Welcome To The 2019 NFBC Season - Site Is LIVE

[Greg Ambrosius]

We are proud to announce the launch of our 2019 NFBC season, which is our 16th season as the industry's only high-stakes fantasy baseball contest. We believe that NFBC XVI will be our biggest and best season to date. So let's get started.

It's hard to believe how far we've come in the last 15 years. During the debut season of 2004, we had 195 Main Event teams and four AL-only or NL-only auction leagues among Las Vegas, New York and Chicago. That's a total of 243 teams in our debut contest. Last year we had over 10,000 teams and we awarded close to $3.2 million in prizes. The NFBC has grown every single year from 2004 to 2018.

And we expect that trend to continue this year. We have all of the plans in place for 2019 and we will be launching earlier than ever before and drafting earlier than ever before. We're working hard right now to launch the 2019 season and we now have the site designed in a way that will allow us to launch even earlier in future years. Are you ready?

We have a lot of changes to announce for the upcoming season. We'll get into more detail on some of these as we announce individual contests and their rules, but let's get busy right now with all of the changes. We think you're going to like these. Here we go:

The NFBC Main Event's grand prize will be $150,000. The most coveted title in the fantasy baseball industry has had a grand prize of $125,000 for five years now and it's time to raise that carrot and keep it growing. The grand prize will now be $150,000 with second place increasing to $40,000 and overall prizes reaching the Top 15 in the final standings. League prizes will also increase with first place now rising to $7,000, second place to $3,400 and third place to $1,700. The top 5 finishers will all earn between $150,000 and $10,000. We will always look at add prize money after the grand prize as this contest grows, but it was time to increase the top prize and we will continue to fill in as the Main Event grows. Prizes are based on 540 teams after we reached 510 teams last year. Good luck all.

Entry Fee Increases. To pay out more in prizes, we are raising the entry fee in the NFBC Main Event to $1,700 and the Auction Championship entry will also rise to $1,400. AL-only and NL-only Auction League entry fees will also be $1,400. Last year, we decided not to charge for Events Fees or co-manager fees -- a savings of up to $125 per team -- as this being a part of doing business in this space. Most teams in 2014-18 were paying $1675 to compete in the Main Event, but now most of that extra $100 will go toward increased prizes. It also puts us closer in line with our competitors in another sport who have entry fees ranging from $1,800 per team to over $1,900 per team. Yes, it's an increase in these entry fees, but not much more out of line than we charged in past years with lower prize payouts.

Auction Championship Prizes Increase. With an increase of $100 in the NFBC Auction Championship (but again with no Events Fees or co-manger fees), the grand prize in the Auction Championship will now grow to $30,000 as we will now pay the Top 6 finishers. League prizes also increase to $7,500 with second place earning $3,350 and fourth place earning $1,400. We will be returning to Las Vegas, New York and Chicago this year and expect to fill 12 leagues again. For the AL-only and NL-only auction leagues, prizes will now increase to: 1st - $8,400 2nd - $3,250 3rd _ $1,600.

Online Championship Grand Prize Grows to $125,000. We are bullish on this contest as well and we believe it's time to grow this grand prize as well. Without any price increase, we are projecting growth in the number of teams and setting the grand prize up to $125,000. No other prizes are changing as we expect to increase the secondary prizes as we grow past this year's expected target number of just over 2,000 teams.

Cutline Championship Grand Prize Grows to $70,000. We have seen how the best ball format has grown exponentially in football and we are going ALL IN on that concept in baseball. The grand prize is growing by $20,000 this year, with second place overall growing to $25,000 and third place growing to $15,000. The entry fee will start at $150, but every third team will be $50 off. So in the past you could individually buy three teams for $375, but this year you'll be able to buy a 3-pack or three teams individually for $400. We are going to program the software to automatically give you that discount for a third team even if you buy them one by one and the same will be true this year for the Online Championship. We believe you can't just have one Cutline team, so we'll incentivize you for every third team!! How's that? (Note: The Cutline will also have special package discounts for 5-packs ($100 off) and 9-packs ($200 off) as well if you buy them at one time.)

