Feedback Needed On DC And Auction Championship Prizes

BillyWaz · Post by **BillyWaz** » Sun Apr 10, 2011 4:19 am

Agreed Rob.

There are 3 things that wouldn't bring me back....

1) Fanball returned (not happening....thank god!)

2) No increase in the league prizes. As of right now, Greg's proposal offers a 16% increase in league prizes. While I too would like to see it in the 20-25% range, I won't complain.

3) No live stats. Rob is right, this really sucked. STATS did this the previous 6 years before Fanball, so I anticipate this being an easy fix.

and I guess there is a 4th......

If there was no season.

Let's get it going owners and players......GET ER DONE!!!!

RedRyder · Post by **RedRyder** » Sun Apr 10, 2011 4:33 am

Originally posted by Silver and Black:
I do not believe that every format needs a Championship to succeed and think that offering them as such hurts enrollment.

The two main events plus the online championship provide more than enough opportunities to win big time money and they are your feature events.

The Auction and DC drafts are there to supplement the draft experience and provide a greater variety for the drafters.

I think these supplemental events should go off as stand alone drafts without a Championship Prize pool unless you adopt the concept defined below.

The other alternative is to offer the contestants a chance to add a "buy-in" to go to any Championship prizes. The league payouts would be locked in and players would get the choice to contribute to the Championship monies by adding a defined fee. The Championship prize money and payouts would be defined in a chart that would change based on the number of individuals who chose to play for the Overall Championship.

My suggestion would be to offer this "buy-in" at a a price point between $150 and $250 per team and have 100% of it paid back to the Champions based on the sliding scale. Each "buy-in" would increase that prize pool and as the number of players joining increases, so would the number of payouts.

This concept answers to every issue discussed ont his topic.

ROI is high for the league prizes.

The individuals who want to put their DC or Auctions teams up vs others get a chance to do so without hurting the league payouts.

Seems like a Win-Win? Nice suggestion with the "buy-in" option.

And I agree with others about the need for live scoring!

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 2:37 am

Originally posted by Just Russ:
I'm with Jules here. I like the stand-alone leagues. The less you take from the league prize fund for an overall payout the more inclined I am to play.

I will be skipping the MEs most likely for this reason and focusing on the "niche" DCs. A Super Satellite is interesting to me! That's great and we have satellite leagues with 80% payouts to the top three finishers and Supers at 88% payouts and Ultimates at 90% payouts and Diamonds at 94% payouts. There's plenty of high-paying, private leagues for all to enjoy in the NFFC. If ROI is all you're looking for this year, go for it.

Isn't a Super Satellite league another national contest with a h2h playoff format? We can look into that, but we are going to roll out 14-team and 12-team Online Championships this year at $350 each. We can look into this h2h format at $350 or so, but let me know if you're thinking of something different from what I'm envisioning.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 2:44 am

Originally posted by Silver and Black:
Note: If I do not get an assurance that the DCs will have live scoring that is accurate and timely, I won't play in any of them. I know Stats will fix this but as others have said in this thread, these were brutal to try and watch last year. I didn't even try and keep up with them and it took all of the fun out of watching my numerous teams suck. I will be in Chicago this week and will ask STATS to confirm that we will have this. But since we had it for the six previous years before Fanball, I would have to say that it will be there. Sorry about last year, but that was last year.

I'll confirm with STATS.

RedRyder · Post by **RedRyder** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 3:22 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:
quote:Originally posted by Just Russ:
I'm with Jules here. I like the stand-alone leagues. The less you take from the league prize fund for an overall payout the more inclined I am to play.

I will be skipping the MEs most likely for this reason and focusing on the "niche" DCs. A Super Satellite is interesting to me! That's great and we have satellite leagues with 80% payouts to the top three finishers and Supers at 88% payouts and Ultimates at 90% payouts and Diamonds at 94% payouts. There's plenty of high-paying, private leagues for all to enjoy in the NFFC. If ROI is all you're looking for this year, go for it.

Isn't a Super Satellite league another national contest with a h2h playoff format? We can look into that, but we are going to roll out 14-team and 12-team Online Championships this year at $350 each. We can look into this h2h format at $350 or so, but let me know if you're thinking of something different from what I'm envisioning. [/QUOTE]A $2500 Super Satellite DC, Super Satellite used for lack of a better word. So, a $2500 DC with 88% payout, no playoff as in all your other DCs.

A few people on this thread have already expressed interest. Is that something you would consider offering?

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 5:00 am

Originally posted by RedRyder:
quote:Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:
quote:Originally posted by Just Russ:
I'm with Jules here. I like the stand-alone leagues. The less you take from the league prize fund for an overall payout the more inclined I am to play.

I will be skipping the MEs most likely for this reason and focusing on the "niche" DCs. A Super Satellite is interesting to me! That's great and we have satellite leagues with 80% payouts to the top three finishers and Supers at 88% payouts and Ultimates at 90% payouts and Diamonds at 94% payouts. There's plenty of high-paying, private leagues for all to enjoy in the NFFC. If ROI is all you're looking for this year, go for it.

Isn't a Super Satellite league another national contest with a h2h playoff format? We can look into that, but we are going to roll out 14-team and 12-team Online Championships this year at $350 each. We can look into this h2h format at $350 or so, but let me know if you're thinking of something different from what I'm envisioning. [/QUOTE]A $2500 Super Satellite DC, Super Satellite used for lack of a better word. So, a $2500 DC with 88% payout, no playoff as in all your other DCs.

