I posted this in the Official Statement thread, but I don't want anyone posting in that thread. I'll post here as well so that we can have dialogue on this if needed. Thanks all.
Today the NFBC is making firm Draft Day deadlines to protect the integrity of our four national online championships. Those contests have held drafts since early November and now it's time to make sure the playing field is level for everyone competing for those overall and league prizes.
Drafts were set up for those national championships from November until Opening Day, and we already had full NFBC Cutline Championship and Rotowire Online Championship leagues scheduled for Opening Day on Thursday morning, March 26th. Now Opening Day is out on the horizon and nobody can accurately predict whether it will be May 15th, June 1st, July 1st or later. Even the prospect of no baseball looms before us today.
But even with that grim thought, we have to plan as if the world will tackle this beast and life will resume. And we have to plan as if Major League Baseball has a chance to resume in 2020, so this plan covers that. But rest assured, these plans are being made contingent on MLB resuming the season.
If there is no MLB season in 2020, all games will be cancelled and ALL ENTRY FEES WILL BE REFUNDED to your Player Accounts by SportsHub Games Network. That's our guarantee and it's an easy guarantee to make.
So here's what we're doing: We are setting firm, concrete final draft dates for the Rotowire Online Championship, the NFBC Cutline Championship, the NFBC Draft Champions National Championship and the NFBC Online Auction Championship. No new leagues will be formed after these set draft dates and the contests will go forward with those teams even if we finish below our projections. This is not about getting the last dime through Registration, it's about making sure all teams are on the same playing field and have fair shots at the overall titles and the prize money that goes with them.
ALL PRIZE MONEY IS GUARANTEED AND HAS NOT BEEN CHANGED for those four national championships as long as MLB starts this season, no matter how far short we finish from our projections. Two of those contests are not near our goals at this point, but that's fine. We must ensure a level playing field for everyone who drafted early, who drafted later and who will be drafting next. That is PRIORITY 1.
So here's the current update on each of our national online championships and the new draft deadlines:
NFBC Draft Champions National Championship: This contest has already exceeded expectations and we will end the "slow drafts" (4-hour, 2-hour, 1-hour, 30-minute) as soon as we can combine everyone into one time frame. We will offer nightly Draft Champion Express leagues through Sunday, April 5th and then end all drafts. All "slow" drafts must conclude by then too so that it's a level playing field for everyone. Again, all prizes are not only guaranteed but we will be expanding overall prizes from 2nd place down.
NFBC Online Auction Championship: This contest has also exceeded expectations and we will end the $150 offerings with Thursday's final $150 Online Auction Championship. There is a $500 Online Auction Championship League set for Monday, March 23rd that is partially full and we will officially end this contest with that league. Anything we offer after March 20th will be private online auction leagues with nice league prizes (Pay Top 3). Again, all prizes are not only guaranteed for this national contest but we will be expanding overall prizes from 2nd place down.
NFBC Cutline Championship: The Draft Day deadline for the Cutline is Sunday, April 12th. We will stop offering "slow" Cutlines on Sunday, March 29th and we will offer nightly Cutlines through Sunday, April 12th. This national contest is not near our guaranteed goals at this point and over 20% of signups in the past would come during the two weeks before Opening Day. We have now lost that timeline due to coronavirus. But we are still guaranteeing the overall prize pool that everyone signed up for and we think there will be interest in this Best Ball Championship with a known deadline a few weeks away.
Rotowire Online Championship: This Draft Day deadline is set for Wednesday, April 15th just to spit in the teeth of Tax Day. The hell with government wanting our tax money and wasting it. We're celebrating with one final Draft Day that will still be at least 1 month or more before Opening Day. Plan accordingly as we will add more draft dates between March 26th and April 15th. This contest is far away from our goals because over 35% of all revenue for this contest in the past came in during the final two weeks of drafts before Opening Day. We have lost that time frame, so we will allow a few more draft dates for this contest and then shut it off after April 15th no matter how far short we are of our goals. All overall prize money is guaranteed no matter what the final number of teams is in this contest.
That's the plan moving forward to ensure the integrity of these four national contests. Now for undrafted national contests:
Main Event: The plan for the Main Event is to move forward with scheduled Online drafts the 14 days before whatever the new scheduled Opening Day is and to hopefully get all the TBD teams/owners into times and dates that fit their upcoming schedules. Over 96% of Main Event owners have left their teams as TBDs and several of the other 3.3% of owners say they will likely sign back up once a definitive plan is in place. I'm not even going to get into hypotheticals of what happens if MLB returns with less than a full 162-game season because we'll deal with that when/and if that happens. We also aren't getting into hypotheticals of what happens if it's a 120-game season or 100 games or less. All of that is hypothetical at this point. Again, all overall prize money is guaranteed for the NFBC Main Event and the overall prize structure will stay the same even though we currently are not at plan with the forecasted numbers.
Solo Shot: The plan is the same as above with the Main Event, but nothing is set in stone here. We will evaluate the Solo Shot as we know more about Opening Day because this contest was still more than 20% below plan before folks began asking for money back. I still want to run the industry's first single-entry national fantasy baseball championship, but let's see what happens next before finalizing this contest.
As for the private high-dollar leagues -- the NFBC Platinum, Diamond, Ultimate and Super Draft Leagues -- everyone's entries have been changed to TBDs and we'll await the exact date of Opening Day before rescheduling those. Once we know what Opening Day is, we'll work our way backwards with similar timelines and announce those draft dates. Owners with TBDs obviously have first dibs on those entries, but we may have openings in leagues that were once full. We'll fill as many of these high-dollar leagues as possible and we'll cancel any that don't fill. That's all we can do.
The NFBC Auction Championship has already been cancelled as have the Diamond Auction and Ultimate Auction. If somehow we were able to host live events again, we could host private auctions, but the overall auction championship will not return in 2020. There is no plan for live events at this point, but a guy can dream, can't he?!!
(humor is needed these days)
After these deadlines, we will have drafts available online until Opening Day, but the plan is to offer only private 12-team and 15-team leagues with solid league prizes (Pay Top 3). Offering a second wave of national contests would be tough with Opening Day still an unknown and no idea of how many entries to base overall prizes on. But we'll worry about all of that later. For now, let's get on with this first phase and conclude our four national online championships.
Thanks for your patience all. In these tough times, it's great to have a strong community of great people. We have that here in the NFBC. You can feel that, even just Online. Nobody is panicking and for the most part this community is staying optimistic and hoping for a resumption of the MLB season. We are at the mercy of this coronavirus beast and at the mercy of MLB's decisions for the season, but we will be ready when life resumes. We have to be.
Thanks all and keep yourselves and your families safe and healthy. God Bless.