NFBC Message Boards

This was posted under my subject line, but have been told it would be better served 'under the big top',

You guys know how much I enjoy the NFBC. And the NFBC is BOOMING. Look at all these sign ups!
There's a slow draft league a day started. A day!
And despite this, the NFBC is missing out on something.
This isn't a complaint about no dashes in the draft room or something like that.
Damn, I do hate those lack of dashes though.
This is something that could be of use to the NFBC.

Auctions.
I have never done an auction. I would LOVE to do an auction.
But I can't.
We all work our way up through home leagues, yahoo, CBS, ESPN and all them other letters in roto leagues.
It's why we'll play roto. We've had practice for what we're doing now.
But there is no practice for auctions.
I know there's a site online for auctions, but after being in the NFBC, that doesn't interest me much.

Several new members and even long time members would like to do auctions. The problem is I, and more likely, WE, do not want to jump in an auction with no experience for a lot of money.
There has to be some way newbies could get involved in these auctions.
Myself, I listened to Jeff Dobies talking about auctions on the Sirius XM show about strategies and such. It was entertaining and Jeff did a great job. At the same time, I thought about all the fellas in the NFBC that would like to do an auction but are shut out in that it would be an all or nothing venture for pocketbooks. It seems to me that if there were some kind of lower cost training ground that it could be a growing part of the NFBC engine.

These slow roto drafts are rolling off the assembly line at record pace.
In the meantime, auctions have to wait.
I don't have a solution.
Maybe a STATS Auction room to go with a draft room. I don't know.
I know that we need low cost auctions like these slow drafts. Once the logistics are figured out on those, you can bet that a lot of folks would be signing up for auctions too.
I know I would.

Dan,

You stole my thunder as I was going to follow up and post in response to your above post. I will just copy and paste my response. I do hope this post of yours gets some love!!

Dan,

Thanks for the kind words and I agree. I will say one thing. Auctions are far and away the best! They require a great deal of strategy because you aren't only tracking players but you need to track money too. To your point I believe that if the NFBC wants to grow the auction space they definitely need that proving ground. I believe that coming up with an online Auction Draft room will allow for those $150 and $250 price points that you talk about. I have done online auctions before and they seemed to work well. I hope Greg and Tom read this and maybe work on this for next year because it is a worthy discussion and could be possibly bring many more new players to the NFBC.

Excellent post Dan! I agree. I used both CBS and ESPN last year for small dollar private league auctions and they both worked great. I can't help but think that STATS could build their own or partner with someone to make this happen. I think there is little doubt that there would be an auction explosion.

{in my best Gruden voice} THIS GUY.....Really thinks baseball non-stop, that is when he isn't contemplating his fav. flavor of DORITOS

You are spot on of course Dan. Joey & I have talked about the fact that we've been doing fantasy baseball for over 10 yrs, but never have done an auction and how intriguing it is, etc. So much so that we will be competing in Vegas this yr in the Auction Champ. (well I'll be his co-pilot).

Anyways, I'm sure RT never gets tired of hearing how he completely destroyed me & the rest of the rudypoops in my 1st NFBC satellite back in '07 so that's what I fear for my 1st auction. If I'm going to donate I'm much rather it be $150 instead of $1000.

Great idea Dan. I can't believe it's never been brought up before.

rockit,
you dont want none of dobies and/or saxton in auctions. lol.

when you coming east again? would love to catch up

rockitsauce wrote:

Great idea Dan. I can't believe it's never been brought up before.

Its been brought up many times and Greg is steadfast with keeping all online formats with the same style draft, other than DC vs FAAB, for now. Hopefully he will change his mind.

I would love it as well, as auctions are my favorite live event... See below for Greg's last comment regarding the request for H2H and online auctions

http://nfbcforums.stats.com/viewtopic.p ... on#p139423

Just wanted to support this thread. I've done many roto and H2H leagues but have never done an auction league. I would love to do one, but am too intimidated, and cheap, to try out a brand new format (for me) at a $1,000 or $1,300 price point. If there was a way to do an online auction at, or even close to, the $150 price point, I'd definitely give it a try (or two or three). Perhaps next year?

Mike

76erfan wrote:rockit,
you dont want none of dobies and/or saxton in auctions. lol.

when you coming east again? would love to catch up

you're prob. rt Andy, I'm sure the 1st time will be quite a learning experience...for me anyway. Joey on the other hand is a sharp kid, I wouldn't underestimate him. He's in charge of the Vegas Auction tm, I'll just be crossing off names

I think the East came back to me....it is SNOWING as I type this

I've lived here in the desert for nearly 10 yrs and this is only the 2nd time I've seen it snow. Last time was '06 (I believe) I remember the Colts/Pats were playing in AFC Champ. gm and it began snowing that Sun. evening, by lunchtime the following day it was all gone

I just took my dogs for a walk. The boy was scampering around like a nut, he loved it. The lil girl would've preferred to stay in the house I think.

