SportsHub Technologies Acquires MFL10s

[Greg Ambrosius]

We are VERY HAPPY to announce today that SportsHub Technologies has acquired the MFL10s from My Fantasy League and will launch the MFL10s on our platform in February. MyFantasyLeague.com started the MFL10s five years ago and has built this contest into one of the largest pay-to-play contests in the fantasy football industry. More than 80,000 teams were part of that contest in 2017 and we expect a big bump in participation in 2018.

We will be working with Mike Hall, Geoff Stein and all of the guys at MyFantasyLeague.com to promote this contest to all of our great customers over the next year. Very little will change with this format as we recognize that these $10 offerings are quick, easy and enjoyable for owners who hope to turn $10 into a nice league prize. We'll continue to pay the Top teams and continue to have the same unique scoring format and lineup construction. It will fit nicely into our growing Draft Champions portfolio, which now includes NFFC 25s & 50s, and our NFFC Draft Champions National Championship at $150 and $400 per team. It's a perfect fit. More to come on all of that in the coming weeks, but expect a February launch just like the MFL10s provided throughout the last five years.

The big news with our acquisition is that more players will now have a chance to play MFL10s in 2018. MyFantasyLeague.com was not licensed in states like New York, Virginia, Indiana, Missouri and Tennessee and with states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and others adding state licensing fees the list was about to grow. SportsHub Technologies is licensed in all of those states and thus now more players will be allowed to participate in these contests. In fact, some players had winnings on their accounts and couldn't use them for the MFL10s and now they will be able to use those balances and free entries to purchase teams in 2018.

One other bit of good news is that we'll also add stand-alone drafts each night once the off-season kicks into high gear. We will continue to offer the "slow draft" format that the MFL10s have always had, but in 2018 we'll also offer two nightly time periods for drafts at 1 minute per pick. With the NFFC $25s and $50s, we held them every night at 8 and 10 pm ET. A similar format will be offered for the MFL10s, allowing folks to draft 12-team, 20-round leagues each night in less than two hours. We think this will grow the MFL10s and allow more people to play.

MFL10 winners from 2017 have already been notified of this move as their prize winnings from 2017 are being paid by SportsHub Technologies. That announcement was made on Friday and payments are already being processed through LeagueSafe. Congrats to everyone who won prize money in 2017 and welcome to the SportsHub family.

More news on all of this will be coming soon, but let's get to the facts and the details first. Here's the official press release that was announced today.


MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As part of its ongoing commitment to build and grow fantasy sports products enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of sports fans every day, SportsHub Technologies, LLC (“SportsHub”) has announced today that it has acquired the MFL10s line of business (“MFL10s”) from MyFantasyLeague.

Fanball parent company SportsHub Technologies acquires MFL10s business from MyFantasyLeague

The acquisition marks the sixth transaction completed for SportsHub, which purchased CDM Sports and Sports Technologies in 2016. It followed these initial deals with the acquisitions of LeagueSafe, National Fantasy Championships and WhatIfSports in 2017. This latest move strengthens SportsHub’s product portfolio with MFL10’s innovative best ball draft-only leagues and will be integrated into SportsHub’s high stakes business unit.

“The regulatory environment for the fantasy sports industry has changed drastically over the course of the past two seasons,” said Founder and CEO Rob Phythian. “Games like MFL10s are now required to be licensed in many states, and the cost and requirements of compliance have become burdensome and prohibitive for companies with limited resources. With our integrated platform that manages user identity, gaming compliance, and global wallet, we have the scale and expertise to add properties like MFL10 to our growing portfolio.”

SportsHub will continue to grow through both organic growth and M&A and anticipates several additional announcements in the future. “SportsHub will be a great home for MFL10s,” said Mike Hall, President of MyFantasyLeague. “SportsHub is fully compliant and licensed in all states that require a license. They have a growing user base and list of game offerings and are committed to keeping the MFL10s game format in 2018 and beyond. This will allow all MFL10s customers to continue enjoying MFL10s without a disruption in service.”

About SportsHub Technologies

SportsHub Technologies was founded in 2015 by a team of veteran fantasy sports industry insiders including Rob Phythian, a former member of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association Board of Directors and a member of the Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame. SportsHub owns and operates real money gaming sites and is on a mission to level the playing field for daily fantasy sports fans. In addition, SportsHub specializes in helping sports media companies develop strategies, products and innovative solutions to drive deep customer engagement with highly interactive games and mobile applications. For more information, please visit http://www.SportsHubTech.com.

About MyFantasyLeague

MyFantasyLeague.com was founded in 1994 by the late Kevin Austin, and continues to build on his vision of offering the most customizable Fantasy Football League Hosting service for commissioners that require a high level of flexibility and customer service for their private leagues. MFL specializes in features that cater to dynasty leagues and other complex league formats, and also offers free mock drafts and free best ball style draft only league hosting throughout the year. In addition, MFL offers an Open Developer’s API that enables and encourages independent third party developers to build tools and add-ons for its commissioner platform.

[Greg Ambrosius]

While this is good news for the growth of the MFLs and our NFFC Draft Champions Leagues, the acquisition will also allow us to quickly expand in other areas that we all wanted expansion anyway. Here's how:

* The MFL10s had Auto-Round Ques for EVERY ROUND. The Ques allowed you to actually set players aside for Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, etc. throughout the draft. This is something we will need to build and have ready for the February launch. We are using the NFFC-style draft room for the MFL10s, so anything being built there will be available for the NFFC, NFBC and NFBKC. Oh, and for our debut hockey product this Fall as well.

* The MFL10s use an average pick per user in each draft and we'll likely embrace that as well. The average time per pick is used for each draft and not carried over into other drafts, so we are looking at that now.

* The MFL10s had tens of thousands of unique users over the last five years and we will reach out to those players to see how many would also have an interest in baseball, basketball and hockey. Even a small percentage of new users would be a good conversion to baseball as we are always looking to bring in new players to that community.

* The MFL10s use email and text alerts to send recent draft picks. Adding text alerts will be critical to the launch of the MFL10s and will spur us to add them here as well.

The online fantasy sports business just continues to grow and grow, so it's critical that we get every aspect of drafting online down to perfection. This acquisition makes us focus even more on making the online drafting experience a smooth one. We're on it and we're working on the experience right now. Thanks all for all your feedback and input.

[boutrous11]

So MFL 10s will be switching to NFFC style draft rooms?

[Greg Ambrosius]

So MFL 10s will be switching to NFFC style draft rooms?

They will.

[Greg Ambrosius]

We talk about the acquisition of the MFL 10s on today's podcast:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hsfa

Enjoy.

[Greg Ambrosius]

In the last week we've had two announcements that hopefully will help all players. First, we are reporting 1099s in 2017 that deduct ALL of your entry fees from all of our contests from your prize winnings and reporting that to the IRS. For hundreds of owners, this will result in no 1099 for 2017. It's a big savings for many, many NFBC and NFFC owners right now.

And now this acquisition, which at the very least shows that management is in a growth mode and we are serious about adding new players to all of our contests. It's a sign that in a consolidating industry where the barrier to entry for pay-to-play games is very, very high, we are on the acquisition side of that ledger. I think both moves are good signs for the stability of our division and for the growth of all our games.

[boutrous11]

Will the mfl 10s still pay out the same? $100 for first, $10 credit for second.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Will the mfl 10s still pay out the same? $100 for first, $10 credit for second.

We have not made any final decisions on 2018 yet since this acquisition was just finalized this week, but I think people will like our prize structure. We'll announce everything soon enough.