Here's The Advantages To Playing In The NFFC

[Greg Ambrosius]

I know you have a lot of choices in the high-stakes fantasy football space. I know there are a lot of good companies out there with great prizes. I know this market is big enough to support multiple game operators and multiple national contests. I know all of that.

And I also hope that all of us game operators continue to grow and continue to prosper, while providing great payouts, great games and great competition to our customers. That's the way it should be.

Twenty years ago when I became the president of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, I had a mantra that I wanted our association to use. I said the goal of our association was to grow the industry pie, not take parts of the pie from each other. In other words, our goal together was to grow the fantasy sports audience, grow the number of games and products they purchased within the industry, and continue to make this a bigger industry with more players. If that happened, then EVERY FSTA COMPANY would benefit.

That mantra is still true today. If the NFFC and NFBC grow, then other high-stakes and pay-to-play game operators should grow. If we get national exposure on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports, it provides more exposure for the whole industry, including our competitors. If our competitors bring in new players, it likely will eventually benefit us as well. So we should all work hard to grow this industry because eventually what is good for others is also good for us, if we're doing the right things.

That being said, I love what we have done in this industry over the last 17 years as the industry's longest-running high-stakes season-long operator. We started after WCOFF, but we outlasted that contest by more than a decade. And in baseball, WCOFB and other competitors have entered our space and left within two years of competing with us there.

Since we debuted the 14-team NFFC Classic in 2004, we've done a lot of good things and we've even learned from our bad decisions. A lot of times we take for granted what we've offered our players, and in turn, it's possible our players have taken some of these innovations for granted, too.

So on a slow day for football, I thought I'd try to list some of the things that makes the NFFC different from others in this space. And at the same time, maybe it will be a good place for new players to see what we have to offer here at the NFFC. So let's count the ways:

1) NFFC Classic: The NFFC Classic is the first and only 14-team national championship, now in its 17th season. This year we are putting more money into league prizes and spreading the wealth more in the overall prizes, so league champs will earn $8,000 each and the overall champion will earn $50,000. This is one of the toughest competitions in fantasy football and that's what is appealing about it to our die-hard players.

2) KDS and Third Round Reversal: Because of the deeper 14-team format that hurt late drafting teams in a straight serpentine format, we decided to implement the Kentucky Derby System (KDS) and Third Round Reversal in 2007. KDS allows owners to list their favorite draft preferences in order from best to worst, and Third Round Reversal reversed the order of only the Third Round in all NFFC drafts. So a draft would start 1-14 in Round 1, 14-1 in Round 2 and then 14-1 in Round 3. After that it stayed serpentine 1-14, 14-1 in every proceeding round. This balanced out the draft order so much more and KDS allowed owners to have a strategy around their favored draft spots. In 2008 when we added 12-team leagues, we still used KDS and 3RR. Now we have this process automated on the site and it takes seconds to run KDS and announce draft orders.

3) Different League Sizes: Nobody else offers 10-team, 12-team and 14-team national contests with grand prizes ranging from $25,000 to $200,000. The NFFC does all of that as we have the 10-team Cutline Best Ball Championship, the 12-Team Primetime, Rotowire Online Championship and Draft Champions National Championship, and the 14-Team NFFC Classic. There's a league size for everyone.

4) Different Game Formats: The NFFC has FAAB leagues, we have straight Best Ball leagues, we have a hybrid Best Ball Championship (Cutline) with Best Ball for 9 weeks and then a survivor format for the last 7 weeks. We have online auction leagues, and we have the industry's only single-entry national championship (NFFC Silver Bullet). Last year we added Guillotine Leagues and this year we added Keeper Leagues that will tie owners together for years to come.

5) Live Events: We became the only high-stakes game operator with regional live events in 2004 when we hosted drafts in Las Vegas, New York City and Chicago at the same time. We eventually expanded to Tampa and other cities, but now we are in New York City and Las Vegas. We love the regional drafts because it allows more players to attend them and we hope they continue to grow for years to come. The live events have a "family reunion" feeling to them as so many of the same people come to the live events each year. We have also been at the Bellagio for the last 10 years and it's hard to beat that home and the catered food for those Las Vegas live events. Unlike anything else in the industry.

6) Electronic Draft Boards: After years of using the standard cardboard draft boards and physical stickers, in 2015 the NFFC went with High Definition projectors to list the selected players on a draft board that was projected onto a screen. It took a few years to upgrade to the right projectors and to get the technology just perfect, but there's no doubt we've got it down now. In fact, one facilitator can run an entire draft as he/she announces the pick and makes the selection on a light iPad. Live drafts and auctions are quicker, smoother and more enjoyable. Not only that, but the live drafters now have access to the online draft room at the same time so that they can see the remaining player pool, set up queues if they'd like and more. And the live auction software is so helpful that it updates max bid and remaining money in real-time as winning bids are made. We are the only game operator in the industry that does all live drafts with this technology.

