2009 NFFC Plans...For Now!

[Greg Ambrosius]

I know these are our baseball boards, but I've posted a new thread on the NFFC boards with our 2009 plans for anyone who is interested. Feel free to post your comments there or here if you'd like. It's still a work in progress, but we obviously need to make some tough choices going forward to make the two-event concept work this year.





Normally we have all of our plans set in stone by the first week of January, but the state of the economy and the state of the fantasy football industry has us taking our time this year. Our two-event format needs a little tweaking if we are going to continue that way going forward and it starts with the price for each event. We've heard from enough of you that offering two $1,300 entry fee leagues will make it tough for you to play both this year, so we're still analyzing the NFFC Primetime now and should have more details soon.



Here are the changes we are looking to make in 2009 and I'm looking for your feedback on each of them. Please feel free to post your thoughts here and we'll nail this down shortly.



1. NFFC Classic will remain at $1,300 per team and we will keep the same league prizes and all of the overall prizes with the exception of one. We based last year's prizes on 392 teams and finished with 308 teams. This year we will base the guaranteed overall prize pool on 322 teams, which means there is $28,000 less to put towards the overall prize pool.



As a result, we will be knocking down the overall prize from $100,000 to $75,000. One prize will be affected, but we are still paying out over 75% and if we grow beyond 322 teams all of the additional prize money will be put right back into the overall grand prize. For those of you who love the 14-team format and want to see this survive and grow, hopefully you'll understand that we can do this together and reach $100,000 again if we can get more leagues each year. I don't want to affect the league prizes or the other overall prizes, so making this one change keeps the guarantee level manageable for us and allows us to grow this together.



2. We will be adding all third place finishers in each league to reach the Championship Round. This year we had 48 teams in the NFFC Classic Championship Round counting the wild card teams and if we had allowed third place teams into the Championship Round it would have been 66. The NFL has proven that any team can win it all once it gets to the playoffs and there's no reason for us not to go the same route. Adding more teams will make finishing third in your league more worthwhile and more profitable, will keep teams fighting longer each year, and will give more teams a shot at the $75,000 grand prize. Only 21.4% of all teams are still making the Championship Round in this new format, which is still a select few.



3. We will consider adding a third team to the year-end league playoff round if the team that finished second in that league in total points is knocked to third place. In other words, if one team finishes first in Total Points and the h2h champ didn't finish first or second in Total Points, then three teams will compete for the remaining $2,500. More details on this will come soon as I'm still working on this one.



4. FAAB Deadlines: There are three options for everyone to consider: 1) Just leave FAAB on Friday night for all weeks, including those in Weeks 10-13 where there are early games; or 2) Keep Friday night FAAB deadline on Friday all year and allow a Wednesday FAAB pickup in Weeks 10-13 ONLY for teams playing in the early games; or 3) Keep the setup we have now with Friday deadlines for FAAB in Weeks 1-9 and Wednesday FAAB deadlines for Weeks 10-13. Those would be the only players you could pick up with the Wednesday deadline. So in essence, you could have two FAAB periods during Weeks 10-13.



5. We'll need to write language into our rules allowing the commissioner to make an executive decision with free agent pickups before kickoff if the NFL ever cancels another game after our Friday night FAAB deadline. We can work on that together.



We do not have the NFFC Primetime figured out yet, but we are definitely looking for feedback on that one. Remember, we had 252 teams last year and based our prize money on 390 teams at $1300 each. We can't do that again this year.



Here's a thought: $750 per team for the NFFC Primetime while basing the prizes on 300 teams. We could offer $2,000 plus no co-manager fees for any team that will do both main events and keep the same percentage of payouts for league prizes. Under this scenario, the grand prize would be only $40,000, but we'd add to that total for every league after 25.



It's tough to make it all work at $750 per team and still cover all expenses for live events and still create the type of overall prize structure everyone has come to know and expect from us. But this does allow for the doubleheader, allows us to grow both 12-team and 14-team formats and gives our participants more games to play once they've already paid for travel to the live events.



I would consider adding third place teams to the Championship Round in the NFFC Primetime as well, which means 25% of all teams would have a shot at the grand prize. The one change would be the choice of the "All Play format in the 12-team leagues as I'd seriously consider scheduling the "All Play" formats during Weeks 4 and 10 when the NFL had six teams each week on byes.



