Ideas For 2009 NFBC

Hard Heads · Post by **Hard Heads** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 5:55 pm

Originally posted by CC's Desperados:

Greg-

1-I would much rather do the 15 team event first. The 12 team event would be different, but I wouldn't want to give away anything the night before. I think you could have the draft on Saturday night. The 12 team event would take less time.

2-If you think the drops are tough in a 15 team event, you will have a complete circus keeping track of a 12 team event with the same bench.

My vote is for two drafts on Saturday with the NFBC going first. I agree with this. Plus, wouldn't it be just as exhausting to do an auction in the morning and then follow it up with the NBC Main on the same day? Maybe I missed something, but I think that is what you suggested.

Less than Dave · Post by **Less than Dave** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 1:48 am

Great ideas... I'd love 2 main events personally. A 12-team league would definitely also interest me.. my one gripe with the 15-team league is that we need 2 catchers... that's 30 catchers being drafted... there's only 30 teams in baseball... so every starting catcher is drafted... some teams don't even have A starting catcher.. so many people have a platooning catcher... yet for every other position the weaker starters are left for the waiver wire. This doesn't seem right. For a 12-team league, I'd still like 1 catcher, but 2 would be a little easier to swallow...

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 2:24 am

Originally posted by Walla Walla:

Greg, Sunday would be out because the high roller leagues are that day. So that leaves Thursday.

So your asking people who now do the autions on friday and the main event on Saturday to add an extra day for hotel and travel. If they don't do the NBC they waste a day waiting for the NFBC main. This will hurt the auctions. There will be those that want nothing to do with the NBC draft and will skip the auctions and just do the NFBC main. This is not good for the auctions but great for NBC I suppose. John, I agree, Sunday probably wouldn't work with our Ultimates and Supers gaining more popularity. It probably would be Thursday for the auction leagues. But to be honest, I'm not even sure I'm going to go down this route. I'm just looking for feedback.

That being said, knowing the crew we have in Las Vegas I could see most of them coming in and doing auctions on Thursday. I think we'd still fill a lot of those. If I went with the new contest, I'd probably do it later on Friday, like 5 p.m. EST/2 p.m. PST. But I'm still thinking this through.

Folks who love the auction leagues could still come in and do two on Thursday in Las Vegas and enjoy March Madness whether they decide to do either of the main events or not. But I understand where you're coming from. We ran out of time this year to squeeze in the Supers and even without a second event it's getting tough to satisfy everyone's needs. We'll see how it plays out.

Good luck the rest of the way as you battle for the $1300 AL Auction League title and the other league titles.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 2:54 am

Originally posted by Spyhunter:

Greg, I was curious why you indicated that the online was too expensive to run? I would think that an online event is the cheapest to run (no hotel costs)??

Anyway, I know it would be a grind BUT, you could do both on Saturday. Start at 9am and go to ~2. Then take a break and do 4pm to 9 or 10pm?

As for the 12 team team size, I would leave at 7 or even 5 players bench. Frankly the whole point of moving to 12 player teams is lost if you do 32 players (i.e. 32*12 = 384 players right?)

good luck with all this new innovation!!! Well, here's quick math and then hopefully you can see what I mean.

To grow an online championship, I think you need a moderate entry fee level, like around $250. If we went with a similar payout level like the main event, that means we could offer a $20,000 grand prize if we filled around 400 teams. The quick math of that is $100,000 in revenue. If we pay back 80 percent, that leaves $20,000, but running 30+ leagues and 30+ drafts will cost a bit for back-end support, leaving us with a 12-10% profit margin if we sell out. There's nothing wrong with that, but guaranteeing $50,000+ in overall prizes makes it a risk for the profit that lies ahead.

If we did this at $500 and 200 teams, the math is the same. It's all good if we can sell out, but you can't come up short, that's for sure.

