That was Major League Baseball's proud proclamation yesterday, as if we were in a long rain delay instead of a long, ugly, unnecessary labor dispute. Yes, the coronavirus postponed the start of the season in March, but make no mistake about it, GREED prevented the game from coming back before July 1st. GREED also resulted in a shorter season than baseball fans (and especially NFBC fans) wanted or expected. And GREED put our contests in a position where it was impossible to have unanimous consent on the path to take.
As a result of no agreement between the two sides, Commissioner Rob Manfred on Monday mandated a 60-game season that will start July 23rd or 24th (THEY CAN'T EVEN NAIL DOWN OPENING DAY!!!) and end on Sunday, September 27th. The union quickly approved the safety protocols and players are scheduled to report to Spring Training 2.0 at their home stadiums by July 1st.
There, we got that shit out of the way!!
Now comes the hard part. What to do with already drafted NFBC teams and a 60-game season rather than a 162-game season? We have four national contests that all finished drafts by early April and many private leagues that mostly drafted in March and before that. So now what?
This has not be an easy solution and the answer won't be acceptable by everyone. How could it be when these four contests alone comprise over 9,000 paid teams? There's a lot of time, effort and of course money involved in each one of those teams and everyone who participated in those leagues wanted a fair chance to win the advertised prize money. That has to be the deciding factor in our decision here because the integrity of each contest now and going forward has to be maintained.
So here's our decision:
We are refunding every already drafted NFBC league that has weekly FAAB. Owners expect to draft well and grind through weekly FAAB to win those leagues and we just feel that with only 9+ weeks of the season (10 possible FAAB periods) that those contests are forever altered and not fair. Could we have lived with half a season in these formats? Probably, but FAAB is such a big part of these leagues that we are just refunding all teams.
So contests that will see refunds this week are:
Rotowire Online Championship (2,148 teams)
Online Auction Championship (420 teams)
All Satellite Leagues (650+ teams)
All Main Event and Rotowire Online Championship Qualifier Leagues (1,400+ teams)
All Guillotine Leagues (150+ teams)
Although they haven't drafted yet, we have already refunded all NFBC Platinum, Diamond, Ultimate and Super League entries, and of course, all Live Auction League entries in March.
We will be refunding all NFBC Solo Shot entries as well. This debut single-entry national contest was headed toward a sellout before coronavirus hit, but we have had a majority of owners ask for refunds here and it's best to launch this product when a full season is anticipated. It will return in 2021. We were at 145 of 180 spots sold before coronavirus hit.
We will be refunding all current NFBC Main Event entries that are still on accounts. There are 355 of the original 535 entries still with money on account, which is amazing. There's no doubt that our veterans still want this contest to go forward, but we feel that the $1700 price point is too high for a 60-game season. We will announce new plans shortly. We are looking at a price range of $1,000-$1,200 per team to get as many owners into it as possible. I will create a separate thread for that contest, so no need to post your thoughts here. This is our signature event and the signature contest in the fantasy baseball industry and there's still prestige and hopefully a nice grand prize waiting for someone after Sept. 27th. Stay tuned and we hope you will still support this contest.
There are three contests that will be played out and prizes paid in full and we'll explain why. Here are those three contests:
NFBC Draft Champions National Championship: This contest does not rely on Free Agent pickups and totally rewards the draft process and lineup manipulation of all drafters. Yes, this is only a 60-game season when everyone expected 162 games, but the best drafted teams will still win the $30,000 grand prize and the league prizes. Each team has 50-man rosters and the player pool has 750 players selected, which includes middle relievers, minor-leaguers, stars, scrubs, everything that could still benefit owners during the season. There are 4,250 teams in this contest and I don't expect all owners to agree with us, but this is a Draft 'n Hold contest and the rules haven't changed at all. There's just less time to show your team's dominance. I believe this is still a fair contest, even with fewer games played and we are going forward with the guaranteed prizes.
NFBC $50 Draft Champions Private Leagues: This is a similar contest, just that we have private 12-team, 50-man roster teams playing just for league prizes. Nothing has changed with this contest as there also is no FAAB. Yes, it's a shorter season, but it's still the same Draft 'n Hold format that rewards the best drafted teams and owners who can set the perfect lineup each week. There are 2,040 teams in this format and we are guaranteeing all of the league prizes.
NFFC Cutline Championship: This is a Best Ball national championship with a cutline playoff format. There are two scheduled FAAB periods for this contest during what was originally a 14-week regular season. Scoring the most points during the regular season determines the regular season champion and that won't change at all even though there are now only 10 weekly scoring periods instead of 14. The change with the shorter schedule involves the elimination of the playoff format, which was scheduled to take place over 9 weeks. The "cutline" playoff format will be eliminated and we will reward the overall prizes to the teams that have scored the most points at the end of the season. Nobody is eliminated at any point, unlike before when 50% of teams were eliminated after the regular season. Everyone is in line for the overall prizes now and they have grown from paying the Top 20 overall to the Top 27 overall. It will still be optimal scoring for 10 weeks with overall standings based on the top scoring teams and we'll pay all of the league champs with most total points and overall leaders with most total points at the conclusion of the season. Straight Best Ball Championship. The two FAAB periods will be Tuesday, July 28th (after Opening weekend) and Tuesday, August 25th. The season ends Sept. 27th.
