Diamond Challenge To Join The NFBC Suite Of Contests

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Greg Ambrosius
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Diamond Challenge To Join The NFBC Suite Of Contests

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:38 am

We are excited and proud today to announce a new addition to the NFBC high-stakes family of games. Let’s give it up for the NFBC Diamond Challenge!!

That’s right, today we are welcoming the industry’s premiere salary cap game – and one of the most influential games in the fantasy baseball industry – to the NFBC suite of games. CDM Diamond Challenge has been around for almost 30 years and has paid tens of millions of dollars in prizes during that time. It was one of the first salary cap pay-to-play games in the industry and it once gave the industry’s largest grand prize ($50,000) when it was aligned as the USA Today Diamond Challenge. Since its inception in 1992 as Carol’s Fantasy Baseball, this contest has awarded even more prize money than the NFBC, which has already awarded more than $28 million in prizes.

Today we are changing that game model to fit more of the NFBC model, allowing players to win more money and to compete in smaller league sizes. One of the biggest changes we are announcing today will be one set price at the beginning of the year with no transaction fees after that and guaranteed prizes that pay over 80 percent for each contest.

We are confident that the changes we are making to the Diamond Challenge this year will send this game back to previous heights. Today’s market is more familiar with salary cap games than ever before thanks to the rise and growth of Daily Fantasy Sports, so we know the salary cap market is there. Now we just need to align the price points and the payouts with other industry season-long games like the NFBC to allow it to be a big hit again.

Here are some of the changes you will see with the NFBC Diamond Challenge:

League Size: Each league will now consist of 15 teams, down from 25 in past years.

Costs: The NFBC Diamond Challenge Roto will have an entry fee of $400 with no transaction fees. Owners can make player switches during the season, just like in the NFBC, at no cost. Free Agent pickups are also available at no cost, but they are limited to 16 for the season like they were in previous years. On average last year, CDM owners paid close to $400 for Transaction Packages and transaction fees, so the price point is in line with past years of the Diamond Challenge.

Payouts: We are now paying the Top 3 teams in each 15-team league, with first place earning $1,800. Second place in each league is $800 and third place is $400. We are also guaranteeing a $40,000 grand prize, while paying the Top 12 overall. That new grand prize is up from $25,000 in recent years. We are also shooting for 60 leagues this year, 900 teams, which is up from past years. We believe it’s time to grow this salary cap format and more aggressive payouts will do that.

In-Season Roster Moves: We will allow Friday hitter moves in the Diamond Challenge, just like we do in our NFBC contests. This will give a little more roster management for owners throughout the season.

One Landing Spot: The Diamond Challenge will now appear on the NFBC site and the contests will appear within our NFBC lobby. We will have a separate salary cap tab for those games, but we’ll create a Forum on the NFBC Message Boards for feedback and questions, and we’ll interact with promotions and Q&A on the NFBC Live Chat just like we do for all of our NFBC games. The stand-alone CDM site will disappear as all former CDM games will be mingled into the NFBC, NFFC, NFBKC and NFHC web sites, creating more uniformity between those gaming audiences.
Special Packages: We also will take $100 off for a 3-Pack of Diamond Challenge games as we know some of our veteran players will be back for multiple teams. The 3-Pack will now be available for $1,100.

Diamond Challenge Points: We also will be offering an NFBC Diamond Challenge Points national contest this year with a $250 price point, 15-team leagues, a $1,200 league prize (Pay Top 3) and a guaranteed $15,000 grand prize. Again, the contest will have no transaction fees, an 80+% payout and prizes for the Top 10 teams overall. We are shooting for just over 500 teams in this contest. There will also be a Special Package of $50 off for three teams ($700 total).

Football Challenge: You will see the same concept debut in football this year with the NFFC Football Challenge games (both Roto and Points). We will offer one set price, 80+% payouts and great guaranteed prizes.

It’s time for salary cap games to enter the high-stakes space and CDM Diamond Challenge transitioning into the NFBC Diamond Challenge makes perfect sense. It was high-stakes before there was high-stakes fantasy sports, so it fits in perfectly with us.