Again, there's nothing wrong with this plan, but I definitely need to make sure I'm providing the right entry fee level, guaranteeing the right grand prize and making sure I can get the number of teams I'm projecting. And then making sure I can provide the customer support for these leagues, the satellite leagues and the main events without damaging anything else.

Make sense?

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 3:08 am

Originally posted by CC's Desperados:

Greg-

1-I would much rather do the 15 team event first. The 12 team event would be different, but I wouldn't want to give away anything the night before. I think you could have the draft on Saturday night. The 12 team event would take less time.

2-If you think the drops are tough in a 15 team event, you will have a complete circus keeping track of a 12 team event with the same bench.

My vote is for two drafts on Saturday with the NFBC going first. Two baseball drafts in one day is too much. I learned that last year with the NFBC and Super on the same day. And I don't think I'll mess with the NFBC on Saturday, but I understand what you're saying.

Maybe the 12-teamer could be on Sunday, creating a wild back-to-back weekend. That would move the Ultimates and Supers to a different day. Would that audience compete on Thursday? I don't know, but it's all worth discussing.

Then we'd have the:

Ultimates and Supers on Thursday

Auctions on Friday

NFBC on Saturday

NBC on Sunday

That's interesting. It's possible we could do the NBC at $750 per team and $50,000 grand prize rather than the same price as the NFBC. Again, I'm just mulling all of this over now and looking for feedback. All looks good so far.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 3:10 am

Originally posted by bjoak:

quote:2-If you think the drops are tough in a 15 team event, you will have a complete circus keeping track of a 12 team event with the same bench. I think people hold drops to a lower standard when there are more free agents. No one blinks at drops in a (competitive) Yahoo league that would be unfathomable here.

To me, the draw of a 12 team league would be that you have a bigger stake in the ability to correct for injuries and so forth via free agents and therefore the short bench is attractive. [/QUOTE]Injuries are still going to happen and having a smaller bench will still make it tough to balance injuries to superstars while trying to pick up valuable fill-ins. I can't see going too low on a 12-team bench and allowing more bench players may prevent the "superstar cuts" that Shawn is talking about. Again, it's all a good discussion and something we have four months to figure out.

Cowboy Joe · Post by **Cowboy Joe** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 3:40 am

Greg,

I like the idea of keeping auctions on Friday, the NFBC main on Saturday and using Thursday/Sunday to cover the NBC and high stakes leagues.

Personally, I would like to participate in an auction and something else with the something else being an event that takes place on an adjacent day to the auctions.

Dallas

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 4:11 am

Originally posted by Less than Dave:

Great ideas... I'd love 2 main events personally. A 12-team league would definitely also interest me.. my one gripe with the 15-team league is that we need 2 catchers... that's 30 catchers being drafted... there's only 30 teams in baseball... so every starting catcher is drafted... some teams don't even have A starting catcher.. so many people have a platooning catcher... yet for every other position the weaker starters are left for the waiver wire. This doesn't seem right. For a 12-team league, I'd still like 1 catcher, but 2 would be a little easier to swallow... Yeah, finding two serviceable catchers has always been the tough part of this game and you can blame the Founding Fathers for that. But fantasy baseball is supposed to simulate major league baseball and even in the majors each team has at least two catchers. They aren't always great, but every team has two and I think fantasy baseball teams should also have two. Finding a second catcher that doesn't hurt you is a strategy in itself. Sorry.

Bama · Post by **Bama** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:07 am

Supers and ultimates on thur is bad idea. personally i think they should be lefton sun. seems to me maybe move prev fri schedule to thur and maybe the nbc on fri. hate to agree with walla on this one but looks like the auctions are going to go by the wayside when it looked as though more people wanted to get into that format. 750 entry fee with 50000first seems like a good idea to me

JohnZ · Post by **JohnZ** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:19 am

I think messing with the current format would be a huge mistake. The current format makes sense with auctions first, main, and then supers and ultimates.

I would start the Main at 8 or 9am, instead of 10am. It would then end around noon-1pm at the latest.

