team that receives the player will be determined in order by:
1. Worst league record.
2. Lowest total points.
3. Head-to-head matchups of teams (losing team would get the player).
4. Worst previous week score (going back from most previous week and continuing to Week 1).
5. Lowest draft position.
11. Trades between managers: To minimize the possibility of collusion, no trading will be permitted. To preserve the integrity of the competition, all player cuts are subject to review by the commissioner of the NFFC and can be revoked if the dropped player is deemed too valuable for inclusion in a League's free agent pool. Where a "star" player is dropped for a valid reason, the NFFC may approve the cut, but may keep the player out of that League's free agent listing for any length of time, possibly the entire season. All decisions by the NFFC will be final.
12. League Structure: Each league will consist of 12 teams competing in a head-to-head plus total points format for the league championship. The NFFC Online Championship will run from Week 1 through Week 13 in a league format, with each team playing every other team once in head-to-head competition plus two weeks of “all play”, where the top six scoring teams in the league earn a Win and the lowest six scoring teams in each league earn a Loss. The “All Play” format this year will be held in Weeks 4 and 8 when six NFL teams have byes those weeks (check the NFL schedule for all bye weeks). After Week 13, two teams from each league earn a spot in the Championship Round: 1) First is the team with the best head-to-head league record (total points is the tie-breaker); and 2) Second is the remaining team with the most total points outside of the h2h champion. Any team outside of the top two in each league that finishes in the top 10 percent of the total number of teams (Top 30 if we finish with 300 total teams) also can earn a Wild Card spot in the Championship Round if they didn’t earn a spot through their league finish. All of the teams in the Championship Round will carry their weekly scoring average from the first 13 weeks of the regular season into the Championship Round and add that score to their point totals in Weeks 14, 15 and 16 to produce their playoff scoring total. The team with the most points in the Championship Round wins the $20,000 grand prize.
The NFFC will group teams into 25 separate leagues (300 teams) based on the seven different draft dates. The NFFC may increase the Leagues up to a maximum of 50 (600 teams) if demand warrants it with the prize pool increasing at the same level.
13. Submitting Starting Lineups: NFFC owners must submit their starting lineups each week before the start of the NFL’s games. The deadline is five minutes before kickoff of the first NFL game each week. Starters are locked once the games start and those players are active. However, owners are allowed to change their lineup five minutes before the start of the late Sunday afternoon, Sunday night or Monday night games with players who still haven’t played yet, as long as their roster remains legal.
14. Random League/Draft Spot Selections: The NFFC Online Championship will randomly select the leagues and the draft orders of each league once all entries have been finalized for each draft date. For instance, if the NFFC receives 48 entries for the Tuesday, Sept. 8th 7 p.m. draft, we’ll put all 48 names into the computer and select in order: League 1, pick 1 is John Smith; League 1, pick 2 is John Doe, League 1, pick 3 is Jane Andrews, etc. until all 48 names have been selected. We will do this for each draft date for all of the leagues and separate the leagues in groups of 12 (1-12 is League 1, 13-24 is League 2, 25-36 is League 3, etc.). We will also implement the Kentucky Derby Style process in the NFFC Online Championship to allow owners more draft preference. The KDS process allows owners to rank their order of preference for Draft Day, ranking their preferences 1 through 12 BEFORE the leagues are selected. If an owner wants the third pick if he is selected No. 1 overall in his league, he would choose that option and he would then be moved to third in that league on Draft Day. NFFC officials will look at every owner’s Draft Preferences after the leagues and orders are randomly selected and then announce the draft orders for each league. Once each NFFC owner has officially signed up for the contest, they can find this feature in their game site under My Settings. Then click on Draft Preferences and you’ll see the Draft Order ranked 1 through 12 and the option to change those preferences next to them. If you decide not to rank your preferences, your preferred order will remain 1 through 12. Owners can change their Draft Preferences right up until the announced deadline is set. An example of a KDS preference would be: 1, 2, 3, 12, 11, 7, 8, 9, 4, 5, 6, 10. If you were picked fourth out of the hat for your league and the top three teams took 1, 2, and 3, then you'd be slotted in the 12th spot (your fourth preference) on Draft Day.
15. Prize Breakdown:
NFFC Online Championship = $20,000
Second Place = $5,000
Third Place = $2,500
Fourth Place = $1,250
Fifth Place = $500
Sixth Place = $350
League Prizes:
First Place: $1,300 (most total points)
Second Place: $650 (best h2h record outside most total points team; total points is the tie-breaker among tied h2h teams)
$5,000 Bonus will be awarded to the top overall team based on number of points earned in the NFFC Classic Main Event and the NFFC Online Championship.
$75,000 will be awarded to any team that wins the overall titles in both the NFFC Classic main event and the NFFC Online Championship.
We are paying back 75 percent of all entry fees for league and overall prizes plus an additional 5 percent to an overall grand prize combining the overall point totals of the NFFC main event and the NFFC Online Championship. League prizes are $1,300 for first place and $650 for second place. The grand prize is guaranteed at $20,000. The first 300 teams that enter are guaranteed spots in the NFFC Online Championship and any additional revenue above that total up to a maximum of 600 teams will be reimbursed under the same percentages to the overall prize pools.
16. Time Limit For Draft: There will be a 90-second time limit for each owner to make his/her pick during each round of the NFFC Online Championship draft. If a participant does not make a selection in the allotted time, the computer will select for that owner using MDC’s overall ranking system. If there is a computer failure, an error made with a selection by an owner or any other type of technical malfunction, the draft moderator can stop the draft at any time and correct the error and then resume the draft. We will allow the draft moderator to roll back the draft if a technical error occurred, but if the desired player had already been selected before the draft was stopped that player is no longer available to be drafted. All decisions will be made by the NFFC moderator during the draft and will be final.
17. Commissioner Decisions: All decisions made by the Commissioner of the NFFC are final. Tough decisions sometimes must be made about eligibility rules, lineups, draft software, etc., and NFFC participants must accept the unbiased ruling of the NFFC Commissioner.
18. Refunds: Once a participant submits valid payment, no money will be refunded to participants or co-managers unless The NFFC Online Championship is canceled. A team spot is considered filled when the entire entry fee is paid. Krause Publications reserves the right to cancel any entries not comprising a full 12-team league. When a participant agrees to finish the registration form and submit payment, that participant has demonstrated his/her acceptance of the official rules and regulations for the NFFC Online Championship.
At its sole discretion, Krause Publications also reserves the right to terminate The NFFC Online Championship in its entirety if there are an insufficient number of teams two days before each deadline. In this unlikely event, Krause Publications will refund all entry fees within 48 hours of cancellation notice and/or provide a new application form with the newly stated prize figures. All pre-registered applicants would have the right to a full refund or agree to play for the newly announced prize structure or in other leagues. Krause Publications is not responsible for any loss or liability incurred by any participant or co-managers due to cancellation of the NFFC Online Championship, including but not limited to travel or hotel expenses, time taken off from employment, etc.
19. Taxes: If the principal participant's prize winnings exceed $600.00, The NFFC Online Championship must file a Form 1099 with the IRS at the end of this calendar year. We will request your social security number and signature on this form and will pay the principal owner. The Form contains the amount paid to you and you will receive a copy of the Form for tax purposes. You are responsible for paying any taxes that result from your cash prize. Please consult your income tax advisor for filing advice.
[ April 13, 2009, 11:13 AM: Message edited by: Greg Ambrosius ]