Overnight Pause For Draft Champions Leagues: We have reduced the overnight pause for DC leagues to 6 hours this year as it will now go from 2 am ET to 8 am ET. All of the tools are now in the NFBC Draft Room to allow you to set your queue for the next round, or the next two rounds, or for any individual round, so you should be able to be prepared before going to bed or before rising from bed. With a 4-hour clock, you still have 10 hours, which is longer than you had with our 8-hour clock and no pause. And even in a 2-hour draft, that's still a total of 8 hours, so we are comfortable with the clock change. Just stay alert and USE THE NEW AUTO DRAFT TOOLS AND THE QUEUE.

Shortening The Final 20 Rounds Of Draft Champions Leagues: We are going to program DC drafts this year to shorten the clock in half for Rounds 31-50. We noticed in the past that the last 20 rounds took longer than the first 30 rounds and have the ability now to address that. Once we hit Round 31, the clock will automatically be reduced to 2 hours in a 4-hour draft and to 1 hour in a 2-hour draft. Again, we have all the tools to allow anyone the chance to set players in their Que for every individual round and we are going to do all we can to push folks to learn these tools. By reducing the time in the last 20 rounds, we believe the DCs will get done sooner, allowing more folks to do more leagues. Oh, and this year there is a timer on Draft Results that shows the amount of time each pick took. We are not going beyond that, but everyone will be accountable with each pick and the time will be shown.

Online Auctions: The NFBC now has its own online auction software and it will be ready when the draft room opens. We debuted the online auction software in football and it was a huge hit. It's fantastic. We will have price points of $150, $250 and $500, and we'll have FAAB auctions with 7 reserve rounds after the auction and DC auctions. The draft room opens as soon as the auction ends and the timer will work exactly the same as it does for the DCs (going from 2 hours to 1 hour after Round 30).

My Teams Page: The goal of the My Teams page is to eventually put tabs on that page for each sport and to combine all of your teams from all sports on this one page. We also want to create tabs for years so that you can hide teams from past years and just call them up by clicking any of those yearly tabs. We're not at that point yet, but that's the goal. Past teams from STATS will eventually get loaded into our system, but we're still not there yet. Also on My Teams, we'll default that page to the way it is now, broken down by contest categories, but we'll also allow you to change that page to have all of your teams listed in any order without the contest headers. We'll also allow you to Hide any teams that you want at some point this year. All of this still has to be worked on, but we heard you loud and clear last year and we are working on all of this. As a result of us switching the NFBC to a new platform that will allow us to roll the site over much easier from year to year, your 2018 teams might not be accessible right away, but it won't be long after the launch that we'll have those on your My Teams page. Again, that's part of this redesign we'll be working on now. Grab 2018 info now if you really need it for the first drafts.

Overall Standings: We will add one more piece to Overall Standings for our five national contests that we used to have in previous years. That's a number that shows how many spots you've moved up or down in the overall standings. We have an up or down arrow there now, but it didn't show last year how many spots you moved up or down that day. That will be there this year.

Players Share Page: We added this in football and will now make it even better. On your team page, under Stats there is a Players Share page that shows you how many teams you have each individual player that you've drafted on. It may show that you have Mookie Betts on 5 teams, Justin Verlander on 4, etc. That's helpful for people who have a lot of teams and an injury hits during the season. Now we're also going to break it down to show those shares by game style. That will let you know how many Cutline teams you have him in where you can't make a FAAB change and how many FAAB teams you have him on. That should save you some time.

Draft Board Big Sticker. We have added a link to the draft board that allows you to turn off the big sticker. We know that those Cutline leagues really cruise and sometimes the big stickers just arrive one after another, covering up the big board. You can now turn the big sticker off if you'd like on your own board.

Dealing With Unsigned Free Agents: Rule change for this year: Unsigned Free Agents will still be allowed to be drafted, but if they are not signed by Opening Day they won't appear in FAAB until they appear on a 25-man MLB roster. So in last year's case, Jose Bautista could have been drafted, but once Opening Day hits he now won't appear in FAAB until he reaches the major leagues.

Dealing with Rainouts on Monday/Friday: In the past, players locked 5 minutes before their first game on Monday or Friday and if there was a rainout they were still locked. The system is now being set up to allow those players to unlock if the game is called off and they won't be locked again until 5 minutes before their game on Tuesday or Saturday. Just another convenience change for you folks.

Add A Players Page: I feel bad that we don't have a page on the site to show photos of our live events or even a new video that Brady Tinker did for us during the live football event. We will eventually change that and showcase our great players on the site. Stay tuned. This is much needed. Our national champions holding the big checks will appear on this page as well. Can't wait.

