Football Auction Championship

[THEICON]

- I am trying to garner interest in an auction championship this year .. I spoke to Greg and if we get enough interest we can do it.. I was thinking to get interest in this and get enough leagues, we could do it at a lower starting entry fee to get people into it who have never tried it..

was thinking of 12 team leagues.. live drafting either weekend

entry fee :$ 500.00 a team.. payouts undetermined but would be fun.


In the alternative, i'd really like to get an auction league put together with some of the best out there..if interested let me know.

I love the idea Mike, and as folks know we did run an overall auction championship and an overall Draft Champions championship for two years. Unfortunately, to create a grand prize some of the prize money has to come out of league prizes to create the grand prize. Since we filled only 4 leagues in both formats each year, we couldn't get the grand prize big enough to push us to the next level. As a result, our customers asked us to go back to all of the prize money remaining within the leagues and that's what we've done the last two years.

I agree that it would be fun to have a $20,000 grand prize like we have in the NFBC Auction Championship. There we've filled 9 leagues every year since 2009. We need to get to that level here to make this work, and that's not easy. But we love overall championships here, so the idea has merit. But unfortunately it didn't grow the auction leagues the first time we did this.

It's a great discussion, though.

WELL GREG YOU DO HAVE ONE NEW PERSON HOPEFULLY WE GET A FEW MORE NEW PEOPLE TO THE AUCTION

[chriseibl]

While I wish there were more auction players so there could be more auctions, I prefer the auction set up as is without an overall championship.

One of my favorite things about the current auctions as they are the only offering of any format in the 1-1.5k range where all of prize money goes back to the league (aside from Stats' share of course). That's a big reason I signed up for 3 of them each of the last two years and will do the same in 2014. Not to say I wouldn't join if it were to take on an overall championship form but I tend to be against anything that puts even more value on the 3 week race over the entirety of the season.

I would encourage anyone who hasn't tried the auctions to sign up, I always find them to be a lot of fun. I participated in my first auction of any kind in Chicago in 2009 and have been hooked since playing in at least one every year after. Now all I need is for people in Chicago to start signing up for auctions again so I can do consecutive weekends in Chicago/Vegas!

[nails]

the drafts can be in any city.. or even online as well..... sorry just got back online..

[Glenneration X]

I believe this needs to happen. However, if we do it, let's commit to it unlike the Auction Championships of the Fanball days of yore. Create a significant grand prize and sell this out. I can't believe if we can fill 9 or more auctions for baseball, we can't do the same or better for football.

[JETS SB]

I believe this needs to happen. However, if we do it, let's commit to it unlike the Auction Championships of the Fanball days of yore. Create a significant grand prize and sell this out. I can't believe if we can fill 9 or more auctions for baseball, we can't do the same or better for football.

Agreed. I would join 3 auctions in New York if there were that many offered.

[edelman24]

agreed would be in, I think part of the problem is you have 14 team and 12 team auctions. IF you want to push an overall championship go with 1 format and don't spread the wealth around, personally I'm a fan of the 14 team auction as I've been doing it since Day 1, but I will do any auction that is offered in NY.

[Diesel]

The $500 price tag will never work. I've talked about this with Tom until I was blue in the face. There just is no way to make any kind of profit with a live $500 league, with facilitators and auctioneers and an overall prize. I've been asking to lower the price of the auction, even without an overall championship prize, and couldn't do it. If you guys have changed your mind, I'm interested. Good luck!

[76erfan]

I agree some of the mystique around the auction is eliminated when its just a private league.

I would be all for a 14 team auction championship.......i think you could fill 9 leagues......

what would the price point be though?

[Marc Quitsch]

BUMP...

I'm disappointed that nothing came of this. The Auction is such a GREAT way to play this game, and I tell myself every year that it HAS to be the entry fee that scares people away from this. However, another contest tried this last year at a low entry, and it didn't sell...And now nothing happened with this either...I guess there just isn't a market for Fantasy Football Auctions outside of the small group of people who love it. I would swear that the $500 range for a live auction, OR a $200-$350 range online would sell like hotcakes. But it's just not in the cards.

[Tom Kessenich]

Marc, it simply isn't cost effective to run a live auction for $500 or less. We'd lose a ton of money doing that. So that simply isn't possible for us and my guess is it wouldn't be possible for anyone in the live events industry - unless they wanted to lose a lot of money and weren't interested in turning a profit. As far as online auctions go, at some point in the future I think we will try and offer them. But first we have to build the software which is a difficult process. However, it is on our To Do list and it's my hope and Greg's we'll get to it at some point in the future.

As much as people love them - and I do too - the reality is auctions are a niche part of the fantasy industry. We have the Auction Championship in the NFBC but even there we hear from some of our hardcore auction players who would prefer we abandon the national prizes in favor of league-only prizes, which is what we do here. So even among auction players there isn't a consensus as to which way to go.

Going forward, I think we'll be in a position at some point in the future to offer online auctions for $250 or $125, something in that range. That's the goal. As far as the live events, we simply can't run them for under $1,000 when you factor in all of the expenses we are charged for, especially in Vegas and New York. I know that's not the answer you want to hear but that's just the reality of the business we're in. Sorry.