There would be $4,400 available in league prizes under this format. Prizes could be $2,750, $1,250, $400 or something of that variation. Overall prize pool would have about $59,000 to play with, which would leave us something like $40,000 for first, $10,000 for second, $5,000 for third, $1,000 for fourth, and $700 free entries for 5th through 8th.



All NFFC Primetime free entries won in 2008 are still worth $1,300 in prizes and can be used for this main event with the remaining funds used for any other event or contest.



I'd love to offer both at $1,300 again, but the time doesn't seem right for that now.



Anyway, I'd love to see some feedback and see if there's a way we can start from here and grow both events together. Personally, I still like the two-event format and in Las Vegas I could see us even offering "Draft and Go" games throughout the weekend. The space is there and the die-hard players are there, so why not offer drafts throughout the weekend? There's more we can do, but hopefully folks will realize that we need to be smart with our guaranteed prize payouts and build this again. In 2004, we shot for 308 teams and had league payouts of $7,500 each. Now we have league payouts of $8,750 and thus we'll keep that level intact and grow the grand prize together.



Thanks for all your support through the years and let's make 2009 even better than 2008 together.

[sportsbettingman]

I gotta say having tables set up for live "sit and go" drafts is creative!



I imagine the sharks just sitting there waiting for the guppies to sit in with them.



~Lance

[Greg Ambrosius]

Originally posted by sportsbettingman:

I gotta say having tables set up for live "sit and go" drafts is creative!



I imagine the sharks just sitting there waiting for the guppies to sit in with them.



~Lance At the live events you could have these really at any amount. There obviously is a cost for the draft board, facilitators and running the events online, but you could do these cheaply or private leagues at $500/team or above. The key would be having enough draft boards on hand for this.



It's really Mark Moyer's idea as he suggested this last year. He was one of the guys who wanted to draft BETWEEN the two main events!!! He also said that if I would have announced that more drafts would be held after our second main event that we would have filled a few leagues. I agree and almost feel like having these "draft and go" tables ready for anyone just like they do at poker events.

[KJ Duke]

Great idea Greg.



Why just one weekend a year - how 'bout you open a sports bar with a draft-and-go table in San Diego?

[Greg Ambrosius]

Originally posted by KJ Duke:

Great idea Greg.



Why just one weekend a year - how 'bout you open a sports bar with a draft-and-go table in San Diego? How about getting me a one-way ticket to San Diego right now!! I'd work at the San Diego Zoo if it got me out of this freakin' winter here in Wisconsin.



Baseball drafts are too long to do these draft and go's, but football is perfect. If 12 or 14 guys want to sit down and get serious about drafting, we can be done in less than two hours. Saturday night could seriously be a full night of drafts and drinks and drinks and drafts!! Heck, Sunday as well!!

[Greg Ambrosius]

Okay, here's a suggestion from one of our valued NFFC players: If we increased the NFFC Classic $100 per team to $1,400, we could keep the grand prize at $100,000. I could probably still do $2,000 for both events if owners signed up before a certain date to help the cause.



So we'd have $1,400 per team in the NFFC Classic, $750 per team in the NFFC Primetime and $2,000 for both main events. Just a thought for now. I'd have to run the numbers to see how this looks, but it's a possible solution to what I've offered initially.



And it does make sense to put the NFFC Primetime first and NFFC Classic second. We'll consider that for 2009. Maybe we can still keep this doubleheader at desired levels after all.

[KJ Duke]

Good idea on the pricing.



Don't like switching the draft times around. Keep Classic first on the agenda. Everyone is jacked up for the 14-teamer in the morning, the 12-teamer after that is more casual.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Originally posted by KJ Duke:

Good idea on the pricing.



Don't like switching the draft times around. Keep Classic first on the agenda. Everyone is jacked up for the 14-teamer in the morning, the 12-teamer after that is more casual. As I told KOQ, my bigger concern is having the Classic start at 7 pm in NY. That's tough. So I haven't figured this part out. All I know is that I loved the format in LV with the Classic in the morning and the Primetime to follow and I'm not against keeping it that way again. We'll see.