NFBC $50/50 Teams Contest Returning: We are filling these up every week in the NFFC right now as we are using the Fanball DFS software. Every Tuesday during the upcoming MLB season, we'll be offering one of these $50/50 Teams contests with the top team earning a FREE 2020 NFBC Main Event entry, while paying second and third place prizes as well. We will use the Fanball scoring for this weekly contest. We'd like nothing more than giving out 20+ free entries this year with all of the weekly winners competing late in the year for an even bigger FREE entry. Stay tuned. We're excited about this concept.

Going on Auto Draft: If anyone times out once during a DC draft, they will automatically go on Auto this year. If anyone times out twice in a row in a 1-minute draft, they will automatically go on Auto this year. Obviously any owner can take themselves off auto after they are put on auto, but the goal is to keep everyone diligent and to keep drafts moving.

FAAB Improvement: There is one addition to FAAB we are discussing that should help owners with multiple teams. Let's see if we can fully implement this for 2019 (it was Darik's fine suggestion) and we'll announce it when we have it done. But we're not done improving FAAB and hopefully saving you folks time on Sundays.

Live Scoring Additions: Live Scoring is in real-time and our Team Stats page updates less regularly and fully after games are complete. We know a lot of folks love the Team Stats page, so if there's something there you like that maybe should be added to Live Scoring let us know. We want to get Live Scoring as good as it can get with the content.

Carolina Blue Hyperlinks: Again, we've heard you. The light blue text for every hyperlink is too hard to read, so we will be changing that to a darker blue. The company colors will remain on some headers and buttons, but the most important part to read that was in Carolina blue will be transitioned to a darker, more readable blue. You can thank us with a Corona in Las Vegas!!

Dealing with 2-Way Players: Our stance on a 2-way player is that we will develop in the software one player who owners can draft and use him at the start of the week either as a Pitcher or a Hitter. Not both. And not separate. We have NOT developed this software yet because Shohei Ohtani has no chance to pitch this year and it's unlikely that Brandon McKay will reach the majors this year. We have many other programming needs ahead of this, but we will be prepared for this in the next year and this is how we are going to program it. So in Ohtani's case, on Monday you either put him in as a DH or as a pitcher. And you can't use him as a DH on Friday after using him as a Pitcher on Monday because obviously he's locked on Monday as a Pitcher. So there you have it.

1099s: Last year we began reporting your 1099s as your earnings for all of that year minus your entry fees for all of that year. This year we have a chance to take it a step further that may help you. I'm going to let Darik follow this post with the information since he's more of an accounting guy than I am. Stay tuned for that and sign up early (and pay) if you'd like. Thanks all.

New Exempt State: Vermont residents are now exempt from competing in the NFBC, NFFC and NFBKC. The state fees for a fantasy sports license are just too high to justify. Sorry.

Registration and the 2019 web site will be live in early to mid-November. We are working hard to launch all of this soon, so stay tuned. But as you can see, we've fully looked at the past year and made the changes that will make this game better than ever. We will continue to listen to your suggestions, so feel free to post comments or ideas here. The IT team is going to be busy as you can see, but we love the suggestions. Let's make this the best year ever and award you folks the most prize money ever. Thanks all and welcome to NFBC SVI (that's for Tom, who loves Roman numerals)!!!

[Darik B]

Wow, Greg, lots of fantastic info there. I'm going to piggyback on the 1099/early signups if I can. Available shortly, will be a daily real-time snapshot of your 2018 1099 (tax) liability from us. In short, every morning you will be able to see what your 2018 SportsHub Games Network (SGN) 1099 will look like. Basically it will show you your current winnings, entry fees, and amount you will be sent on your 1099.

However, for the first time ever here, you will be able to "modify" it substantially (each and every day) with 2019 signups for the NFBC and NFFC . All 2019 events you sign up for prior to, or on 12/31/2018, will 100% legally reduce your 2018 1099 liability form SGN. We've never had the power to do this in years past, so please take full advantage of this.

As soon as the 1099 Tracker link goes live, we'll get it out to you. Signup pages will not be far behind. 2019 will be, by far, the greatest year in our history yet!!

***Since we cannot legally give you tax advice, feel free to call me (as your friend Darik at 651-895-0583) if you want/need more explanation.

