Fanball.com Acquires NFFC, F+W Fantasy Products

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:19 am

Originally posted by KOTRAX:
JUST OUT OF CURIOSITY GREG, YOU AND TOM PLAN ON BEING WITH US FOR THE LONG HAUL CORRECT?You know, it's not fair that I'm answering all of the questions today, but Tom and I are in separate buildings right now and he's letting me take lead here.

But everyone should know that this is a two-man TEAM here. I wouldn't make any career change without Tom coming along and I'm pretty sure he wasn't going anywhere without me. We have been a great team these last six years on the magazines and the high-stakes events and this has been a total team effort. We're going to miss the support of folks here like Barb and Jill and Regan and Dean and Scott and Rocky, but we know what needs to be done.

As I told Tom six years ago when I asked him to go ALL IN with me on this project, we have a chance to do something special and to make names for ourselves in this area of the market. But we had to fully commit our time and our effort to pull this off. From that day forward Tom has worked as hard as I have and I'm VERY PROUD of him. He's made my job much easier and he's allowed me to still be a good dad and husband at home by working the hours that I just can't if I'm going to keep everyone at home happy.

Neither of us are leaving Ormond. Or if one goes, the other one is sure to follow!!

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:24 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:
quote:Originally posted by KOTRAX:
JUST OUT OF CURIOSITY GREG, YOU AND TOM PLAN ON BEING WITH US FOR THE LONG HAUL CORRECT?You know, it's not fair that I'm answering all of the questions today, but Tom and I are in separate buildings right now and he's letting me take lead here.
[/QUOTE]You were on a roll. I didn't want to stop you.

If anyone has any questions specifically that I can answer, I'm here. But Greg has summarized my feelings extremely well with his answers. Like I posted earlier, I'm very excited about this opportunity that we now have and I'm looking forward to working with Fanball and really taking all of our events and growing them even more.

One area of our business that I really would like to see us grow is our basketball event. I think we've done well with that but it's still a small part of what we offer. Going forward and with Fanball's help, I'm hoping we can really turn that into something much bigger and better. Could that mean a live draft like we do for baseball and football? In a perfect world, I'd love to see that happen. But even if we can just expand it online into something much larger than it currently is, I think that would be terrific as well. I think there's a basketball market out there that can be tapped into so hopefully we're in a much stronger position now to do that than we have been previously.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:25 am

Originally posted by Raiders:
quote:Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:
quote:Originally posted by Raiders:
Congrats Greg and Tom!

I just hope as KOTRAX said you guys are the 'Point Men' and we always be for NFFC.

Does Fanball.com also own FFOC?

So again Congrats,

John Great point John. Yes, we are still the Point Men and always will be. This is not a situation where we check out after this event or in one year and spend our millions on ourselves. First of all, I think Tom and I between us got enough in this deal for a Happy Meal, so we're not ready to quit our day jobs just yet!!

We're here to stay and you can't get rid of us so easily.

Fanball does NOT own FFOC. They just run the back-end for that game and are promotional partners for them. I'm sure we'll get to know them better and have some fun together. Heck, maybe there will even be some cross promotions.

Fanball.com does co-own Snap Draft and trust me I have some good NFFC Weekly game ideas for this season. Stay tuned. Could be fun. [/QUOTE]Sounds Great. Hope that there will always be a 14 team League,KDS and 3rr as GK(Glenn) said.

Don't ever forget your "Bread and Butter".

John

PS. That's why I joined, all 3 are Great together! [/QUOTE]John, as you know from my demeanor at the NFL Draft party, I was less than excited about the upcoming NFFC season. Much less excited than you guys were that day. I even said there was a chance that the NFFC's future was shaky, as posed by a question from King of Queens.

I didn't like our message boards then. I knew that internally folks were questioning the prize payout model for football. I knew selling out both main events in a tough economy would be tough with limited promotional opportunities. I knew the NBC Sports partnership had just ended that week. So I wasn't optimistic.

Turn to today and our Message Boards are cleaned up and running smoothly, our main events are on a great pace to sell out, the Online Championship league is going to go above 300 teams, we have a full Ultimate and Super league, and we now have a promotional partner that is capable of reaching hundreds of thousands of current fantasy players with one e-mail. And the future possibilities with TV and more are within reach. What a difference a few months can make.

14-team, 3RR, KDS is here to stay. Why wouldn't it if we sell out the NFFC Classic this year?

