WERE REGULAR SATELLITE LEAGUES CUT?

[Greg Ambrosius]

Originally posted by GK:
...I'd be up for a Satellite or two as prep for the Main as opposed to the On-Line Leagues personally - but that's just me...GK Again, I think we know that some of you guys won't do anything other than a 14-teamer and we hope there's enough demand then to warrant the programming time to get those set up, tested and ready for 2010. But Billy is right in one regard: We are making sure that our draft software debuts perfectly for the 12-team Online Championship and then we'll go from there. And there is work being done now for the 10-team Cutline Championship software, another overall national contest we hope to debut in 2010.

But the Mock Draft Lobby is being done with our other contests in mind. We just don't have an exact date yet when that will be done, fully tested and available, so setting up any satellite league draft dates under 14-team formats isn't the right thing to do now.

Again, August has been the busy month for satellite leagues every year since we debuted them in 2005, so let's see what happens. We want a strong debut for football with the draft software and the back-end and more time is needed before everything can be set up. We'll see what it looks like in a few weeks and I'm just being as honest as I can be.

Having the home page, the message boards, the draft software, the game site, everything done after this initial season in baseball and football will make life so much easier in the future. We'll own it all and we'll tweak it and get it out immediately in the future, just like we did in the past with STATS. But this has been a very different debut for our NFBC and NFFC events under Fanball because of the new programming that we all know had to be done and of course with the draft software landscape. We're not the only game being affected, as Billy, Wayne, Russ and so many others know.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Originally posted by Coltsfan:
I did find the nffc main event on the fanball page. You just follow these easy steps.

1. Go to fanball.com
2. Click Football
3. Click real leagues
4. Click Football live draft 8 cities.
5. Then wait for about 15 seconds for the link to open.

It looks to me like this contest is somewhat of an afterthought to fanball. They don't even bother to advertise or market the NFFC name.

I'm sorry Greg and Tom but I'm just not feeling the love from fanball. I sure hope that everything gets turned around soon. I hope that there is a satellite schedule for us this year. I hope the draft software is up and running on July 6th. I sure hope the past customers will follow to fanball. It may be premature to worry but when I'm looking at the chicago auction league and there are only 3 names it worries me. In the past I remember wanting to sign up early to make sure I have a spot. Now I'm wondering if I need to go somewhere else (Vegas?) in order to get into an auction. I'm worried that having so many other cities will dilute the player base in Chicago to the point that we won't be able to fill the dc or auction leagues. Those are my concerns and hopefully a month from now they will be completely unfounded.

Wayne Wayne, you and others are correct in that the NFFC doesn't have a strong presence yet on the Fanball.com home page. We need to get some banner ads up there soon. Heck, let's get Steve Luzzi's pretty mug up there holding last year's $100,000 check with a link back to the NFFC home page. We'll get some links back here soon, I promise.

You know, folks said that Fanball didn't care about the NFFC because the web site took many months to develop. Heck, we didn't get signups live until May 18th, so obviously Fanball didn't care, right? No. I'm not a programmer, but I finally appreciate all of the work that has had to be done in transferring six years of historical data from thousands of different players from STATS' site to our baseball site and then again to the football site. I'm requesting more from the IT department for both baseball and football than you can imagine and there still aren't enough hours in the day to get it all done in time to satisfy our customers.

And trust me, you're hearing it from some of your favorite NFFC members on other boards. How Fanball doesn't care. How Fanball dropped the ball. How Greg and Tom aren't doing this or that. Bottom line is that we're doing an awful lot of programming and trying to get up to speed on everything that STATS helped us perfect through six years. Fanball didn't have any games or draft software that were 14 teams or 3RR. Heck, most of their games aren't even PPR. So I don't want to sound like we're facing overwhelming odds because all of it will be done, but for both games it's been a lot, an awful lot, of programming.

I know some people wish we could turn back the hands of the clock, but again, F+W Media saw a lot of the obstacles to games management ahead of them and knew that was NOT their expertise. It's one of the reasons they sold the NFFC and NFBC. Fanball is one of the rare companies in the industry that has everything in place to do what we need here at the NFFC. Unfortunately, it's taking time to get it all done.

Does that mean they don't care? No. Of course this is an important part of their business now. They want and need the NFFC to prosper in 2010. But I'll admit, there's still a lot of s**t that has to get done.