[Bronx Yankees]

Wow is right! Lots of stuff to digest here. First overall impression is that everything sounds, well, great!

Big kudos on the Draft Championship improvements, which are my favorites. Love the reduced overnight pause, the shortening of the clock for the last 20 rounds, and putting owners who time-out on auto draft until they turn it off. All excellent improvements that should keep Draft Championship leagues moving better. Fantastic! Also excited about new auction drafts, particularly DC auctions.

Understand the decision to increase certain entry fees. Glad to see the corresponding prize increases. Also like that the Main Event and Auction Championship league prizes - particularly for league winners - were increased and not just the overall prizes. Because the AL-only and NL-only entry fees also are rising by $100, I assume the league prizes are increasing there, too. You may want to clarify what those will be, as I didn't notice that information (unless I missed it).

Interesting change regarding unsigned free agents becoming ineligible for FAAB once the season starts and before they are on a roster. Think it makes a lot of sense, as it puts them on the same footing as minor league prospects.

Everything else seems promising as well. Greater flexibility in setting up the My Teams page, and the eventual ability to access prior years' teams, will be nice improvements when available.

With the discounts offered for multiple Online Championship teams and Cutline Championship teams, have to ask if something similar is contemplated for Draft Championship teams. I'll own a bunch of DC teams regardless, but, who knows, make a discount available and maybe I'll do even more.

Darik, that 1099 change sounds great. May get a lot more early sign-ups in 2018 for 2019 events with that change!

Well done, gents.

Mike

[Greg Ambrosius]

Great call Mike. Here's the AL and NL-only auction prizes which have been added to the post above: "For the AL-only and NL-only auction leagues, prizes will now increase to: 1st - $8,400 2nd - $3,250 3rd - $1,600."

We will discuss internally about the DCs. We've never discounted those, but let's look and see what we can do. Thanks.

[Darik B]

Also want to clear up any possible confusion regarding 2018 1099's beforehand. It will not matter what date you "claim" prizes on...as soon as prizes are eligible to be claimed, they will be added to your 1099.

So to make it simple, ALL 2018 NFBC and NFFC prizes will hit your 2018 1099's.

NFBC prizes are all available for past two weeks.
NFFC Regular season prizes (thru Week 9 for Cutline or Week 13 everywhere else) will be available in mid-December
NFFC overall prizes will be available on Dec 27th (or 28th at latest) this year...yes, really

Therefore, it does not matter when you actually "claim" these prizes, they are all 2018 numbers.

Hope this helps, and again, you can always call you friend Darik at 651-895-0583 with any questions.

[Doctor Who]

"The entry fee will start at $150, but every third team will be $50. So in the past you could individually buy three teams for $375, but this year you'll be able to buy a 3-pack or three teams individually for $400."

Greg, you might want to adjust this sentence for the cut line. First part seems as though you can get 3 teams for $350, but then say later it is 3 teams for $400.

Fantastic news on the 1099's.

For Live-Scoring- Will the standings be updated on the side or will it still be a tab to see? Will it show what categories you either lost points or gained points like it did at one point?

$50/50 teams contest- So as to be less confusing for myself, is this a tournament style DFS contest, or a 50/50 league with the top score getting an entry? Either way, I love that and congratulate you on that addition, as know it will help the Main grow as well.

FAAB FA- Also, unless I missed it in the rules, if a unsigned FA or a minor leaguer is put on the 25 man roster on Sunday, is that player eligible for that FAAB?

Draft Champions- Are you less bullish on these as everything got a prize increase but these. I would imagine with quicker clocks in last 20 rounds, would lead to more signups, but you know the numbers way better than all of us and your expectations.

[Philippe27]

Really looking forward to next season and all the new stuff. I don't know if this is the right thread but it might be a good idea to open a new thread specifically for suggestions. Sometimes it's the little things that you may not be aware of but that can make a big difference.

Here are a few that come to mind:
-Show tonight's lineup spots directly on the Set Lineup page. On Monday and Friday when I set my lineup it would save time to have everything on the same page rather than go back and forth on my phone with the Live Scoring page.

-To be able to see player stats from the past 2 weeks, past month etc.

-To be able to see overall standings from the past 2 weeks, past month etc.