From a historical standpoint, CDM Fantasy Sports and the Diamond Challenge means so much to all of us here. This was one of the first national contests in our industry, first as The Sporting News Diamond Challenge in 1993 and then as the USA Today Diamond Challenge. The $50,000 grand prize in the early 2000’s was the industry’s biggest at the time and it brought prominence to our industry.

In fact, USA Today was set to buy CDM Fantasy Sports before MLB Advanced Media chose to deny their license in 2006. MLBAM made a power play to limit the number of fantasy sports licenses even though CDM Fantasy Sports was their first fantasy sports licensee and it set off a firestorm in the industry. CDM sued and won a landmark case that showed that fantasy sports game operators or content providers did not need to be licensed to use the names or statistics of publicly recorded contests. That decision changed the landscape forever. The owners of CDM – which included Charlie Wiegert – personally financed that lawsuit, which allowed the industry to grow and prosper.

For that, we as an industry owe a debt of gratitude to those owners. And now it’s time to return that gratitude with a high-stakes version of their signature game that will benefit the players and grow each year. This new model can do that because nothing about the game format changes. The only changes -- a set entry fee, smaller league sizes and better payouts – greatly benefit the players.

It’s a new structure of a well-loved fantasy game. We look forward to your feedback and we are confident that this is the right move for the Diamond Challenge and for the NFBC. Enjoy and thanks.
Greg Ambrosius
Founder, National Fantasy Baseball Championship
General Manager, Consumer Fantasy Games at SportsHub Technologies
Twitter - @GregAmbrosius

Charliewiegert
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Re: Diamond Challenge To Join The NFBC Suite Of Contests

Post by Charliewiegert » Tue Oct 27, 2020 3:03 pm

Hurray
Thank you Greg, Tom and NFBC for making the CDM Challenge games part of NFBC. Yes, these games have provided almost 30 years of great entertainment to thousands of fantasy players, not to mention millions of dollars in prizes. There are many loyal customers who love playing this unique format, which I have always contended is one of the best ways to ever play fantasy sports, and proves who is the worlds best fantasy player in each sport each year. Why? It’s simple...the player has complete control over his team. He can choose whatever players he feels are the ones needed to win. He can change them if needed, if hurt, or he thinks someone better comes along. They are playing against some of the greatest fantasy players of all time, and when they win, they know they have achieved one of the ultimate achievements in fantasy sports ever. Rightly so, they should be proud of that accomplishment! The CDM Hall Of Fame represented the greatest fantasy players in the industry!
I’m so happy the games will continue and the players who love this game can continue to compete for the ultimate prize in fantasy sports, to be a Diamond Challenge Grand Prize Champion. Yes the money is great, and it will be spent and gone, but the distinction that they were once the best that could ever be will never go away, it’s a lifelong distinction, almost like winning a gold metal in the Olympics!
Whatever I can do to help these games succeed, I’m at your service.
The godfather of fantasy sports

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Gekko
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Re: Diamond Challenge To Join The NFBC Suite Of Contests

Post by Gekko » Tue Oct 27, 2020 3:31 pm

Interesting. Can’t wait to read more about this.

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Greg Ambrosius
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Re: Diamond Challenge To Join The NFBC Suite Of Contests

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Wed Oct 28, 2020 8:53 am

Charliewiegert wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 3:03 pm
Hurray
Thank you Greg, Tom and NFBC for making the CDM Challenge games part of NFBC. Yes, these games have provided almost 30 years of great entertainment to thousands of fantasy players, not to mention millions of dollars in prizes. There are many loyal customers who love playing this unique format, which I have always contended is one of the best ways to ever play fantasy sports, and proves who is the worlds best fantasy player in each sport each year. Why? It’s simple...the player has complete control over his team. He can choose whatever players he feels are the ones needed to win. He can change them if needed, if hurt, or he thinks someone better comes along. They are playing against some of the greatest fantasy players of all time, and when they win, they know they have achieved one of the ultimate achievements in fantasy sports ever. Rightly so, they should be proud of that accomplishment! The CDM Hall Of Fame represented the greatest fantasy players in the industry!
I’m so happy the games will continue and the players who love this game can continue to compete for the ultimate prize in fantasy sports, to be a Diamond Challenge Grand Prize Champion. Yes the money is great, and it will be spent and gone, but the distinction that they were once the best that could ever be will never go away, it’s a lifelong distinction, almost like winning a gold metal in the Olympics!
Whatever I can do to help these games succeed, I’m at your service.
We have every intention Charlie of growing the salary cap season-long format to greater heights and to continue to build on the grand prize. I've known you for 28 years and I always admired the Diamond Challenge contest as it grew into the biggest contest in the industry. You brought The Sporting News on board and you teamed up with USA Today to grow the format, eventually offering a $50,000 grand prize. DFS changed this market as people turned to the daily salary cap format, but I believe there's still a strong market for season-long games yet and we intend to grow it.

