Fanball.com Acquires NFFC, F+W Fantasy Products

da bears · Post by **da bears** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:53 am

Congrats Greg and Tom!!

I'm happy to see you guys are still running the show and look forward to another 20-25 yrs (or more) of playing fantasy sports run by such quality game operators as yourselves!!

[ August 14, 2009, 03:53 PM: Message edited by: da bears ]

Raiders · Post by **Raiders** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:53 am

Interesting:

Fanball will have Tom Kessenich over seeing draft in Vegas and Greg Ambrosius taken the lead in ChiTown, while Ryan Houston will be in NYC.

I can't wait to meet Ryan I hear he's a nice guy,

John

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:57 am

I could see me and Eliza Dushku co-hosting a fantasy show together. LOTS of potential there.

Raiders · Post by **Raiders** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:58 am

Originally posted by Ryan E. Houston:
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 Ryan,

I can't tell you how Great a job Greg and Tom do, I'm sure they will though.

Greg, I emailed Charlie for you as well, but why didn't you want me to include Tom's name again?

For real Welcome aboard Ryan, to a Great run Contest! Hope Fanball can just add to what already is a well run Contest.

Good Luck to Greg,Tom and Ryan,

John

[ August 14, 2009, 03:59 PM: Message edited by: Raiders ]

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 10:00 am

Originally posted by GK:
...Greg & TK - simply judging by the questions from SNAKE and others here on this thread that have lived long enough and have been through many an acquistion, merger, ownership change, etc., within their own companies/personal experiences first hand, all simply want reassurance that things will more or less remain the same, that's all...SNAKE realizes that you're excited (and you have every right to be) with the new business venture and your position within the new corporate structure BUT the players here who have been happily giving away their hard earned money to you simply want to be reassured that they as paying customers will indeed remain what they have up until this point; happy and satisfied...do you see any forseable event(s) in the future whereas you and TK would/could potentially be "phased out" and in effect negatively alter what's made the NFFC the best game in town for the past five years (and currently as well)?...thanks much...SNAKE I don't see it. Take a look at our contracts: It's written so they can't get rid of us and we can't quit!!

We're locked in man for the rest of our working days!!

I'm dead serious.

Listen, Tom and I sat down and went over all the pros and cons last week. We had career decisions to make. The sale was going through, with or without us as two big companies sold products to each other. But Fanball made it crystal clear that we were part of the deal. So Tom and I had every chance to be free agents or work for Fanball. We had the choice. And we agreed to be part of the Fanball team.

There are no outs, no reasons to do anything different. We're working in the same town, still working together, still working on events we created, still working on my real baby (Fantasy Sports Magazine) and working for a 24/7 all fantasy company owned by one of the biggest media owners in the country. What's not to like?

Let's move on. We're going NOWHERE!!!

Just look at what the autographed memorabilia did for sales last week. That was because of Fanball. Those were things we used to do in 2004 and 2005, but stopped doing recently for budget concerns. This is good for the NFFC, you'll see.

Erok · Post by **Erok** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 10:04 am

Well, first off guys, congratulations!

Secondly, like GK said, I hope you guys don't mess with the KDS, 3RR, customer service, comp. payouts, or the scoring & rules. They are all the best in the industry IMO & unique in their own sense. That is why I did the majority of my leagues at NFFC over the last few years. Awesome job and I hope it continues going forward! Congrats again.
--The Wicked Klown

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 10:06 am

Originally posted by Ryan E. Houston:
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 I love it. The VP is NFFC member number 42,975 or something!!

First post, too. Welcome aboard.

Honestly, great post Ryan. Thanks for all you've done so far and all you're going to do in the near future.

NFFC folks should remember that Ryan finished second overall during the regular season in 2005 to Josh Ferenc. Josh drafted from the No. 1 spot when LT had a monster year and went 12-1 with 1,979.90 points, while Ryan drafted from the 10th spot and won $5,000 with a 12-1 record and 1,936.10 points. He fell in love with the NFFC then and has been pursuing me for five years!!

And that's no lie!!!

Ryan also bought six teams for his Fanball group in the NFBC this year and Ryan, Charlie, Mike Sheets, Ray Flowers, Ryan Bowyer and others are competing over there. He sees it. They know what they can do with this. These aren't folks in suits buying this business. These are fantasy players, fantasy game operators, fantasy veterans who get it, see it and want to improve it. We'll be fine.

Welcome to the message board jungle, Boss. You'll never be the same after entering this mess!!

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 10:07 am

Greg and I have both mentioned the Fence Sitters specials we added this week. As Greg said, look at the number of signups we received for the Classic, Primetime and Online Championship as a result of that. Those giveaways came straight from Ryan and Fanball. This is the type of enhancement we can do now that we're working for Fanball.

But that's just the beginning in our estimation. We all believe that what we have here are two terrific live events and a fantasy business that has been profitable and has grown significantly in a number of different ways in the past several years. Neither Greg, Ryan or myself believe that what we've accomplished to date is all we can do going forward. We all believe that we can grow every aspect of our business significantly.

The key aspect here is that we now have the means at our disposal with Fanball to accomplish many of these things and maybe much more. The future looks real bright everyone and that's why Greg and I are excited about this announcement. Greg and I have spent the past several years working 24/7 to make everything we do something special. Now we have an opportunity to grow every part of our fantasy business in ways we could only dream of doing before.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 10:10 am

Originally posted by FI$HER:
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. We already have rules and a great format ready for basketball. I need to run that past Ryan and Charlie because last year STATS couldn't do the back-end service for us there. We turned to CBS Sportsline.com. I'm hopeful that Fanball will have something to help us out in hoops.

I don't see how we could do hockey this year, but Dyv and Roundtrippers always tell me they will get it done for me if I build it!! I'd have to say probably not for hockey this year, but I'll know more next week. Tom and I are meeting with the Fanball group next Tuesday and EVERYTHING will be discussed then.