But you are right: If we don't properly promote to our users or on our own sites better, then the pox is on us. Fanball created a High-Stakes magazine featuring many NFFC members that was first-class and a great step towards making our players the stars. We're featuring the NFFC on a daily fantasy radio show on Sirius/XM starting next week. And we're going to promote better on our own sites and to our own customers soon, I promise.

Heck, in baseball we recruited so many new Fanball members to the NFBC that five of the top six leaders today in the NFBC Online Championship are first time members who came through Fanball. Bringing in new members is key and Fanball can help the NFFC there. And they will bring in new players this year to all of our contests. But we can do better promoting the game NOW and we will.

Thanks for the feedback Wayne. We hear ya and we have plenty of work to do in the next month to disprove your feelings. But "telling it like it is" is always welcome here on the NFFC boards.

[Old School]

Originally posted by BillyWaz:
I think they are trying to promote the online championship. By not offering satellites, it forces you to play at the $350 price point.

I truly wish Greg and Tom were in charge, and since they aren't maybe the guy behind the curtain (Ryan Houston) could answer some questions??

Dare to dream. Keep dreaming.....

[BONGIZMO]

The reality is the industry is undergoing many changes and the economy is helping to weed out the strong from the weak. IMO there are truly only three contests that one can feel comfortable with (NFFC,WCOFF, FFPC) knowing at the end of the day they will be paid.

That being said, it will be all of us as players that will indicate what gamers truly care about whether that be payout %, grand prize size, options to choose from, customer service or a mix of all.

I for one am intriqued to see how this plays out and regardless of where any of the events say they are here in June, we will see with the end numbers who we the players are putting our confidence (dollars) with.

I'm curious if overall numbers will be able to stay near past years with less competition from the rather sketchy contests offsetting the economy which I think will cause many to dial it back due to less disposable income.

All of the Big Three have pluses and minuses and this should be something to watch with interest while participating in all (in my case).

Things I am watching...

Can WCOFF's scale overcome their past service issues? Will they make the auxillary contests and even second session main seem less like the red headed step child this year?

Will the NFFC's late start have moved some players to other contests that were better prepared early? Will the NFFC's more corporate feel/attitude cause folks to move due to a feel that the identity it was built on is disappearing due to going more 'main stream'?

Will the FFPC's small scale hurt their ability to function a clean game due to the costs needed to get their back end stuff running after the late loss of providers? Will the rather outspoken disciples who chose to create 'flame fests' on other contests boards turn potential people off?

Just a couple things that the business man in me is curious to see play out. Most all of this though is just the silly season like in sports as we all try to kill time getting to the actual start of the hobby we love.

Scott

[Greg Ambrosius]

Originally posted by BONGIZMO:
The reality is the industry is undergoing many changes and the economy is helping to weed out the strong from the weak. IMO there are truly only three contests that one can feel comfortable with (NFFC,WCOFF, FFPC) knowing at the end of the day they will be paid.

That being said, it will be all of us as players that will indicate what gamers truly care about whether that be payout %, grand prize size, options to choose from, customer service or a mix of all.

I for one am intriqued to see how this plays out and regardless of where any of the events say they are here in June, we will see with the end numbers who we the players are putting our confidence (dollars) with.

I'm curious if overall numbers will be able to stay near past years with less competition from the rather sketchy contests offsetting the economy which I think will cause many to dial it back due to less disposable income.

All of the Big Three have pluses and minuses and this should be something to watch with interest while participating in all (in my case).

Things I am watching...

Can WCOFF's scale overcome their past service issues? Will they make the auxillary contests and even second session main seem less like the red headed step child this year?

Will the NFFC's late start have moved some players to other contests that were better prepared early? Will the NFFC's more corporate feel/attitude cause folks to move due to a feel that the identity it was built on is disappearing due to going more 'main stream'?

Will the FFPC's small scale hurt their ability to function a clean game due to the costs needed to get their back end stuff running after the late loss of providers? Will the rather outspoken disciples who chose to create 'flame fests' on other contests boards turn potential people off?

Just a couple things that the business man in me is curious to see play out. Most all of this though is just the silly season like in sports as we all try to kill time getting to the actual start of the hobby we love.

Scott Scott, this is the most intelligent post to date on the NFFC boards. You are spot on with much of this and you are right, this Wild, Wild West of high-stakes fantasy football is playing out in front of everyone. And if you think it's wild this year, wait until 2011 when the NFL labor situation drags well into August and maybe September.

