When Will 2018 NFBC Drafts And The Season Begin?
Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2017 9:59 am
Our number one goal right now is paying all of our 2017 NFBC owners and we hope to have that process in place this week and payments out in the next week. Nothing is more important than paying out over $3.1 million in prizes to all of our great winners from last season, so let's get that done!!
After that is done, our full attention goes toward launching the 2018 NFBC site and preparing for 2018 drafts. We have a LOT of work to do to get our new site launched and our new online draft software launched, but everything is progressing well. In future years, there's no question that we'll have drafts launched once the World Series is finished. Payments will be quicker on the new platform and launching the next season will be quicker as well.
But there will be a slight delay this year because everything is new and everything must be fully tested before launching. We don't want any hiccups with this launch, so give us a little extra time. We are still on schedule to launch earlier than last year and we will have drafts rolling before Thanksgiving, but starting in early November might be a bit aggressive for this debut season. We will be drafting in November, but the launch date hasn't been finalized just yet.
Tom and I met with the programmers last week and saw what our future site holds. We couldn't be happier. Almost every single request was met with a "YES THAT WILL BE DONE." Only one request was met with a "NOT THIS YEAR" and we'll explain that later. But we saw much of what is coming and we know you'll like what is happening.
First the good news and then some details: We have a team of programmers who are assigned solely to our high-stakes contests and to the CDM contests. Nothing against STATS, but over the last couple of years we didn't have anyone assigned just to programming our contests. We do now and we have multiple programmers working on the NFBC right now. They will be at the ready if we need any quick changes. They also all are fantasy players who understand what our players need to more easily run their teams. You're going to like the changes, I promise you.
Okay, let's start with some of them:
My Teams: Your 2017 teams for all sports will show here similar to what we have on the STATS site. You will be able to arrange the order of your teams on your My Teams page and you will be able to hide past teams like you did on the STATS site. We can create a button on that page as well that shows you the Status of your Drafts, which is ideal for Draft Champions leagues. However, one thing we know is that it's going to take a while to load all of our past teams. We have 14 years of data and still don't have the data from NFBC 2017, so that won't be there at the launch. We know that everyone wants to see last year's results, but it likely won't be there right away. We don't know how long the STATS site will remain open, but we are still waiting for those results and we'll load them as your past historical data as quickly as we can. But realize those past teams might not be there right away.
My Account: Once this is activated this week, you will have the ability to leave prize winnings on your Player Account and use that for future signups. You will also have the ability to change your contact information and change your credit card information.
The New Draft Room: This has been completed for CDM football and you can actually test it out in our new Daily Draft game: https://daily.sportshubtech.com/lobby. We still have to load in the Player Default list for baseball, get position eligibility for each player defined and get player photos loaded, but the software has been tested and works. A few things about the new Draft Room:
** There are five windows in the draft room: Player Default list, Que, History, Roster and Chat. Pretty similar to the STATS HTML draft room. However, all of the windows except Player Default are expandable, so you can increase or shrink any of the windows. If you want a larger Que, you can expand that. If you want the Chat bigger, you can expand that. In the Chat, it has an icon that shows you who is Online, it has an icon that allows you to see just the Chat Log or the Draft Log and Chat Log, and it has an icon that allows you to pop out the Chat to a separate window. The History allows you to pop out the Draft Board to a separate window and to select any round to look over. Loading the Que is easy by clicking on the Star of any player, and we have drag 'n drop technology to move the players up or down in the Que. Roster shows your Roster and there is a pop out for the Roster Grid.
We will start all drafts with a Player Default list that we originate, but after we finish 5 or more drafts it will then populate with the overall ADP list to keep the list current. We hope that drafts speed up with a more current default list. While it may help some drafters, it more importantly will have players in an order that will reduce the number of Player Searches everyone has to make. We can still manipulate the player default list if someone suddenly is out for the year (drop that player to the bottom), but for the most part it will be updated daily from the ADP.
The Player Default list will also have a Custom Ranks List that will allow you to create your own ranking list and load them into any draft you want. You actually can create separate lists for let's say 10-team Cutline drafts and 15-team Draft Champions leagues. Just name them differently and import them into your draft room before it fills. There also is an icon that allows you to sort by any statistical category during the draft, and of course, a Search Player box. You can also sort by position and every player box will have a photo and statistical data along with his ADP.