But we also have to admit, as you do now, that the prize format needed to change and it was time to move away from the pay-transaction format. The NFBC proved that players are smart and know what the percent of prize money is compared to overall revenue and it was time to turn this into a set entry fee and a set guaranteed prize structure like we do with all of our NFBC games. Reducing the league size was also important and now owners have a better chance to win league prize money and to win more of it in the overall prize structure. There's less money to be made in this format for the game operator, but if the game is set up fairly the number of participants will grow, the prizes will grow and the profit will grow. We think that's a win-win for everyone.

And we already have a die-hard fantasy baseball community that seems to enjoy playing many different formats, so this seems like a perfect fit. Hell, many of our top NFBC players first started with the Diamond Challenge, so this isn't foreign to many of our players. Welcome back on the team and we look forward to your insights here and your continued support. Now get busy on those salaries. Our die-hards are waiting for the 2021 Diamond Challenge salaries!! :lol:
Greg Ambrosius
Founder, National Fantasy Baseball Championship
General Manager, Consumer Fantasy Games at SportsHub Technologies
Twitter - @GregAmbrosius

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Greg Ambrosius
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Re: Diamond Challenge To Join The NFBC Suite Of Contests

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Wed Feb 03, 2021 3:04 pm

Sorry about the delay on this, but we've finally finished our Roster Worksheet for the Diamond Challenge games.

You can find Roster Worksheet under My Teams and pull down to the bottom where it says Roster Worksheet.

There you can put together a Diamond Challenge team using the $30 million salary cap whether you've purchased a team yet or not. You can also easily import a team from the worksheet into Set Lineup. That will be available once salaries are finalized by Feb. 19th.

But go ahead and play with it now and enjoy. Thanks all and good luck.
Greg Ambrosius
Founder, National Fantasy Baseball Championship
General Manager, Consumer Fantasy Games at SportsHub Technologies
Twitter - @GregAmbrosius

acesfull23
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Re: Diamond Challenge To Join The NFBC Suite Of Contests

Post by acesfull23 » Sun Feb 14, 2021 11:20 pm

Can somebody help me out on the payout % here? Greg's post says 80%+ payout for Diamond Points contest. I'm seeing the following payouts:

League:
$1,950 per league x 34 leagues(based on the listed 510 players the payouts are based on) = $66,300

Overall:
Add up all the prizes to get $33,000

Total payouts seem to be $66,300 + 33,000 = $99,300

$99,300 / 510 players = $194.70 per person into the payouts

$194.70 / $250 entry fee = 77.9%

Is that accurate?

bayareabluejays
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Re: Diamond Challenge To Join The NFBC Suite Of Contests

Post by bayareabluejays » Fri Feb 19, 2021 11:47 am

acesfull23 wrote:
Sun Feb 14, 2021 11:20 pm
Can somebody help me out on the payout % here? Greg's post says 80%+ payout for Diamond Points contest. I'm seeing the following payouts:

League:
$1,950 per league x 34 leagues(based on the listed 510 players the payouts are based on) = $66,300

Overall:
Add up all the prizes to get $33,000

Total payouts seem to be $66,300 + 33,000 = $99,300

$99,300 / 510 players = $194.70 per person into the payouts

$194.70 / $250 entry fee = 77.9%

Is that accurate?
After applying the 2-pk and 3-pk discounts, I'm pretty sure the overall return will be more than 80%.

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