Is There Interest In A Single-Entry NFBC Contest?

[Greg Ambrosius]

Last year we tried to introduce the industry's first single-entry, season-long national contest in baseball and it fell flat. We introduced it alright, but then we had to cancel it as the Dirty Dozens failed to gain any traction.

The idea was to have a national 12-team contest limited to one team per owner. We were proposing a limit of 180 teams with league prizes and an overall prize pool that included $40,000 for first place. While it failed in 2019, there are a couple of reasons why I'm thinking of bringing back this concept in 2020. Hear me out.

First of all, we introduced this again in football with much more success as the NFFC Silver Bullet sold out all 180 spots. Not only that, but people who competed in these single-entry drafts felt they were the most enjoyable drafts of the season because owners HAD to jump their players if they wanted them because they had only one shot at them in this contest. Maybe this is more important in football than baseball since you start only 10 players each week, but the single-entry concept sure made these drafts interesting to watch. Because of this success, the Silver Bullet will expand in 2020 with the overall prize pool also expanding.

Secondly, what we learned in football is that we brought new owners to our 12-team national format AND some players who had left the $1700 Primetime price point came back to try out this format at $1,000 per team. Yes, it got some owners to add on this team to what they were already doing, but we found that it attracted new players and brought back some past players who didn't want to step up to the Primetime or Classic again.

Finally, maybe we learned a lesson in baseball with the Dirty Dozens. Maybe another 12-team national contest with FAAB isn't wanted by our customer base. Maybe, just maybe, the single-entry contest was desired, but the 12-team format wasn't wanted. Maybe this concept should be for our 15-team format and maybe it could be a feeder system for the NFBC Main Event. In some regards, this single-entry contest could be a stepping stone for someone looking to get into this format AND it could be a falloff for someone who hasn't won in the Main Event in years and could still stay involved in this format rather than leaving the Main Event completely.

I don't know. I've been giving this a lot of thought since football and I think there's merit to re-introducing this concept in baseball. I'm looking for feedback first because maybe it's just not needed in baseball. Or maybe, as I just stated, it could be a great feeder program. How about something like:

15 team leagues
1 entry per owner
$1,000 per team
180 teams (only 12 leagues)

League Prizes
1 $4,500
2 $2,200
3 $1,000

Overall Prizes
1 $30,000
2 $7,500
3 $5,000
4 $2,500
5 $2,000
6 $1,500
7 $1,250
8 $1,000
9 $750
10 $500

Most of these single-entry drafts would take place Online, but like in football, we could offer one on Saturday or Sunday in New York City and also on Saturday and/or Sunday in Las Vegas. Making these fit perfectly is the trick as we learned in football, but once some of these fill the remaining spots don't take long to fill as people avoid getting shut out. We know we could have filled more than 180 spots in football, but we stuck to that number and those final spots went fast.

Adding another national contest to our NFBC lineup doesn't seem necessary as we continue to try and grow the Main Event, but I love the single-entry concept and would love to see if takes hold in baseball. Thanks for any feedback as we begin planning for our 17th NFBC season.

And YES, we are planning for the upcoming season and hope to have the site live sooner than ever before. Get ready because we could be drafting in another six weeks or so. Thanks all.

[Philippe27]

Here are my thoughts:
1. For me single-entry doesn't add much in baseball. I wouldn't join the contest just because it's single entry, I'd need something else to be different.

2. The way I choose my leagues is I try to have leagues where the strategy will be different. This year I had 2 Mains, $1,000 DC, $1,500 Online and $1,400 Auction. I loved it because in the DC I drafted earlier so I got players that I didn't get anywhere else, the online was my only 12 and higher league prizes compared to overall component so it allowed for punting categories, auction obviously allows to build teams in a totally different way. Last year I had 4 Mains and I found it a little redundant. I tried to draft different players in the draft but then on the waiver wire, it was often the same players available every week so I'd stream the same pitchers on all teams. If I want to have a 3rd team in this format, I'll just join another Main, not the single entry contest.