The Draft Room also shrinks according to your device, so the same Draft Room that you have for your desktop computer shrinks to your laptop size and then to your iPad size. And finally it shrinks to your phone size. You will be able to make picks from all devices, including your phone. There won't be an app for your phone to draft; it will just be your same Draft Room link from the site.
I think that covers it for the Draft Room. We look forward to unveiling it and testing it soon.
FAAB: I will create a separate thread for FAAB, but the good news is that we'll have a simple process for finding free agents that are or are not available in all of your leagues. This will be a one-click process on the player's name in the FAAB listing and you'll know quickly which leagues you'll be able to bid for him in. Look for a followup post shortly on FAAB.
ADPs: We'll break these down by 10-team, 12-team, 15-team and a separate Draft Champions listing, while also having one overall ADP. We'll also allow you to see ADPs over separate time periods that you'll designate. We're still working on that last part, but we'll get it down. On the STATS site, you had different game type breakdowns, but you only had All and After March 1st for baseball. That will be much improved this year.
Live Scoring: We believe that speed won't be an issue here as we're already showing Live Scoring quickly in the football DFS games. We will have Live Overall Standings for all of the national contests and those will update similar to how they did on the STATS site. With thousands of teams in those overall standings, there is a 5-minute delay in some cases, but that's still very quick.
New Countdown Lobby: Anyone who played in the NFFC knows what I'm talking about here. It was a great way to see the latest openings and we added a Live Chat Roll that provides instant feedback. You'll like this a lot. The Countdown Lobby will be fantastic for baseball.
Draft Champions Leagues: We will have a separate post for this, but the goal for the Draft Champions leagues is to start them more quickly and make it so much easier for you to make picks. As I stated earlier, you will be able to draft from the phone and Register from your phone. We hope to start these DCs shortly after they fill (we will discuss the time frame together) and we can Pause these at night if needed. The Pause could be from midnight CT to 8 am CT if that helps.
I'm sure there's more to talk about, but I just wanted to get this out there now so that folks can plan accordingly. Enjoy the 2017 MLB playoffs and be ready for the drafting season. It will be coming up shortly and even faster in future years and future sports. We're excited about the new technology and we will make it easier for you to draft and manage multiple teams going forward. That we can guarantee.
Good luck all and enjoy.
After that is done, our full attention goes toward launching the 2018 NFBC site and preparing for 2018 drafts. We have a LOT of work to do to get our new site launched and our new online draft software launched, but everything is progressing well. In future years, there's no question that we'll have drafts launched once the World Series is finished. Payments will be quicker on the new platform and launching the next season will be quicker as well.
But there will be a slight delay this year because everything is new and everything must be fully tested before launching. We don't want any hiccups with this launch, so give us a little extra time. We are still on schedule to launch earlier than last year and we will have drafts rolling before Thanksgiving, but starting in early November might be a bit aggressive for this debut season. We will be drafting in November, but the launch date hasn't been finalized just yet.
Tom and I met with the programmers last week and saw what our future site holds. We couldn't be happier. Almost every single request was met with a "YES THAT WILL BE DONE." Only one request was met with a "NOT THIS YEAR" and we'll explain that later. But we saw much of what is coming and we know you'll like what is happening.
First the good news and then some details: We have a team of programmers who are assigned solely to our high-stakes contests and to the CDM contests. Nothing against STATS, but over the last couple of years we didn't have anyone assigned just to programming our contests. We do now and we have multiple programmers working on the NFBC right now. They will be at the ready if we need any quick changes. They also all are fantasy players who understand what our players need to more easily run their teams. You're going to like the changes, I promise you.
Okay, let's start with some of them:
My Teams: Your 2017 teams for all sports will show here similar to what we have on the STATS site. You will be able to arrange the order of your teams on your My Teams page and you will be able to hide past teams like you did on the STATS site. We can create a button on that page as well that shows you the Status of your Drafts, which is ideal for Draft Champions leagues. However, one thing we know is that it's going to take a while to load all of our past teams. We have 14 years of data and still don't have the data from NFBC 2017, so that won't be there at the launch. We know that everyone wants to see last year's results, but it likely won't be there right away. We don't know how long the STATS site will remain open, but we are still waiting for those results and we'll load them as your past historical data as quickly as we can. But realize those past teams might not be there right away.