I would start NBC at 3pm. This would give a nice 2-3 hour break to rest up and re-tool. That's all the die hards need. All times listed here are PT.

The only fallout would be moving the supers to Sunday, but they are new anyways.

[ July 15, 2008, 01:25 PM: Message edited by: UFS ]

JohnZ · Post by **JohnZ** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:23 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

Two baseball drafts in one day is too much. I learned that last year with the NFBC and Super on the same day. You need to pace yourself on those Coronas

CC's Desperados · Post by **CC's Desperados** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 8:45 am

Originally posted by Less than Dave:

Great ideas... I'd love 2 main events personally. A 12-team league would definitely also interest me.. my one gripe with the 15-team league is that we need 2 catchers... that's 30 catchers being drafted... there's only 30 teams in baseball... so every starting catcher is drafted... some teams don't even have A starting catcher.. so many people have a platooning catcher... yet for every other position the weaker starters are left for the waiver wire. This doesn't seem right. For a 12-team league, I'd still like 1 catcher, but 2 would be a little easier to swallow... So did you miss that catchers are important in a 15 team event and a good 2nd catcher could be an edge?

bjoak · Post by **bjoak** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 8:50 am

I would start the Main at 8 or 9am, instead of 10am. It would then end around noon-1pm at the latest.

That works for the East and Chicago, but do people really want to plan to get up at 6AM in Vegas? Currently, I can stay up until 1 and have fun, sleep 7 hours, get up and shower and then go down to the diner and wait 45 minutes for them to make a dish of toast and that's not bad, but if you want decent sleep and something to eat before the big test, you are talking about going to bed at 11PM in Vegas. That doesn't fly.

bjoak · Post by **bjoak** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 8:55 am

Originally posted by CC's Desperados:

quote:Originally posted by Less than Dave:

Great ideas... I'd love 2 main events personally. A 12-team league would definitely also interest me.. my one gripe with the 15-team league is that we need 2 catchers... that's 30 catchers being drafted... there's only 30 teams in baseball... so every starting catcher is drafted... some teams don't even have A starting catcher.. so many people have a platooning catcher... yet for every other position the weaker starters are left for the waiver wire. This doesn't seem right. For a 12-team league, I'd still like 1 catcher, but 2 would be a little easier to swallow... So did you miss that catchers are important in a 15 team event and a good 2nd catcher could be an edge? [/QUOTE]I agree but to play devil's advocate, some folks think you are better off getting an edge in areas that are easier to replace. If you take a bad catcher and he gets hurt, you don't lose anything.

JohnZ · Post by **JohnZ** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 8:57 am

Originally posted by bjoak:

quote:I would start the Main at 8 or 9am, instead of 10am. It would then end around noon-1pm at the latest.

That works for the East and Chicago, but do people really want to plan to get up at 6AM in Vegas? Currently, I can stay up until 1 and have fun, sleep 7 hours, get up and shower and then go down to the diner and wait 45 minutes for them to make a dish of toast and that's not bad, but if you want decent sleep and something to eat before the big test, you are talking about going to bed at 11PM in Vegas. That doesn't fly. [/QUOTE]Forget the late toast. Greg would provide much better than toast, like croissants and bagels.

No need to wake up at 6am at all. Who goes to bed at 1am in Vegas right now anyways?

CC's Desperados · Post by **CC's Desperados** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:07 am

Originally posted by bjoak:

quote:Originally posted by CC's Desperados:

quote:Originally posted by Less than Dave:

Great ideas... I'd love 2 main events personally. A 12-team league would definitely also interest me.. my one gripe with the 15-team league is that we need 2 catchers... that's 30 catchers being drafted... there's only 30 teams in baseball... so every starting catcher is drafted... some teams don't even have A starting catcher.. so many people have a platooning catcher... yet for every other position the weaker starters are left for the waiver wire. This doesn't seem right. For a 12-team league, I'd still like 1 catcher, but 2 would be a little easier to swallow... So did you miss that catchers are important in a 15 team event and a good 2nd catcher could be an edge? [/QUOTE]I agree but to play devil's advocate, some folks think you are better off getting an edge in areas that are easier to replace. If you take a bad catcher and he gets hurt, you don't lose anything. [/QUOTE]I'll pass on surfing the waiver wire for the flavor of the week in the catching department. If I decided to invest in a top catcher and he goes down, I could be in for a long year. If he is a special player, I should have an edge over many teams in my league.