A few people on this thread have already expressed interest. Is that something you would consider offering? [/QUOTE]Sure, we'd run a Super league that way with the same prizes we are offering for a regular Super league. ABSOLUTELY. If you DC die-hards want higher-priced DCs that are private leagues of course we'll offer them. We had one $1,300 DC in 2007-2009, but couldn't fill one last year. But no problem with a $2,500 Super DC. Now let's find 14 owners.

Coltsfan · Post by **Coltsfan** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 6:13 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:
quote:Originally posted by Silver and Black:
Note: If I do not get an assurance that the DCs will have live scoring that is accurate and timely, I won't play in any of them. I know Stats will fix this but as others have said in this thread, these were brutal to try and watch last year. I didn't even try and keep up with them and it took all of the fun out of watching my numerous teams suck. I will be in Chicago this week and will ask STATS to confirm that we will have this. But since we had it for the six previous years before Fanball, I would have to say that it will be there. Sorry about last year, but that was last year.

I'll confirm with STATS. [/QUOTE]Greg,

The one thing that stats didn't do in the past was configure the starting lineups and give an up to the moment team score and overall standings. All they did was have the points scored for each player without an accurate tally. Please make sure they do both for us.

Wayne

Ted's Cracked Head · Post by **Ted's Cracked Head** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 10:10 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:
quote:
Originally posted by Silver and Black:
Note: If I do not get an assurance that the DCs will have live scoring that is accurate and timely, I won't play in any of them. I know Stats will fix this but as others have said in this thread, these were brutal to try and watch last year. I didn't even try and keep up with them and it took all of the fun out of watching my numerous teams suck.
I will be in Chicago this week and will ask STATS to confirm that we will have this. But since we had it for the six previous years before Fanball, I would have to say that it will be there. Sorry about last year, but that was last year.

I'll confirm with STATS.
Greg,

The one thing that stats didn't do in the past was configure the starting lineups and give an up to the moment team score and overall standings. All they did was have the points scored for each player without an accurate tally. Please make sure they do both for us.

Wayne Greg, I know this will be improved under Stats and I posted to echo the other posts to stress how important this is for the players. Especially for those who draft multiple teams.

One more addition I would like to see this year: The ability to export starting rosters in printable formats.

Example: If I have 10 teams, I would like to see them exportable to one document that I could save to my computer for viewing or to be able to print to take with me if I am out and about for the day. This could be an excel spreadsheet or pdf.

In leagues where you play vs another team, I would like to see both teams starting lineups side by side.

For DC's, they would simply list my players by position with their schedule/matchup next to them: Aaron Rodgers - at CHI - 1pm EST and so on.

These would all be exported with one click. Man this would make Sundays more pleasurable for folks with numerous teams.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Wed Apr 13, 2011 2:56 am

Rob, I did forward your email above to the IT guys yesterday. I would think a printable roster format should be doable. I'll let you know what they say. We are in your backyard right now going over everything for the upcoming season and we have a long "To-Do List" right now. We'll add this one.

As for the Auctions and DCs, this was never a debate over what I wanted vs. what the players wanted. Geez, I'm on your side folks. If all you folks want are individual leagues in these two formats, okay, we'll offer them. There is no risk to me in offering individual leagues, unlike national contests where I have to guarantee the overall prize. I just don't see any growth in these two formats with the individual format and maybe there wouldn't be growth with a national format, either. But it's amazing that we can get 11 Auction Leagues in baseball -- 9 leagues at 15 teams each and at $850 per team for the national contest and 2 individual leagues at $1,300 per team -- in baseball and in football we struggle with auctions. I'm trying to grow this area of the market because I believe it's underserved and underappreciated, but I'll do what the masses want. A side pot with a small percentage of owners participating doesn't serve us at all in growing this marketplace.

Thanks for the feedback and keep it coming. Our goal is to unveil our plan after we leave Chicago this week and get the season rolling. We are going to roll out everything and adjust if needed by the labor situation. But it's time to plan for the season ahead and hope for the best. Hope springs eternal and there's no reason to hold back any longer. We're excited to get this season started. Thanks all.

Ted's Cracked Head · Post by **Ted's Cracked Head** » Wed Apr 13, 2011 5:41 am

Thanks Greg. We all look forward to seeing what you folks have planned for the 2011 NFL season.

There is a reason you struggle with filling those leagues in football and that is what your marketing plan needs to address.

A side pot with a small percentage of owners participating doesn't serve us at all in growing this marketplace. What does it cost you to add a side-pot? nothing really.
What benefits might you encounter?

What offering this "side-pot" does do is provide you with insight this year as to what your players want. If a small percentage choose to join the side pot, then you know they want to simply play for the league prizes. If a majority join, then you have added a component that players are seeking.

This idea gives the player the choice. Their choices provide you with answers about your product line.

If you merely roll out your championship and numbers stay low, will you have an answer to the question you seek? Have you grown in the marketplace?

I believe that offering this add-on could give you insight into your target audience and in turn that could help you acquire the growth that you seek in this marketplace.

Just thinking out loud again and thanks for listening.