7) Technology: Since we joined SportsHub Technology, our online draft and auction software has become the industry standard. We will match our online draft room with anyone. Our online auction software has quickly become the best in the industry. And our FAAB technology is a time saver and a life saver as our veterans will attest to. We've listened to our customers, added tools they've requested and now we have such a great FAAB setup that owners are playing in more FAAB contests each year, rather than cutting back on teams. We've also added an app that allows you to easily draft on your smartphone or any device, while easily making lineup decisions that way as well.

8) Team Kicker: This seems small, but we listened to our players and implemented this position in two contests. Last year we replaced individual kickers with Team Kicker in all Draft Champions formats so that owners didn't have to go 45 kickers deep to cover that position from injuries, cuts or misfortunes. This year with Covid-19 making roster allocation more difficult, we replaced individual kickers with Team Kicker in all of our contests that hadn't already hosted drafts (RotoWire Online Championship, Cutline and Satellite leagues being the exception). We believe it will be a benefit to our players during what is sure to be a very trying season.

9) Pricing: While we are a high-stakes game operator, we also want people to try our games and our technology for the first time, so we do have Best Ball contests as low as $25 and you can play in national contests for $150 or higher. We are the only contest with an entry fee as high as $20,000 (NFFC Platinum), so there should be a price point in between that suits your style. We also own the BestBall10s contest, which has 12-Team, 20-Round individual league best ball scoring contests for as low as $10 per team.

10) Customer Service: We like to pride ourselves on being there for our customers whenever they need us. Everyone has had my cell phone number for more than a decade and they know I'll answer at almost any time of the day or night. Tom and Darik too. We are full-time employees of our high-stakes games (we don't have other jobs) and we are here to help you with just about anything. And trust me, after 17 years, we've been asked to help with just about everything. If you are paying this much to play fantasy sports, you better have someone there at all times.

11) Playoff Formats: This may be a personal choice, but I think our playoff format is as good as it gets. We reward the best teams during the 13-week regular season by honoring most points and best head-to-head record, while allowing three teams from each league in most national contests a shot at the Championship Round and the contest's grand prize. Head-to-Head is important in fantasy football and we honor that, but if you got lucky with a good h2h record and didn't score many points, you need to earn your way in a league playoff for the league title and top prize money. We don't have one-week playoff formats that determine the league champions; total points is key.

12) Brady Tinker: Okay, this one is minor, but we're the only one with the industry's best live auctioneer and facilitator. One other company tried to recruit him a long time ago to work exclusively for them and he laughed through the process as they had no idea how incredibly close Brady and myself are. He wasn't going anywhere. He makes competing at live events fun and he's easily the best auctioneer in the industry.

13) Guillotine Leagues: We unveiled this unique format last year and other sites are now offering this format, but it originated with SportsHub companies. Basically it's a 17-team league and every week the lowest scoring team in the league is "chopped" from the competition through Week 13. The 16 players from the eliminated team from that league then go back into FAAB, so every week there is a loaded FAAB pool. How you manage to stay out of last place each week, while managing the unique FAAB pool every week is key. Four teams are left standing after Week 13 and we have a total points competition in Weeks 14-16 to determine the league champion. It really is a fun, innovative way to enjoy fantasy football each year.

14) NFFC Keeper Leagues: We added Keeper Leagues this year where you compete for prizes this year and then keep a max of 5 players for next year. Those players go 2 rounds higher than where you drafted them from the previous year. It's a fun way to build a winning team and a dominating team among 11 fellow owners. This isn't a Dynasty League, but a Keeper League.

15) Guaranteed Prizes: Since 2004 we've already given out over $54 million in prizes and we hope to add an additional $7-$8 million this year through all of the sports. We pay as quickly as possible onto Player Accounts and we've always paid in full. There's no greater need from a game operator than to guarantee the prizes, pay quickly and always be reliable in paying. We definitely have the test of time on our side.

I'm sure I could think of a few more goodies from the NFFC, but it's been fun to document them all for new players to check out. Every contest and every game operator has their good items that players love and respect. We have our own here at the NFFC and hopefully we've brought some of these to light today. Enjoy and thanks for playing with us through the years.

[Henry Muto]

Also your waiver system went from the worst of all the sites I played in to the absolute best when you changed your system a few years ago. By far my favorite system using the watchlist.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Also your waiver system went from the worst of all the sites I played in to the absolute best when you changed your system a few years ago. By far my favorite system using the watchlist.

Thanks Henry. All the credit goes to the SportsHub Technologies IT, who got pointers from our players and then executed those suggestions. It was built by us, but all of the recommendations came from the players. If it saves you folks time each week, then it's money well spent.