RedRyder · Post by **RedRyder** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:17 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

quote:Originally posted by Walla Walla:

Greg, Sunday would be out because the high roller leagues are that day. So that leaves Thursday.

So your asking people who now do the autions on friday and the main event on Saturday to add an extra day for hotel and travel. If they don't do the NBC they waste a day waiting for the NFBC main. This will hurt the auctions. There will be those that want nothing to do with the NBC draft and will skip the auctions and just do the NFBC main. This is not good for the auctions but great for NBC I suppose. John, I agree, Sunday probably wouldn't work with our Ultimates and Supers gaining more popularity. It probably would be Thursday for the auction leagues. But to be honest, I'm not even sure I'm going to go down this route. I'm just looking for feedback.

That being said, knowing the crew we have in Las Vegas I could see most of them coming in and doing auctions on Thursday. I think we'd still fill a lot of those. If I went with the new contest, I'd probably do it later on Friday, like 5 p.m. EST/2 p.m. PST. But I'm still thinking this through.

Folks who love the auction leagues could still come in and do two on Thursday in Las Vegas and enjoy March Madness whether they decide to do either of the main events or not. But I understand where you're coming from. We ran out of time this year to squeeze in the Supers and even without a second event it's getting tough to satisfy everyone's needs. We'll see how it plays out.

Good luck the rest of the way as you battle for the $1300 AL Auction League title and the other league titles. [/QUOTE]If Auctions are on Thursday count me out. Which is too bad, because I have enjoyed my past 2 years partnering with Captain Hook in these formats.

bjoak · Post by **bjoak** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:20 am

Originally posted by UFS:

quote:Originally posted by bjoak:

quote:I would start the Main at 8 or 9am, instead of 10am. It would then end around noon-1pm at the latest.

That works for the East and Chicago, but do people really want to plan to get up at 6AM in Vegas? Currently, I can stay up until 1 and have fun, sleep 7 hours, get up and shower and then go down to the diner and wait 45 minutes for them to make a dish of toast and that's not bad, but if you want decent sleep and something to eat before the big test, you are talking about going to bed at 11PM in Vegas. That doesn't fly. [/QUOTE]Forget the late toast. Greg would provide much better than toast, like croissants and bagels.

No need to wake up at 6am at all. Who goes to bed at 1am in Vegas right now anyways?

[/QUOTE]That was a sort of figure of speech--like a synecdoche. I want an actual whole breakfast if I'm not going to eat again for 4 hours. Your second part goes a ways toward proving my point--no one wants to go to bed at 3 AM and get up to draft 3 hours later. I seem to remember everyone arriving on time (more or less) this year. I don't see that happening at 8 AM.

Anyway, you still end up with two drafts on the same day, so it creates more problems than it solves.

JohnZ · Post by **JohnZ** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:30 am

Originally posted by bjoak:

I want an actual whole breakfast if I'm not going to eat again for 4 hours. Your second part goes a ways toward proving my point--no one wants to go to bed at 3 AM and get up to draft 3 hours later. I seem to remember everyone arriving on time (more or less) this year. I don't see that happening at 8 AM.

Anyway, you still end up with two drafts on the same day, so it creates more problems than it solves. Eat two bagels then or wake up and order room service. Avoid late toast.

No one wants to, but most do at 3am.

8am is a bit early. 9am was what I posted first. An hour earlier than now isn't going to kill anyone.