But I'll add a little more to your post:

The No. 1 issue right now is the economy. Just taking family vacations is tough for folks these days, so traveling to Las Vegas for a fantasy draft is even tougher. The economy is bad and everyone is feeling the effects of it. For any of us to reach our goals, we have to provide a lot of fun on Draft Day, a lot of fun during the season and a lot of assurances that prizes will be paid in full and on time. There's no room for half-assing it in this space.

We all know that in football the consumer has more options and in this space the competition has become fierce. Now the competition for back-end software has even heated up, so folks have to either step up and pay more for those same services or build it themselves. I strongly believe that owning all of that is the way to go, but some have tried that in the past and it buried them. Either way, the software is now more front and center as folks decide which games to play and it might even surpass the customer service aspect of a game.

While I agree that all three contests have their pros and cons, and even their customer bases have their plusses and minuses , the bottom line is that all three of us MUST grow the customer base. We can't just try to recruit gamers from other games. We HAVE to grow this area of the market and I applaud any competitor that does something to draw more positive attention to this space. I feel the entry-level satellite leagues and online championships are doing that and all of us should be pushing those to bring in new members.

We'll see how it plays out. NONE of this is easy. In fact, it's stressful for everyone. But hopefully what we're doing here by designing and owning all of our own draft software and commissioner products is the right move. With the way the rest of the industry is going, it might be one of the only ways to survive.

Again, good post Scott and I'm glad to see that you're coming back to the NFFC this year. As a former Ultimate League champ and ALMOST an NFFC overall champ (sorry), I respect your opinions. Good job here.

[BillyWaz]

Originally posted by Coltsfan:
I did find the nffc main event on the fanball page. You just follow these easy steps.

1. Go to fanball.com
2. Click Football
3. Click real leagues
4. Click Football live draft 8 cities.
5. Then wait for about 15 seconds for the link to open.

It looks to me like this contest is somewhat of an afterthought to fanball. They don't even bother to advertise or market the NFFC name.

I'm sorry Greg and Tom but I'm just not feeling the love from fanball. I sure hope that everything gets turned around soon. I hope that there is a satellite schedule for us this year. I hope the draft software is up and running on July 6th. I sure hope the past customers will follow to fanball. It may be premature to worry but when I'm looking at the chicago auction league and there are only 3 names it worries me. In the past I remember wanting to sign up early to make sure I have a spot. Now I'm wondering if I need to go somewhere else (Vegas?) in order to get into an auction. I'm worried that having so many other cities will dilute the player base in Chicago to the point that we won't be able to fill the dc or auction leagues. Those are my concerns and hopefully a month from now they will be completely unfounded.

Wayne Couldn't have said it better myself, Wayne!

About the Chicago thing, I am right with you. I am heading to a city that is hosting a DC AND auction on Friday. If that is not Chicago, I am sorry to all my good friends I would love to hang out with there, but I WANNA PLAY!

[TamuScarecrow]

We'll see how it plays out. NONE of this is easy. In fact, it's stressful for everyone.Greg, can you say "Coronas"?????????

To add a little bit more to this post, the fact you have spent 6+ years listening to us in our various states to improve the NFFC product each year has been the biggest selling point for me to come back every year. I remember in 2004 when all we had was the Main Event, Auction, and DC live drafts. Then, after letting us put on a small variety of satellite leagues like the GEKKO Invitational, the SNAKE Invitational, the BWAZZ Memorial DC (Haven't figured out who the "memorial" part was referencing), NY/CHI Challenge, the 3-City Challenge, etc., you developed the online portion of the NFFC. Then there was the conversion to KDS.

Bottom line to all of this, Greg, is you've created a bunch of spoiled FF brats over the course of 6 years and when we got cut off this year by the "new step-dad", it didn't set well with the brats. As someone who had a step-dad, I can promise you trust was the major factor the first couple of years and it will be no different with FANBALL. As busy as Ryan must be, taking some time each week to have a one-hour chat session with the "brats" like you and Tom will start doing soon every Tuesday as you have done every year in the past would go a long way to build the trust factor and get the ball rolling on sign-ups. While you and Tom can take care of the FF game itself, it's up to him to step up and get involved with the troops.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Originally posted by Tamuscarecrow:
quote:We'll see how it plays out. NONE of this is easy. In fact, it's stressful for everyone.Greg, can you say "Coronas"?????????