-In the overall standings, to have all my teams listed at the top above the standings. For players with multiple teams in the same contest, it would be useful to be able to see where all your teams rank in the Overall Standings and especially in the Category Points to see right away that Team A needs SB and Team B needs HR and RBIs. Would make it easier to spot weaknesses.

-On the My Bid History Page, it would be nice to add a column "Highest Bid". It's a very useful page where was can see all our bids in the same spot but would be even nicer if I could see, I bid $16 on this guy but he went for $20. Would avoid the back and forth with the FAAB Results page.

I don't think there's anything too complicated to do on that list but if you can put all of those in place, they'd probably save me a decent amount of time every week.

[Darik B]

This should say every third team will be $50 OFF...thanks for catching. i will edit original post

Live Scoring may be both on side and tab...not yet totally finalized. +/- will be there

50/50 will be once a week with winner getting entry

FAAB: player has to be on 25-man roster before 7 AM CST on Sunday (and have played in one game) to be eligible for Sunday night FAAB that week

DC's: I'm not sure "less-bullish" is quite the right term, but it has stalled in recent years. We're hoping that the new changes infuse life back into the DC's and then we can fire up bigger prizes in 2020.

Hope this helps.

D

"The entry fee will start at $150, but every third team will be $50. So in the past you could individually buy three teams for $375, but this year you'll be able to buy a 3-pack or three teams individually for $400."

Greg, you might want to adjust this sentence for the cut line. First part seems as though you can get 3 teams for $350, but then say later it is 3 teams for $400.

Fantastic news on the 1099's.

For Live-Scoring- Will the standings be updated on the side or will it still be a tab to see? Will it show what categories you either lost points or gained points like it did at one point?

$50/50 teams contest- So as to be less confusing for myself, is this a tournament style DFS contest, or a 50/50 league with the top score getting an entry? Either way, I love that and congratulate you on that addition, as know it will help the Main grow as well.

FAAB FA- Also, unless I missed it in the rules, if a unsigned FA or a minor leaguer is put on the 25 man roster on Sunday, is that player eligible for that FAAB?

Draft Champions- Are you less bullish on these as everything got a prize increase but these. I would imagine with quicker clocks in last 20 rounds, would lead to more signups, but you know the numbers way better than all of us and your expectations.

[Doctor Who]

Just a suggestion, but would call it something different than 50/50 since using DFS terms means top 50% minus vig of course wins... just a bit confusing.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Just a suggestion, but would call it something different than 50/50 since using DFS terms means top 50% minus vig of course wins... just a bit confusing.

These are called the NFBC/Fanball $50/50 Teams Contest. In football, we are paying 1st place a FREE 2019 entry, second place $350 and third place $150. I should have explained that further in the original post, but hopefully the title is more self explanatory.

As for the Draft Champions National Championship, we finished with 3,030 teams in 2017 and 2,670 teams last year. There are many reasons for the drop last year -- late start, hiccups on two days of drafting with full leagues, late delivery of auto-draft tools -- so prizes remain with the hope of getting another 360 teams this year. With the new changes and tools in place, we believe we not only can reach 2016's level but exceed them very soon. And when we do that, then we can get more aggressive with the prize pool for that contest.

We are EXTREMELY bullish on the Draft Champions concept. We offered $50 DCs -- and will offer them again this year -- because we feel it's an entry-level price point for new players to check out the NFBC. Maybe we lost some NFBC owners who did those instead last year, but we need this price point to bring in new players and the $400 league prize is a nice catch. In fact, we are looking at another low-end price point to bring in even more new players. Stay tuned. But yes, we are BULLISH on this concept and hope to expand it further in 2019. Enjoy all.

[DOUGHBOYS]

DC's will be a lot stronger in numbers this coming year.
There are a few things that need a little tinkering.
As we talked about Greg, the league prizes for DC's are set up more along the lines of a satelite league.
As of now, it is $1,000 for first, $375 for second, $125 for third.
I believe it is the only 15 team contest in which third place does not even receive their entry fee back.
For some folks, this is their 'Main Event'. League money returned is important to them.
If we could find a way to push second place money to $400 and third place to $150, it would attract more drafters.

Maybe the buying of three teams for $400 or something similar along those lines could be a draw too.
Heck, for players that have many entries, 10 teams for $1200 would work too.

With the early opening of the draft room and most problems with the draft room in the rear view mirror, I believe that DC's will flourish this year.

