All of us who love this great hobby of fantasy football have to hope that this will be the case and thus we have to move forward with a plan for 2011. We are certainly doing that and we'll finalize everything once we know if this is going to be a 16 game or an 18 game season, when it will start and when a labor deal is done. But for now, I want to at least get everyone thinking ahead to the 2011 NFFC and how it will shape up:
1. We are DEFINITELY a go for 2011. Legally we'll be able to announce our plans in the next week or so and then you'll understand what things will look like for next year and the future. We have a solid plan in place and even though Fanball is shutting down the NFFC lives on with new ownership involving me and Tom. We've already announced that STATS Inc will be our back-end software provider and we'll dust off and enhance the back-end that ran this great contest for the first six years. I see a seamless transition for football and one that will be complete even in time for the upcoming baseball season.
2. We are going back to our roots of live drafts in 3-4 cities and continuing our growth pattern with online drafts. I'm sure we'll return to Las Vegas, New York and Chicago and we'll consider Florida briefly. We definitely won't do more than four live drafts and we'll allow online Main Events as well. We will also have multiple draft times online for the Classic and Primetime Main Events, but just one live draft date and time. Look for more details soon, but the online options will likely be a day or two before the live drafts and maybe 2 options for each event to go along with the 1 scheduled live drafts.
3. I thought the Bellagio worked beautifully in Las Vegas for the NFFC last year as we had the convention area to ourselves and I know I can get space there again. I'll take feedback from fellow owners, but I'm shooting for the Bellagio again. That being said, if someone can convince me that returning to the Flamingo or some other site makes more sense, I'll listen. In New York, we have to return to Manhattan if we can, but the Hilton and Sheraton are already booked with conventions. We'll keep looking and we have a new contact who may help us. Stay tuned. We will look for a new spot in Chicago if folks want that.
4. The draft weekend is still tentative, but Labor Day weekend seems to be the logical choice for now. We have a radical idea to consider for the NFFC, but for now we'll stay on our weekend depending on the NFL schedule and depending on feedback from our radical idea later.
5. We will continue with the NFFC Auction Championship and the NFFC Draft Champions Championship, but I'll gladly lower the overall prizes if folks want bigger league prizes. Honestly, I thought both formats worked nicely this year and I'm glad we were able to provide nice prizes to the top winners, but if the prize structure lowered participation in any way then we need to look at it. Please provide feedback and we'll work on this together.
6. We will definitely have two different NFFC Online Championships in 2011: A 14-team NFFC Online Championship and a 12-team NFFC Online Championship. We may start with goals of 300 teams each and expanded the grand prizes on each if we go above those goals, but we'll see. There is no question that the $350 price point is well accepted and even duplicated and thus the format makes sense. We will definitely put a limit of 720 teams on each format so that folks have a legal idea of their odds of winning before they sign up.
7. We will again offer NFFC Diamond, Ultimate and Super Leagues with the same prize payouts as last year. I know we pushed the limit there, but I think it makes sense and we'll go forward like before. I think this year we will shoot for a 14-team Diamond League as demand seemed to be there for this contest.
8. We will offer a National Slow Draft Championship this year and begin those after the NFL Drafts. We will increase prices by $25 for each Slow Draft format so that all teams competing no matter the entry fee will have a chance to compete in this overall championship. We might start off the off-season with private Slow Drafts, but once we get to June or July, all Slow Drafts can be set up with the national contest in mind. Stay tuned for more details, but we debuted this in baseball and the demand has been phenomenal.
9. We'll also set up lower-priced satellite leagues and a "bowling night" that fits people's schedules so that we can congregate in the draft room each night of the week this off-season and have fun drafting. We started these as $50 drafts a few years ago and got away from these last year, but I see a demand for these along with the Slow Drafts and we will definitely fill that void if people still want it. Stay tuned.
10. Tom will be active on the football boards while I spend more of my time managing baseball, but we expect to be very active on the boards and keeping this community around through the off-season. Tom has the chance to write a national fantasy football column that you may see very soon, so expect him to be active this off-season. And with any luck, we'll be publishing Fantasy Sports Magazine again after missing our first issue in 22 years this spring.
11. I think entry fees will be the same as last year, with the Classic at $1,400 and the Primetime at $850. I'm interested in feedback on price points, but I don't have any major changes in mind at this point.
I think that's a good starting point. I need feedback and suggestions from this die-hard audience that sticks around during the off-season and we'll consider everything. We're BAAAAAAAAAACKKKK and we're back in charge. Get ready for more details about our ownership group and more soon. Thanks all for a great 2010 season and please help us make 2011 even more historic.
Arlington was absolutely the worst. I remember going up to get something to drink 5 minutes before the draft started and the bartender said that he didn't open for another 5 minutes. I stood there are just stared at him in disbelief. He did absolutely nothing for the next 5 minutes. UGGHHHH.