Another idea that I know won't fly is to just have the events start at 10am and 5pm in each time zone. That would give four hours of rest.

Only the underground network thinks there's an advantage in knowing who some idiot in NY took too early in Round 1 anyways. How this info helps anyone in their OWN draft is beyond me. Every draft board is so different. Even Rd 1.

bjoak · Post by **bjoak** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:50 am

8am is a bit early. 9am was what I posted first. An hour earlier than now isn't going to kill anyone.In an effort to keep this from becoming the Zaleski and Oakchunas show, my last post on this topic will be that from Friday's perspective this is about the time when the draft goes from something to get excited about the next day to something that starts to seem like a chore.

Having two drafts so far apart on Saturday falls along the same lines where you'd like to spend part of your Saturday on vacation doing something else. I'd agree with your other comments if they went the other way, like the draft starts at noon in each city. The less I have to think about time management on my Friday night the better.

JohnZ · Post by **JohnZ** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 10:13 am

Originally posted by bjoak:

quote:8am is a bit early. 9am was what I posted first. An hour earlier than now isn't going to kill anyone.In an effort to keep this from becoming the Zaleski and Oakchunas show, my last post on this topic will be that from Friday's perspective this is about the time when the draft goes from something to get excited about the next day to something that starts to seem like a chore.

Having two drafts so far apart on Saturday falls along the same lines where you'd like to spend part of your Saturday on vacation doing something else. I'd agree with your other comments if they went the other way, like the draft starts at noon in each city. The less I have to think about time management on my Friday night the better. [/QUOTE]11 am and 4pm would even be better. The 12-teamer has 50 less picks and could be done by 7pm, and guys could still go out Sat nite.

3pm-4pm could be spent getting ready for 12-teamer with tons of pizza provided.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 11:36 am

Thanks for all of the ideas while I was out of the office today. Lots to consider and lots of good ideas. I definitely don't want to hurt the Ultimates or the auction leagues, but I also don't want two main events on the same day. That just gets to be too much for one day.

I'll keep thinking this through and eventually we'll come up with something if we decide to go with two main events. Or we'll leave it all the same and take our chances with an online championship at the $750 level and 400 teams. Maybe an online championship tied to the NFBC main event with a $1 million bonus the week after the live drafts. We could host those on multiple days. Maybe that's the answer after all. We'll see.

KJ Duke · Post by **KJ Duke** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 1:12 pm

I like two drafts on one day. I wouldn't want to start earlier than 10am (if anything, start later), and I agree we do need a 2-3 hour break in between. Back-to-back baseball drafts is no harder than the same for football. Back-to-back auctions are tough, but drafts are easy.

I like the Friday auction, Saturday main(s) and Sunday Ulitmate setup. It's a routine that works well and wouldn't want to see it stretched to Thursday, nor moved around. Works great as is.

[ July 15, 2008, 07:19 PM: Message edited by: KJ Duke ]

KJ Duke · Post by **KJ Duke** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 1:22 pm

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

[QUOTE]You can't go with an odd number without 3RR, so I'd consider 32 players, which is a 9-man bench. That's plenty big and maybe almost too big. Yes, too big. Stick with 30 players. And no 3RR for baseball. Baseball is well-balanced without it, 3RR might actually create imbalance for the back half.

[ July 15, 2008, 07:24 PM: Message edited by: KJ Duke ]

JohnZ · Post by **JohnZ** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 1:27 pm

Originally posted by KJ Duke:

Back-to-back auctions are tough, but drafts are easy. exactly...

If you started at 10:30am, finish at 3pm, start at 4pm, finish at 7pm, you could also have facilitators that work an 8-9 hour day and get paid $200. It's going to be hard to get people to work both days for main events. This gets it all done in 8-9 hours and doesn't interfere with Friday or too much of Saturday night.

The only thing that gets moved is Super Drafts to Sunday.