[FrozenTundra]

The changes to the DC are great. I look forward to watching the "slow pokes" get put on auto! I agree that upping the third place award to $150 would be a good idea. Dropping second place by $25 to pay for that would work for me.

I think the idea of recouping your entry fee would also be a good idea for cutline. I'd suggest changing the entry fees and/or payouts so that the second place finisher in the first half 10-team contest gets their entry fee back. It seems odd to me that you qualify for the championship bracket but only the top team gets a monetary reward.

[Greg Ambrosius]

DC's will be a lot stronger in numbers this coming year.
There are a few things that need a little tinkering.
As we talked about Greg, the league prizes for DC's are set up more along the lines of a satelite league.
As of now, it is $1,000 for first, $375 for second, $125 for third.
I believe it is the only 15 team contest in which third place does not even receive their entry fee back.
For some folks, this is their 'Main Event'. League money returned is important to them.
If we could find a way to push second place money to $400 and third place to $150, it would attract more drafters.

Maybe the buying of three teams for $400 or something similar along those lines could be a draw too.
Heck, for players that have many entries, 10 teams for $1200 would work too.

With the early opening of the draft room and most problems with the draft room in the rear view mirror, I believe that DC's will flourish this year.

I understand your point Dan, but if we added $50 to each DC league and got 200 leagues that would be an additional $10,000 in prize money. That would have to come from somewhere, which would be the overall prize pool. But with that thought in mind, an NFBC owner just chastised us on Twitter for not raising the grand prize in the DCs, so we definitely don't want to lower it. That would send an even worse message.

We have the top league prize at almost 7 times entry, which is a nice number. Could we lower that to $950 and add $25 to second and $25 to third place? Sure, redistributing league prize money is easy. We want to grow this contest and we feel like the thought of turning $150 into $1,000 with the potential for even more prize money is a good message for this contest, but if getting your full money back for third is an even stronger message then we can look at that. We're not trying to slight third place in this format, but we have $1,500 to parcel here if we want to keep growing the overall prize pool. Maybe $350 for second and $150 for third is an easy solution.

As everyone knows, the prize pools are getting harder and harder to set now because every year we are adding new states that have fantasy sports licensing fees. We are now licensed in 18 states, almost double from this time last year, and thus that "tax" has to be paid somewhere. We aren't charging Events Fees or co-manager fees, so that six-figure "tax" now has to come from somewhere. The only place it can come from is lesser profits for us and/or lower prize payouts. It sucks, but the licensing is a "money grab" now and both of us are paying for it.

That being said, maybe a discount for the DCs like we have for the Cutlines and Online Championship will make sense. Again, less revenue doesn't help the bottom line when more states will hit us for fees in 2019 (Illinois certainly could be next), but let us look it over. If we can grow this contest together we'll continue to put that money back in prizes, so let's see what we can do. Thanks for the suggestions.

[Greg Ambrosius]

The changes to the DC are great. I look forward to watching the "slow pokes" get put on auto! I agree that upping the third place award to $150 would be a good idea. Dropping second place by $25 to pay for that would work for me.

I think the idea of recouping your entry fee would also be a good idea for cutline. I'd suggest changing the entry fees and/or payouts so that the second place finisher in the first half 10-team contest gets their entry fee back. It seems odd to me that you qualify for the championship bracket but only the top team gets a monetary reward.

Thanks Richard and I'll see you in Arizona next week.

The Cutline Championship is a different contest altogether. It really is our lottery in the NFBC where you can turn $150 into $70,000. We are taking from the league fees to create an easy-to-manage game format into a huge overall grand prize. One person will really benefit from this and only 10% of owners will win any league prize. It's not set up for anyone to enter and try to double their money. It's set up so that a dozen or so owners advance to the final table over the last three weeks with the chance to win a huge grand prize. It's a thrill of a lifetime ride where only a few people win great prizes. I wish we could reward first and second in the league better, but again then overall prizes would have to come down. And for this format, we just think the lottery feel with a huge carrot makes the most sense.

When we started the Main Event in 2004, the idea was that one person could turn $1,250 into $100,000. It was such a cool concept for a full baseball season. Now you can turn $150 into $70,000 or $350 into $125,000 in the Online Championship. That was never there in the early years, so hopefully people enjoy these other contests that pay more in overall prizes but less in league prizes. Thanks again.