3. I think the best solution would be to do it as a 15 like the Main but with FAAB once a month and maybe a 9 or 11 man bench or something like that. It would attract a number of different people:
-Those that prefer a lower price point than the $1,700 Main
-Those that don't have time to do FAAB every Sunday for 6 months
-Those that already do a bunch of leagues like I do and want to join more leagues but don't want to do more FAAB every Sunday

It would also limit streaming so it would test some different skills and change the draft strategy a little as well because of that.

If we did a poll I'm sure at least 80% of us would say FAAB is the number one reason why we don't join more leagues. We all have a love hate relationship with FAAB, it's fun, it's exciting to see the results but it takes a ton of time. This is a way to keep things exciting but save some time. We all remember FAABaganza this year with all those top prospects, imagine having 6 of those during the year. I think it would be a blast.

[NorCalAtlFan]

prize structure looks poor. lower overall than last years attempt?

[JohnP]

prize structure looks poor. lower overall than last years attempt?

Comes out to payout of 80.22 percent so in line with the others.

[Greg Ambrosius]

prize structure looks poor. lower overall than last years attempt?

Yes, we put more into the league prizes and less into the overall. Is that poor? Is paying one more owner $10,000 the difference maker for you?

[NorCalAtlFan]

yes. thank you for answering

[the icon]

im all for the single entry honestly. i rather see 4k 2k and 1k for the prizes and throw the rest in and pay the top 10 overall

[Baseball Furies]

The bigger question that I have is why is it going to take six weeks "or so" to have the baseball draft room ready to go?!! I don't understand why this is despite the demand year after year for much earlier than this since we get going with these DC drafts far earlier than this with the Premature League and others. There should be an NFBC draft room ready to go the day after the World Series at the latest. This will also help get you very early ADP's from the some of the top die-hard players in the game. Please advise on making this happen.

[Greg Ambrosius]

The bigger question that I have is why is it going to take six weeks "or so" to have the baseball draft room ready to go?!! I don't understand why this is despite the demand year after year for much earlier than this since we get going with these DC drafts far earlier than this with the Premature League and others. There should be an NFBC draft room ready to go the day after the World Series at the latest. This will also help get you very early ADP's from the some of the top die-hard players in the game. Please advise on making this happen.

I'm pretty sure we said the draft room and the site will be ready then.

[Baseball Furies]

The bigger question that I have is why is it going to take six weeks "or so" to have the baseball draft room ready to go?!! I don't understand why this is despite the demand year after year for much earlier than this since we get going with these DC drafts far earlier than this with the Premature League and others. There should be an NFBC draft room ready to go the day after the World Series at the latest. This will also help get you very early ADP's from the some of the top die-hard players in the game. Please advise on making this happen.

I'm pretty sure we said the draft room and the site will be ready then.

Actually, you said in another, "six weeks or so" which would barely make this time frame not taking into consideration the "or so" part. If football can be ready to roll as early as it is every season, then baseball should be as well. No excuses. We of your die-hard, top clientele in the baseball community would appreciate it.

[KJ Duke]

I like 15 vs 12 teams, but would much rather see a premium-entry side pot contest using a single existing main event team go into a single-entry pool.

In this way:
• the entry fee can be lower
• ALL the prize money goes to the overall payout (more bang for your buck)
• and we don't have to manage another team, which from the NFBC standpoint frees up precious player management time to enter a different contest

[Greg Ambrosius]

I like 15 vs 12 teams, but would much rather see a premium-entry side pot contest using a single existing main event team go into a single-entry pool.

In this way:
• the entry fee can be lower
• ALL the prize money goes to the overall payout (more bang for your buck)
• and we don't have to manage another team, which from the NFBC standpoint frees up precious player management time to enter a different contest

We have advocated for this type of concept in the past, but explaining it and determining a prize pool has never been easy. Would people be willing to pay an additional $100, $200, $500 for one of their current Main Event teams into an additional overall prize pool that pays the Top 5 or Top 10? Yes, they only get one team to submit, but would enough people be interested in putting more money onto the same team?