BestBall10s: I will add this product here, even though it's not officially part of the NFBC. This is a straight Best Ball format with all individual leagues and this will go forward as well. Top scoring teams in each league at the end of the season earn the league prizes.
We are putting in the rules that we'll guarantee prizes once we've reached the 40-game mark. So for legal purposes, we'll say a total of 600 games played and all prizes are guaranteed to be paid. If the season shuts down on Sept. 13th because of coronavirus, all league and overall prizes will be paid out based on the standings at that time. If the season shuts down on August 10th, well short of 600 total games, every contest entry fee will be refunded, including the Draft Champions and Best Ball leagues.
Other rules changes: Minimum Innings Pitched will be 300 (down from 1,000) for all leagues and will be pro-rated if the season is cut short. Keep track of your innings pitched once we get past 600 total games played. Also, new position eligibility will be earned once a player plays 4 games (37% of 10 games) at a new position.
While I know our decision can't possibly please everyone, we feel it's fair and we believe the best teams/owners will still win the most prize money. MLB has put our contest and every contest in this industry in an unenviable position and we made a ruling that we think is as fair as it can be. Today we will be refunding more than $2 million in entry fees and we've already refunded more than $1 million since March 13th. And we have refunded in full: We have returned all compliance fees and we have not charged anyone credit card fees. We are eating all of those expenses.
During the time that everyone already drafted these teams, credit card fees approached six figures and we still have to pay state-by-state licensing fees that allowed many of you to draft those teams we just refunded. Those costs have not gone away and they are massive. We've paid facilitators to watch over 1,200 drafts -- yes, 1,200 pay and free drafts on our site so far -- that consumed thousands of hours. In many ways, we feel like these last 8 months have been for naught and yet I don't think our staff has ever worked harder. We sold out three of the four national contests despite having to end those contests early and now we are refunding two of them completely.
We aren't looking for pity for the situation that we're in. This is part of running a business and coronavirus has paralyzed and altered a lot of companies. We still have to keep our fingers crossed just to get to the baseball finish line as we all know there's no guarantee that MLB can pull this off without a major shutdown. But we made this decision because we felt we still were keeping the integrity and fairness of the contests we left intact, while still refunding all weekly FAAB leagues that just didn't feel fair. Right or wrong, that's our decision as we have now refunded almost 80 percent of the revenue we once had for the season.
We plan on adding two national contests with new guaranteed prize money -- the Main Event and the Online Championship -- after Friday. Look for more details and draft times soon. Figuring out the new guarantees is going to be tricky, so look for an email from me shortly as I pick everyone's brains for their interest in these two formats. We CAN'T miss on the guaranteed payouts as a huge overlay on either of those contests would not be good. We'll also add some private leagues that have just league prizes.
Basically, we'll have 22-23 days of online drafts to get our fix for the shortened season. We expect to post draft times from noon to midnight every day, so check out the schedule and jump in when you can if you're interested. I know everyone is busy with family during the summer months, but we hope you can still jump into a few drafts and enjoy this unique experience.
We don't have any plans on live events at this point because 1) MLB is scheduling the opener on a Thursday or Friday, so the best available draft time would be the weekend before; and 2) the last thing our company needs right now is additional expenses. But I know there is talk of live events on both coasts and we'll listen and help out where we can. It's not a definite no, but any additional contests (maybe live auctions or high dollar leagues) would have to come of it, along with Mains around the clock, for us to justify the time and expense of a trip either way. And now we see that New York is imposing bans on certain states flying in, so that complicates it a little bit too. Things change daily around here.
The NFBC community is the best fantasy baseball community in the industry, bar none. There's no doubt in my mind about that. We've built this contest together through 17 unbelievable years and we've grown from basically two live events to more than a dozen different contests live and online. Friendships have been formed that will last a lifetime. The live events are like family reunions, or better yet, Christmas Day for adults!! We've faced some obstacles in the past, least of which was being sold from Liberty Media to myself in February of 2011. But nothing threatens our industry, our contests or baseball in general more than the combination of coronavirus and the GREEDY labor impasse. Hopefully we will all survive it and so will baseball.
That's the NFBC plan. That's today's landscape. That's today's decision. It's not perfect for everyone and it's not perfect for the NFBC or SportsHub Technologies. Refunding $3.5 million is never fun or easy. But we hope you continue to support us going forward and we hope all of your already drafted teams win prize money. Thanks all and good luck.