[benzame7531]

Hi Greg,

Any news on an app and the next day team recaps you use to send by email?

[Gekko]

This all sounds GREAT!!!

Question - Does the NFBC plan on any Hall of Fame inductions this spring?

[Baseball Furies]

This all sounds GREAT!!!

Question - Does the NFBC plan on any Hall of Fame inductions this spring?

Yes! These are a MUST! And I motion that Gekko be left out of consideration for as many years as humanly possible...or at least until 2024. Then he can be considered as a co-inductee with me for all of my amazing accomplishments and contributions to the NFBC.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Hi Greg,

Any news on an app and the next day team recaps you use to send by email?

We have not been able to get our current NFBC or NFFC app approved by iTunes or the Google store, but the Fanball app was approved in August. We understand now what they will and won't approve and will have to re-do our apps to get this approval. We are planning to do that for this season.

I will talk with IT about the next day team recaps.

[Greg Ambrosius]

This all sounds GREAT!!!

Question - Does the NFBC plan on any Hall of Fame inductions this spring?

There will be new membership to the NFBC Hall of Fame this year. And well deserved members at that. Stay tuned.

[Deadheadz]

Nice!

Just to confirm/clarify: there’s no longer any need/benefit to commit in advance to a 5-pack or 9-pack in Cutline?
Keep up the good work.

Cutline Championship Grand Prize Grows to $70,000. We have seen how the best ball format has grown exponentially in football and we are going ALL IN on that concept in baseball. The grand prize is growing by $20,000 this year, with second place overall growing to $25,000 and third place growing to $15,000. The entry fee will start at $150, but every third team will be $50 off. So in the past you could individually buy three teams for $375, but this year you'll be able to buy a 3-pack or three teams individually for $400. We are going to program the software to automatically give you that discount for a third team even if you buy them one by one and the same will be true this year for the Online Championship. We believe you can't just have one Cutline team, so we'll incentivize you for every third team!! How's that?

[tema213]

Any update on when the slow drafts might kick off? I mean, come on, the season's been over for almost 18 hours now!

[Greg Ambrosius]

Any update on when the slow drafts might kick off? I mean, come on, the season's been over for almost 18 hours now!

We are going through the new site as we speak. Things are looking good as we are finalizing the prizes, draft days and times, eligibility and more. We're on it and will announce a start date as soon as we know when the drafting season will officially kick off. Thanks for the enthusiasm.

[Darik B]

No, not true. I've amended Greg's initial post as we now have those special package discounts in place:

5-packs cost $650 ($100 savings)

9-packs cost $1,150 ($200 savings)

So these are still the BEST deals we offer. However, these must be purchased at THE SAME time. There will not be any discounts on five individual Cutline purchases (aside from the $50 discount you will get on that third purchase).

If you buy Cutlines individually, you will simply get a discount every third one. The 3,5,9-packs are different animals. Example: if you buy a 5-pack (great idea!) and then buy one more individual Cutline, you will NOT get a discount on that "6th" one because it is only your first individual purchase. We won't add individual purchases to packages, as you've already received better discounts for buying the packages in the first place.

Make sense?

Nice!

Just to confirm/clarify: there’s no longer any need/benefit to commit in advance to a 5-pack or 9-pack in Cutline?
Keep up the good work.

Cutline Championship Grand Prize Grows to $70,000. We have seen how the best ball format has grown exponentially in football and we are going ALL IN on that concept in baseball. The grand prize is growing by $20,000 this year, with second place overall growing to $25,000 and third place growing to $15,000. The entry fee will start at $150, but every third team will be $50 off. So in the past you could individually buy three teams for $375, but this year you'll be able to buy a 3-pack or three teams individually for $400. We are going to program the software to automatically give you that discount for a third team even if you buy them one by one and the same will be true this year for the Online Championship. We believe you can't just have one Cutline team, so we'll incentivize you for every third team!! How's that?

[tema213]

Hey Daric/Greg, any chance you'll offer package deals for the draft champions? Or is it only for cutline?

[HAAPY_B]

I may have recommended this in an email last year, but it might be interesting to add a package across league types to give newer players a chance to try different leagues. Like a Cutline/DC/Online champions package. Or take out/add in Auction. I know when I first started I tested the waters tentatively, but after playing once in each league I normally signed up for another league type.