It's easy for us to try this even if we add an additional different single-entry contest. If this is something people are interested in, let us know and we'll create a prize payout structure based on payout percentages and make it work. This one isn't hard to do. Give me what you think is the right price point for this concept and we'll pay out a high percentage to the winners. Thanks.

[Greg Ambrosius]

The bigger question that I have is why is it going to take six weeks "or so" to have the baseball draft room ready to go?!! I don't understand why this is despite the demand year after year for much earlier than this since we get going with these DC drafts far earlier than this with the Premature League and others. There should be an NFBC draft room ready to go the day after the World Series at the latest. This will also help get you very early ADP's from the some of the top die-hard players in the game. Please advise on making this happen.

Mike, I get it that a lot of people want to start baseball drafts now and I get it that by you going on Twitter and tagging all of us you think you're "helping" us to get things rolling earlier. I get your tactics, per say. Oh, and I get that FanTrax is live now.

With all that being said, we aren't going live this month. Sorry. We are letting the 2019 season play out before any more injuries may happen, plus we have a lot of things to do on the back-end yet before launching the site. We just finalized the budget, the entry fees, the prizes, the contests this week. We will announce all of that by the end of the month and get 2020 rolling soon. We are also loading in as many minor-leaguers as possible to avoid the Placeholders you hate so much. We are finalizing eligibility for all players as well.

And finally, we have a major tech change that the company has instituted that will affect the draft room and we need to finalize that before launching the site. We are always looking at ways to improve the speed and reliability of the site and we feel this change will help. But it needs to be done before we launch the site or we'll have problems. So let us get that done so that the performance of the site improves in 2020.

We are hopeful that we can launch shortly after the World Series and all the Twitter posts won't change that. We look forward to announcing all of our contests soon and after paying out over $3.5 million in prizes in record time we are sure that 2020 NFBC will be bigger and better. And even earlier. But we're going to enjoy the next 3 weeks of the playoffs and launch in November. Look for that date as soon as we know it ourselves. Thanks all.

[KJ Duke]

I like 15 vs 12 teams, but would much rather see a premium-entry side pot contest using a single existing main event team go into a single-entry pool.

In this way:
• the entry fee can be lower
• ALL the prize money goes to the overall payout (more bang for your buck)
• and we don't have to manage another team, which from the NFBC standpoint frees up precious player management time to enter a different contest

We have advocated for this type of concept in the past, but explaining it and determining a prize pool has never been easy. Would people be willing to pay an additional $100, $200, $500 for one of their current Main Event teams into an additional overall prize pool that pays the Top 5 or Top 10? Yes, they only get one team to submit, but would enough people be interested in putting more money onto the same team?

It's easy for us to try this even if we add an additional different single-entry contest. If this is something people are interested in, let us know and we'll create a prize payout structure based on payout percentages and make it work. This one isn't hard to do. Give me what you think is the right price point for this concept and we'll pay out a high percentage to the winners. Thanks.

The $500 price point would make for a nice pool. If you could reach the same 180 entrants as the single-entry proposed that could be a prize pool of $72k after costs that looks something like this:

1st $30,000
2nd $15,000
3rd $10,000
4th $5000
5th $4000
6th $3000
7th $2000
8th $1500
9th $1000
10th $500

This would appeal to me far more than a $1k single entry with a $40k overall. No idea what the masses prefer but those I've spoken to like it.

[KJ Duke]

And if you can sweeten it above the 80% payout, I'm sure interest would be even higher.

[Texas Connection]

I like it KJ. It seems like a no brainer. We don't have to draft again. We just create a separate contest from the entries that have already happened. No more time involved than what we are already spending and we get to play in another contest with higher percentage of payouts. Everybody gets one shot and you can create any kind of price point you want. Everybody wins.