To add a little bit more to this post, the fact you have spent 6+ years listening to us in our various states to improve the NFFC product each year has been the biggest selling point for me to come back every year. I remember in 2004 when all we had was the Main Event, Auction, and DC live drafts. Then, after letting us put on a small variety of satellite leagues like the GEKKO Invitational, the SNAKE Invitational, the BWAZZ Memorial DC (Haven't figured out who the "memorial" part was referencing), NY/CHI Challenge, the 3-City Challenge, etc., you developed the online portion of the NFFC. Then there was the conversion to KDS.

Bottom line to all of this, Greg, is you've created a bunch of spoiled FF brats over the course of 6 years and when we got cut off this year by the "new step-dad", it didn't set well with the brats. As someone who had a step-dad, I can promise you trust was the major factor the first couple of years and it will be no different with FANBALL. As busy as Ryan must be, taking some time each week to have a one-hour chat session with the "brats" like you and Tom will start doing soon every Tuesday as you have done every year in the past would go a long way to build the trust factor and get the ball rolling on sign-ups. While you and Tom can take care of the FF game itself, it's up to him to step up and get involved with the troops. [/QUOTE]Ooooohhhh, trust me Rick, Tom and I know where the Corona's are. We have them in the new Batman Cave refrigerator nearby!!

Agreed, it's been 6+ years of tweaking this and tweaking that until we finally felt like we had it figured out. But that being said, there's a reason why F+W Media sold us last year. Even with increasing numbers each year in baseball and football from 2004 to 2009, they didn't feel this was "a viable business" in their eyes. The margins were too small and the risks because of the back-end were too great. It's funny that everyone seems to want to get in this space but once you're in it you can see how tough it really is. If it's just a stand-alone business it's REALLY tough, but with magazines, online content and other games to combine to this margin it makes much more sense.

As for Ryan, his duties have definitely changed in the last year and he's responsible for a lot more than just the NFFC. He reports directly to Liberty about all of Fanball's products and he trusts me and Tom to run this side of the business. He will tell you the same thing that I'm telling you, that we're committed to growing this, we're aggressively trying to grow it but the software has to be done first. He's working on new business deals that have brought the company new revenue because we obviously lost a big back-end contract that we had last year. It's his job to grow the business from all angles and he lets Tom and I handle the NFBC and NFFC.

I think you're right, it's time for a weekly Live Chat so folks can ask away. If Tom and I can't answer any hot question you have, we'll get Ryan to jump in and provide the answers you need. No problem.

[Ry's Guys]

Greg,

A quick question regarding the Fanball offerings. Will they be doing what they did with snapdraft? I played that for a couple months. I won more games than I lost. I paid in $100 total plus my "free sample" from the NFFC and my account was up to around $700 at the end of the calendar year. BOOM in the mail I receive a W-9 stating I had won over $3,000!!!! HUH? WHAT? Seriously?
Sorry to vent but that really frosted my A$$!

So my question is, is Fanball going to w-9 you if you win multiple leagues and your "total prize" money is over $600? Because honestly that would determine if I'm going to play in any of thesse offerings.

And shame on me for not reading the fine print on Snapdraft.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Originally posted by Bullgod:
Greg,

A quick question regarding the Fanball offerings. Will they be doing what they did with snapdraft? I played that for a couple months. I won more games than I lost. I paid in $100 total plus my "free sample" from the NFFC and my account was up to around $700 at the end of the calendar year. BOOM in the mail I receive a W-9 stating I had won over $3,000!!!! HUH? WHAT? Seriously?
Sorry to vent but that really frosted my A$$!

So my question is, is Fanball going to w-9 you if you win multiple leagues and your "total prize" money is over $600? Because honestly that would determine if I'm going to play in any of thesse offerings.

And shame on me for not reading the fine print on Snapdraft. Pat, anything you win from those season-long games will be prize money just like you'd have won in the NFFC, so anything over $600 would receive a 1099.

I think what you're saying is that if you won in Snap Draft and then lost some in Snap Draft they kept the total of winnings and didn't subtract the entry fees and you got taxed on it all, correct? Or did they do the difference between winnings and entry fees? Either way you should have been able to subtract your entry fees as an expense, correct?

Sorry, I'm not as familiar with Snap Draft but I'll ask Hugh to come on here to explain. Good question and I'll see if someone more intelligent than me can answer this.