[DOUGHBOYS]

Greg,



I haven't played NFFC so I don't have much of a stake in this. But I've been thinking of all the leagues that have cropped up since you've formed the NFBC and NFFC. The main purpose of these satelite, Magazine, Champions, salary, Super, Ultimate, etc drafts are for preparation for the Main draft.

What if you knocked $50 off each 2nd place teams prize from each of these drafts and applied the money to prizes for the Main? Of course the wording would not be to that effect, it would just be part of Krause's "juice". I don't think it would alter players desire to enter these leagues and it would raise a lot more money for what most are concerned about.

As said, I don't have a stake and I'm just making a suggestion.



[ January 23, 2009, 01:20 PM: Message edited by: DOUGHBOYS ]

[Gordon Gekko II]

Originally posted by DOUGHBOYS:



Trash talk before the draft is stupid.

It's like telling our girlfriend we have a big member.

The draft and member will be revealed soon enough.

And we just hope neither is met with laughter.

dougyy - there's only one other person that calls it a 'member'...are u really snake?



[ January 23, 2009, 10:37 AM: Message edited by: Gordon Gekko II ]

[DOUGHBOYS]

Other than being a troublemaker, I know nothing of Snake.

Member was used because I know that some kids read the boards and I didn't want them to read it and tell mommy and daddy that they saw the C or D word.

I'll probably change it in a day or two anyway. How are you coming with the studying?

Best effort in the Mag 2 draft?

[Gordon Gekko II]

Originally posted by DOUGHBOYS:

How are you coming with the studying?

Best effort in the Mag 2 draft? slow during the week. ramp upon the weekends.



best effort? why wouldn't I?

[Marauders]

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

Okay, here's a suggestion from one of our valued NFFC players: If we increased the NFFC Classic $100 per team to $1,400, we could keep the grand prize at $100,000. I could probably still do $2,000 for both events if owners signed up before a certain date to help the cause. If this is the way you decide to go for the 2009 NFFC classic, just wondering what you would do with the people (like myself) who won a "Free Entry" in 2008 for the 2009 main. Would it still only be valued at $1300, and we would have to kick in the extra $100. Or would we get full credit for a Main Event team?



Thanks

[Greg Ambrosius]

Originally posted by Marauders:

quote:Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

Okay, here's a suggestion from one of our valued NFFC players: If we increased the NFFC Classic $100 per team to $1,400, we could keep the grand prize at $100,000. I could probably still do $2,000 for both events if owners signed up before a certain date to help the cause. If this is the way you decide to go for the 2009 NFFC classic, just wondering what you would do with the people (like myself) who won a "Free Entry" in 2008 for the 2009 main. Would it still only be valued at $1300, and we would have to kick in the extra $100. Or would we get full credit for a Main Event team?



Thanks [/QUOTE]You'll get a personal call from me to do both main events for $2000, asking for just $600 to make it happen!! How's that?

[KJ Duke]

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

quote:Originally posted by Marauders:

quote:Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

Okay, here's a suggestion from one of our valued NFFC players: If we increased the NFFC Classic $100 per team to $1,400, we could keep the grand prize at $100,000. I could probably still do $2,000 for both events if owners signed up before a certain date to help the cause. If this is the way you decide to go for the 2009 NFFC classic, just wondering what you would do with the people (like myself) who won a "Free Entry" in 2008 for the 2009 main. Would it still only be valued at $1300, and we would have to kick in the extra $100. Or would we get full credit for a Main Event team?



Thanks [/QUOTE]You'll get a personal call from me to do both main events for $2000, asking for just $600 to make it happen!! How's that? [/QUOTE]Greg, I would bet him double or nothing for that extra $100 he can't do it again.

[Marauders]

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

quote:Originally posted by Marauders:

quote:Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

Okay, here's a suggestion from one of our valued NFFC players: If we increased the NFFC Classic $100 per team to $1,400, we could keep the grand prize at $100,000. I could probably still do $2,000 for both events if owners signed up before a certain date to help the cause. If this is the way you decide to go for the 2009 NFFC classic, just wondering what you would do with the people (like myself) who won a "Free Entry" in 2008 for the 2009 main. Would it still only be valued at $1300, and we would have to kick in the extra $100. Or would we get full credit for a Main Event team?



Thanks [/QUOTE]You'll get a personal call from me to do both main events for $2000, asking for just $600 to make it happen!! How's that? [/QUOTE]That sounds fair enough to me!