Steel Lugnuts wrote:Perhaps this has already been discussed and I missed it, and I know the old-school players won't like it, but I think if NFBC offered H2H league options, that would bring in a huge market of fantasy baseball players. I was suprised how many people I talk to that only started playing fantasy baseball the last couple years and never even heard of ROTO! Either that, or they've heard of it and have no idea how to play.
Standings and payouts could be similar to the current format, win your league and win $1000, etc...score the most overall points out of everyone and win $10,000 (for DC leagues), or $100,000 for the ME leagues.
I've been reading some of the trash talking already going on with the regulars on this site, and that's with year-long leagues that haven't even started yet! Can you imagine games that matter on a weekly basis? I think it would be pretty awesome.
I also think some smaller priced leagues, like a $25 and $50 satellite leagues, would be a good idea to bring in some new players that may be on the fence or what to give this site a try.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I think I have explained in the past that we just can't be everything for everyone. We are very good at offering 5x5 Roto leagues and hosting live events and each year we are finding ways to expand on that model. But doing H2H leagues or online auction leagues or create products that would appeal to niche audiences aren't as appealing as creating new 5x5 Roto games that bring in larger groups of new customers.
This year we've expanded our offerings to include 10-team leagues at a price point as low as $100. Why are we doing this in a 5x5 Roto format? Because there's already a huge market of 10-team players on Yahoo and CBS Sports who might want a higher paying contest with better customer service. And it's also not varying too far from what we already offer on our back-end game side.
Our Draft Champions Leagues are expanding our customer base in a big way this year and we're definitely focused on that area of our business. We are already seeing record numbers in baseball and we believe that football will also reach record highs in the DC format this year.
As for H2H leagues and points leagues and online auction leagues, I mean, anything is possible in the future. Maybe we jump into those areas and even look at salary cap games. But all of that would likely involve a promotional partner where we could expand those markets together. For us to just jump into those markets on our own and try to build out a big business might not be a smart move when other companies are already years and years ahead of us. And honestly, we are seeing industry trends in some of those markets that are pointing down whereas we are seeing nothing but growth in the high-stakes and live events models. So right now that's where we are concentrating all of our efforts.
Again, never say never about any area of the market, but we need to perfect this one first. And we haven't done that at all. We have more work to do here before using our resources for niche markets. Hopefully everyone can understand that strategy. Thanks again for the suggestions.