D-Day Heroes · Post by **D-Day Heroes** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:28 am

Greg , any chance of a 1 hour " Greg and Tom Fantasy Sports Show " on one of the cable channels in the near future ? I think that would be the ticket to the Hall of Fame. The things you could do with that to promote this league would definitly lead to a Dynasty in this Industry. Just so many things you could do with a show like that. Can You Imagine ?

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:39 am

One point I want to make is that Fanball agrees with me that we now have an opportunity to make our top players more visible in the industry on the content side. We now have online avenues and print publications (anyone for an NFFC magazine next year??) where our players can provide articles, strategies, rankings, etc., in the near future. We never had that opportunity before. So think BIG here all and I think we can get it done and tap into this incredible talent base that is now just used to win prize money!!

RyanHouston · Post by **RyanHouston** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:46 am

Guys --

Nice to "virtually" meet all of you.

We are all very excited about this new opportunity to be part of NFFC / NFBC.

Additionally, as the Fanball print products continue to grow despite a trending down print market, this will allow us to have over 1M magazines on the newsstand for both Baseball and Football. That's exciting given how our magazine sales are growing and what it could mean for the live events.

We are all excited to have Greg / Tom as part of our new team. They bring a TON to the table and when you have an opportunity to bring two class acts into the fold -- you don't screw that up.

It's been a lot of work -- but we are very excited. Lots of great things on the horizon and I want to let everyone know that we don't plan on screwing this up. Our only goal is to give Greg / Tom / Charlie and every member involved in this event the resources they need to 1. Grow it and 2. Make it enjoyable for everyone involved.

I look forward to meeting all of you when the opportunity arises.

Greg / Tom -- let's sell this baby out and make it the best live event out there.

Ryan Houston
Senior VP Marketing & Business Development
Fanball.com

[ August 14, 2009, 03:47 PM: Message edited by: Ryan E. Houston ]

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:46 am

Originally posted by Renman:
Greg/tom,

As a member of the NFFC from day one I want to congratulate you on your success and I am happy to see your efforts being rewarded. I am confident that as long as you guys are involved with the NFFC the product will remain the premier fantasy football contest in the market. I am interest to see how this leads to growth for our the event and our "14 teamer family." I am wondering if the time will come, through support from bigger and other entities, that we can see prize funds grown through revenue streams other than solely participant entry fees, ie sponsorship support.

Keep us posted on all the news! Sponsorship is the key to growth in this area. Just do the math and you can see what I mean.

Let's say we produce $1 million in revenue and pay back 77%. That leaves us with $223,000 in revenue BEFORE expenses. Doing multiple cities, trust me the expenses are $100,000+ and then some. So if we blow this out and do $2 million in revenue and pay back the same percentage with the same percentage of expenses we're still looking at a small profit percentage.

Now the key is creating revenue streams through sponsorship of the message boards, web site, live drafts, a dedicated magazine, product giveaways, etc. WCOFF and NFFC saw that in 2004-06 when MVP Sportsbook.com paid good money to reach our ideal audience, but that all dried up with the passage of the Anti-Internet Gambling Law. But you are totally correct James, this area of the market has limited potential if all we're trying to do is monetize entry fees because the payouts remain where they are or lower and the profits remain too small for a company like F+W to remain interested in this space. That's just the facts and I've told everyone that about this space for the last year or two because I saw how our management was looking at the numbers.

And that being said, I think Liberty Media can bring that sponsorship wild card to the table with us. I truly believe that.

TradeStar28 · Post by **TradeStar28** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:52 am

Greg, you mentioned fantasy hockey. Will this be ready for the 2009-10 season ?

btw, best wishes and much continued success for both you and Tom.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:52 am

Originally posted by D-Day Heroes:
Greg , any chance of a 1 hour " Greg and Tom Fantasy Sports Show " on one of the cable channels in the near future ? I think that would be the ticket to the Hall of Fame. The things you could do with that to promote this league would definitly lead to a Dynasty in this Industry. Just so many things you could do with a show like that. Can You Imagine ? That's a great suggestion and I certainly think Tom and I are ready for a combo podcast at the very least!!

I'm doing so many blogtalkradio interviews that I'd rather have my own show!!! But honestly, our time is more valuable with customer service and sales of our products than content right now, but no doubt Tom and I have the time when we're working on the magazines to also do content. We all see how a fantasy channel on DirecTV's Sunday NFL Ticket would work perfectly and integrating NFFC's content of Friday free agent pickups, cuts, starts, etc., will work one day. I know I can envision a day when Channel 703 next to the Red Zone channel is ALL FANTASY and Sundays. Now that would make me happy.