My Uncle still lives in PA and I have other relatives in MD. Of course I grew up back there so there are lots of folks I miss. I don't know when I'll return, but if it's during the baseball season (Sept ?) I'll give you a heads-up. Maybe we can see the Fightin's as they clinch another NL East title

Dan, this is a great idea and I would love to be part of a lower cost, online auction that could prep me from doing a live auction at one of the events next year or even have the option of an online auction on the Friday's before the Main Event at the same time the live auctions are happening.

Honestly, in today's fast world, its been difficult just to find 2 hours for a local group to get together to do a live draft, let alone find the time for a six hour auction. This would help pull us die hards together.

I totally agree with all positive thoughts regarding auctions. IMO, they are the cream of the fantasy drafts. Anymore, I only do auctions and DC's in the NFBC and the NFFC. Reason is the amount of time required for FAAB. I have done online auctions in the past, but didn't like the timing of the "plus $1". Maybe there has been an upgrade with the available sites, but it was frustrating a couple years ago.

I'm in a group of NFFCer's that do an online auction starting in May. We bid on players, whoever has the highest bid for a specific player for 24 hrs., retains that player. This is undoubtedly the wildest/craziest format for an auction league. Just about the time you think you got a player, somebody bids on him at the last minute. He goes back on the board for 24 hrs. It is extremely fun AND frustrating at the same time.

We LOVE auctions more than you guys do. We'd LOVE to do online auctions. We really would. Anyone who thinks we are not offering these as affordable satellite leagues because we hold Roto dear to our hearts isn't correct.

We don't have auction software. We've inquired on other big sites who do have the software. We can't just run pay leagues on competing sites without their permission and we don't have that permission yet. I've inquired and so far we don't have access to run these online auctions anywhere.

Online auction software is very complicated. Could we build it? Sure. Should we take care of Live Overall Standings first? YES!!! There is no plan for us to build our own auction online software because there are so many other things we must do first, so unless we can get an existing site to help us it's tough.

We're on the same page everyone, but the software needed to pull this off isn't on our site. Sorry.

That's really too bad because the Auction space could really take off

This has absolutely nothing to do with auctions, but I knew Dan would appreciate it.

Thanks Emory!
And I must say, Brilliant!
Next month Taco Bell rolls out the Ranch Dorito Tacos nationwide.
Ummm!

After the Overall League Standings are figured out and rolled out, auctions should be the next BIG thing on the NFBC agenda. There are already soooo many that play already and so many more who would love to play.
After seeing these endless slow drafts roll off the assembly line, I can picture the same thing happening with auctions.
Maybe on a lesser scale at first, but these things could really grow.

Greg, I blame you a little bit for my enthusiasm about this. If you wouldn't have had Jeff on your show and made these things sound so damn enticing, I probably never would have inquired about an auction room!

All we need is a ball and we'll play!
So many folks out there are wanting to play. And play at NFBC level of competition.
I know it is too late for this year and know that many irons are on the fire in the coming days, weeks, and months, but hopefully in the near future, NFBC folks can have the option of roto or auction when going to the NFBC site.

If you build it, we will come.

Happenstance wrote:If you build it, we will come.

Well maybe not - I would really hate for Dan and others who really want to experience an auction draft to start with a BAD online experience and right now there is no auction software that is really good - some you can get by with but NONE of them even if the bid action is perfected can come close to simulating the auctions Live at the table.

If you have a moment in your busy NFBC schedule drop by one of the several auction leagues and watch for a few moments and you will get a nice glimpse into auction bidding.

In addition there are plenty of good articles/books/primers on auctions that those new to auction drafts can read and the easiest way to enter the auction world is the NFBC mixed auction leagues.

Greg is there any? chance that a lower dollar entry auction league could be added? Likely not this year (BUT if you guys out there who WANT auction could all agree on a time slot ....) but perhaps next year?

Auctions are the best! But they really have to be live to enjoy them. The person running the auction can have as much to do with the draft as the players. It can really screw you up if the auctioneer counts going once, going twice, sold, at different tempos. There's just not that many that can do it well. The NFBC wouldn't be able to get enough auctioneers to cover the amount of auctions a low entry fee would create. If you really want to do an auction I'd say go for a single league auction next year. Brady is the auctioneer for those two leagues. He is the master that keeps the best auction players coming back.
Also if you tell him it's your first time I'll bet he looks your way each time before calling sold! Best for Auction advice is Mastersball. Perry Van Hook is very good. I only beat him twice for the title. Oops. Many fantasy players put it this way.
Drafts are chess where Auctions are Poker. Both take skill.