My Account: Once this is activated this week, you will have the ability to leave prize winnings on your Player Account and use that for future signups. You will also have the ability to change your contact information and change your credit card information.
The New Draft Room: This has been completed for CDM football and you can actually test it out in our new Daily Draft game: https://daily.sportshubtech.com/lobby. We still have to load in the Player Default list for baseball, get position eligibility for each player defined and get player photos loaded, but the software has been tested and works. A few things about the new Draft Room:
** There are five windows in the draft room: Player Default list, Que, History, Roster and Chat. Pretty similar to the STATS HTML draft room. However, all of the windows except Player Default are expandable, so you can increase or shrink any of the windows. If you want a larger Que, you can expand that. If you want the Chat bigger, you can expand that. In the Chat, it has an icon that shows you who is Online, it has an icon that allows you to see just the Chat Log or the Draft Log and Chat Log, and it has an icon that allows you to pop out the Chat to a separate window. The History allows you to pop out the Draft Board to a separate window and to select any round to look over. Loading the Que is easy by clicking on the Star of any player, and we have drag 'n drop technology to move the players up or down in the Que. Roster shows your Roster and there is a pop out for the Roster Grid.
We will start all drafts with a Player Default list that we originate, but after we finish 5 or more drafts it will then populate with the overall ADP list to keep the list current. We hope that drafts speed up with a more current default list. While it may help some drafters, it more importantly will have players in an order that will reduce the number of Player Searches everyone has to make. We can still manipulate the player default list if someone suddenly is out for the year (drop that player to the bottom), but for the most part it will be updated daily from the ADP.
The Player Default list will also have a Custom Ranks List that will allow you to create your own ranking list and load them into any draft you want. You actually can create separate lists for let's say 10-team Cutline drafts and 15-team Draft Champions leagues. Just name them differently and import them into your draft room before it fills. There also is an icon that allows you to sort by any statistical category during the draft, and of course, a Search Player box. You can also sort by position and every player box will have a photo and statistical data along with his ADP.
The Draft Room also shrinks according to your device, so the same Draft Room that you have for your desktop computer shrinks to your laptop size and then to your iPad size. And finally it shrinks to your phone size. You will be able to make picks from all devices, including your phone. There won't be an app for your phone to draft; it will just be your same Draft Room link from the site.
I think that covers it for the Draft Room. We look forward to unveiling it and testing it soon.
FAAB: I will create a separate thread for FAAB, but the good news is that we'll have a simple process for finding free agents that are or are not available in all of your leagues. This will be a one-click process on the player's name in the FAAB listing and you'll know quickly which leagues you'll be able to bid for him in. Look for a followup post shortly on FAAB.
ADPs: We'll break these down by 10-team, 12-team, 15-team and a separate Draft Champions listing, while also having one overall ADP. We'll also allow you to see ADPs over separate time periods that you'll designate. We're still working on that last part, but we'll get it down. On the STATS site, you had different game type breakdowns, but you only had All and After March 1st for baseball. That will be much improved this year.
Live Scoring: We believe that speed won't be an issue here as we're already showing Live Scoring quickly in the football DFS games. We will have Live Overall Standings for all of the national contests and those will update similar to how they did on the STATS site. With thousands of teams in those overall standings, there is a 5-minute delay in some cases, but that's still very quick.
New Countdown Lobby: Anyone who played in the NFFC knows what I'm talking about here. It was a great way to see the latest openings and we added a Live Chat Roll that provides instant feedback. You'll like this a lot. The Countdown Lobby will be fantastic for baseball.
Draft Champions Leagues: We will have a separate post for this, but the goal for the Draft Champions leagues is to start them more quickly and make it so much easier for you to make picks. As I stated earlier, you will be able to draft from the phone and Register from your phone. We hope to start these DCs shortly after they fill (we will discuss the time frame together) and we can Pause these at night if needed. The Pause could be from midnight CT to 8 am CT if that helps.
I'm sure there's more to talk about, but I just wanted to get this out there now so that folks can plan accordingly. Enjoy the 2017 MLB playoffs and be ready for the drafting season. It will be coming up shortly and even faster in future years and future sports. We're excited about the new technology and we will make it easier for you to draft and manage multiple teams going forward. That we can guarantee.
Good luck all and enjoy.