[lrr]

I like the concept of a single entry league. But I'm not certain about using an existing main event team. Isn't there a reasonable chance that the winner of the main event wins the single entry league also? Certainly the leader boards may look similar. Thoughts?

[DOUGHBOYS]

I'm not much for the concept.
The standings would look very similar to the Main Event. Same drafters just win more money.
And what does the NFBC do for the vig? Almost nothing since those teams are already drafted.
For the folks interested, why not just take the bets among those who want to bet on their Main Event teams, highest finishers win, put it in an account and have a 100 % payout?

[DOUGHBOYS]

PLUS, as another NFBC'er reminded, taxed on top of that through the NFBC.
It's just better to have a concept like that on the side.

[DOUGHBOYS]

Columbo-like....Uh, just one more thing....

Some Multi-Main Event drafters will send in their best of five teams for qualification to a single-entry tournament.
Is that really in the spirit of a 'single entry' competition?
I don't think so.

[KJ Duke]

I like the concept of a single entry league. But I'm not certain about using an existing main event team. Isn't there a reasonable chance that the winner of the main event wins the single entry league also? Certainly the leader boards may look similar. Thoughts?

• If you happen to win both you'd be against the NFBC paying you $180,000 rather than $150,000? Isn't a higher number generally a bigger draw?
• Standings would be similar after removing 2/3rds of the Main event teams, but with 1/3rd as many teams odds of winning/cashing is 3x higher.
• You only have to beat each owner once instead of 2,3,4,5,x... number of times. This is the primary appeal of a single-entry tournament. If not playing for this what is the point?
• What are the multi-owner chances of nailing which is best among their "x" # of teams? That's not easy pre-season.
• The payout % would be higher than having a separate single-entry league, and the overall prize pool could be as just high at half the investment.

[KJ Duke]

Columbo-like....Uh, just one more thing....

Some Multi-Main Event drafters will send in their best of five teams for qualification to a single-entry tournament.
Is that really in the spirit of a 'single entry' competition?
I don't think so.

I like my chances a lot better than having to beat those guys 5 times with one entry.

My highest finishing ME team is rarely the one that looked best on draft day, are you better at predicting that ?

[DOUGHBOYS]

It's not in the spirit of a single entry league, KJ.
The bigtime or rich owners sort through their 'Greatest Hits' for a team.
The single entrant in the Main Event is left to his one and only team.

Also, I don't think the concept embraces those that are new to the NFBC.
They are having a tough enough time committing to the Main Event.
Betting on themselves afterwards? No dice.

I believe it is a concept that only the top echelon of the NFBC will embrace. Just my opinion.

[lrr]

Thanks for your response. I only did one main event league this year. I would not have bet on that team in a separate league. More likely the person who does three or four will like one of his/her teams and enter the single league contest as you posit it even if they pick wrong. I would do a single entry league because I like the idea of using all I learned in previous drafts for one last shot. I would like the overall payouts to be as high as possible. I think even if only the winner of the individual league got paid or maybe the top two, that would be fine with me.

[KJ Duke]

It's not in the spirit of a single entry league, KJ.
The bigtime or rich owners sort through their 'Greatest Hits' for a team.
The single entrant in the Main Event is left to his one and only team.

Also, I don't think the concept embraces those that are new to the NFBC.
They are having a tough enough time committing to the Main Event.
Betting on themselves afterwards? No dice.

I believe it is a concept that only the top echelon of the NFBC will embrace. Just my opinion.

Agree that it is less likely for new players, but that is the case with nearly all specialty leagues. Given that each owner can have only one team the proportion of overall veteran players however will be a lot lower than ME contest thus much better odds for the novice whether they make that connection or not. Disagree completely on "spirit' of the contest, I think it captures that.

Likewise I think it's a much easier sell to fill up than single entry proposal separate league which already failed once to attract a sufficient number of players.