Rotowire OC Extended Drafts: Signups Through Aug. 18th

[Greg Ambrosius]

Okay, let's make it official today: The NFFC will be offering 4-Hour, 2-Hour and 1-Hour Extended Drafts this year for the Rotowire Online Championship.

This will be the first year that we'll be offering anything more than 1-minute per pick daily drafts for this championship. We have been the only game operator in the industry over the last decade not to offer these extended times, but we feel the format is ready to handle this additional time frame now.

The first nightly Rotowire Online Championship draft is set for Saturday, April 27th at 10 pm ET. We will open Registration for these 4-Hour, 2-Hour and 1-Hour Rotowire OC drafts today, but even if they fill they won't start until 1 pm ET on Sunday, April 28th, so plan accordingly. Leagues that fill after that point will start 30 minutes after the leagues are created.

We have seen enough analysis and data to feel good about adding these extended draft times. The data from other contests show that 18-21% of all leagues at this price point come from the extended time frames. We had 399 Rotowire Online Championship leagues last year WITHOUT any of these extended time frames, so adding in another 70-80 leagues would be huge for this contest. And even if we don't add that many new leagues, giving our players other options from the daily time frames should be able to get more people competing in this contest.

The plan is to run these extended drafts through early August and then to turn them off shortly after pre-season games begin. We don't want to get too close to the start of the season for these extended drafts and there's really no reason to do that with multiple OC drafts filling every day and night in August and September. We will shut these off in early to mid-August, so plan accordingly.

We have set up 4-Hour and 2-Hour leagues for the NFFC Classic and those leagues will start 30 minutes after they are filled. We feel it's a good test for that contest, which last year had only six nightly drafted leagues. If we can add one or two Classic leagues in this format it's a good thing.

However, at this point those are the only two national contests that will have extended time frames. The NFFC Primetime and Silver Bullet don't host nightly drafts until mid to late August and we definitely wouldn't start any of those before early August. We are still discussing those two formats, but are leaning against extended drafts for both at this point. Let's give this a little more time before finalizing plans there, but definitely nothing for either contest until pre-season games begin.

Thanks for all your input and data on the previous thread where we discussed adding these extended drafts to the Rotowire Online Championship. It helped us form our decision here. We look forward to starting the drafting season in the Rotowire Online Championship and awarding that $250,000 grand prize to one of you. Good luck and enjoy this season.

[Greg Ambrosius]

The Rotowire Online Championship Extended drafts debuted this season and we've had good interest in them during the first 2+ months. But we always said that we were going to end them once the nightly drafts started to heat up, so let's put a final start date on these.

We will take signups for the Rotowire Online Championship Extended drafts through Sunday, August 18th. We will not fill any more 4-Hour, 2-Hour or 1-Hour leagues after that date as it will give all three formats plenty of time to finish before the season starts on Sunday, September 8th. It also will allow us to fill those last three weeks with just daily/nightly Rotowire OC drafts.

Plan accordingly and thanks for making these Extended drafts work this season. It filled the slower off-season months, but now it's time to really get busy. Thanks all and good luck in all your leagues this year.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Just a reminder that this is the last week to join a Rotowire Online Championship Extended draft this season. We hope to fill all available leagues by Sunday of this week and then will just concentrate on the nightly drafts the last three weeks of the drafting season.

This is for all 4-Hour and 2-Hour drafts, so get in now and join a league by Sunday if you want to compete for the $250,000 grand prize in this fashion. Thanks everyone and good luck.

[Greg Ambrosius]

We sold out another 2-Hour Rotowire Online Championship league this morning and will keep it open for possibly one more. This is the last day to fill these Extended leagues, so get in today if you want a shot at the $250,000 grand prize this way. Right now, only the 2-Hour format is available for the Rotowire Online Championship Extended leagues. Good luck all and thanks for making this a successful new format in the NFFC.