Live 2022 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

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Live 2022 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Tue Jan 12, 2021 10:56 am

Yesterday MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told team owners to prepare for the normal spring training start time and a 162-game regular season. As of now, it's GAME ON!!! :D

I don't blame anyone for waiting to start drafts until they are sure that the upcoming season is going to start and finish on time, but yesterday's news was the best news we've heard in some time. It appears that in the final year of the CBA, the players are NOT going to take a reduction in pay again and the owners have decided to push forward and hope that crowds can return to games sooner rather than later.

Now, when the CBA ends and 2022 is on the table, that's another discussion/headache, right? :shock:

I also don't blame anyone for waiting to make travel plans for 2021 live events or to cancel them outright. Safety has to be the first concern of everyone and we certainly have plenty of online options for those folks who don't want to take the risk of doing live events. We did safely host live NFFC events at the Bellagio in Las Vegas in September and have plans right now of hosting live events in New York City, Las Vegas and Chicago, but everyone has to make their own decisions when it comes to live or online.

All I can say is that we'll do everything we can at the live events to make them safe for those who do attend. In September at the Bellagio, we doubled the size of the draft U's and were able to rent 11 foot x 7 foot screens for the ballrooms. Those live events in Las Vegas went off without a hitch and everyone had a great time, while staying safe. We'll do the same thing this year in Las Vegas if needed. In New York and Chicago, we'll spread out as much as space allows and rent the largest screens those venues offer. In New York, they might force us to limit the Saturday Main Event to only two leagues in the big ballroom, but we'll work with the Stewart Hotel on all of that when the time is right. Heck, we just hope New York let's us fly into the state by March.

All of this will be discussed and evaluated in the next two months. As we've seen in our country, a lot changes in a hurry, both in a good way and in a bad way. Let's just plan for baseball right now and worry about how we draft those teams for a little later. That being said, we are planning to move forward if allowed by the states to host in New York, Las Vegas and Chicago and hopefully some folks will join us at each venue.

The good news is that despite the uncertainty of baseball until now, NFBC folks have been having a blast drafting teams on our site. We are ahead of last year's record pace in the Draft Champions leagues and we've had multiple Best Ball Cutline and other Best Ball format drafts as well. I love to see so many people drafting, but what I love even more is seeing people find the formats that work best for them. I mean we have full 4-hour leagues, 2-hour leagues, 1-hour leagues, 30-minute leagues and MTM's "super fast" leagues. Some of these 50-round DCs are getting done in 5 days, 7 days, 10 days, 12 days, and in MTM's case, 36 hours. It's heartening to see 3-7 rounds being done per day and I think the software is helping to keep things moving. Whatever it is, the "slow draft" format has improved immensely over the last three years and it's because of recommendations from all of you that have led us to this happier place.

Now for some good news within the NFBC front: Yesterday we added a fourth full-time front person to our staff. Brian Bolf has joined me, Tom and Darik and he will work closely with Darik and Tom in monitoring and growing our online drafts. Brian is a long-time friend of Darik's who has watched online drafts for us in the past and is a die-hard fantasy player. He's probably watched thousands of our drafts through the years when we get really busy in baseball and football, and we knew it was time to bring him on full-time.

And the reason we need another hand on deck is that we plan on growing the online drafts to suit everyone on both coasts. In the past, we've mainly offered online drafts between 7 pm ET and 10 pm ET. In the last year we've expanded to 11 pm ET offerings because Darik volunteered to work late. But we really are short-changing the West Coast audience with our Midwest work hours and by adding Brian to a late-night shift we feel like we can have a regular diet of 11 pm ET and maybe even midnight or 1 am ET offerings for the Online Championship and Best Ball contests. In the past, Tom and Darik spent much of the night promoting our contests on the Message Boards or on Live Chat and then when they filled they jumped into those draft rooms to monitor them. We stopped trying to fill more late-night drafts. With Brian there to monitor most of those drafts, Tom and Darik can set up a later draft time and see if there's interest for one more each night. We'll now treat the West Coast like the East Coast with 9 pm PT and 10 pm PT if demand warrants it.

Brian is also going to help us push our BestBall10s contests and push more nightly contests there as well. That $10 entry fee format has tens of thousands of owners drafting at BestBall10s.com and most of the drafts are slow drafts. But with one dedicated employee watching and pushing those contests on a more regular basis, I think you'll see more nightly drafts filling for baseball and football. And if we can introduce that format to new customers, eventually they'll find the other offerings we have here at the NFBC and NFFC. So Brian is on board and you'll likely get to know him in the draft rooms and even on Live Chat as he helps us fill and then monitor our online drafts.

A fourth employee also will help us monitor the Live Chat, the Message Boards and emails more closely and have someone available to answer your questions at most times of the day. It also helps us on weekends as for years we've worked seven days a week during the busy draft days, weeks and months. So again, get to know Brian because he's going to be valuable to us when we need additional help the most.

And you can even say hi to him here!!! ;)

We'll use this thread to keep sane dialogue moving forward on the MLB season, the NFBC drafts and anything else that is on your mind (outside of politics). We always answer questions on Live Chat, but feel free to post any thoughts or questions here and we'll reply to everyone on this thread. The forums can still be used in a positive way and in a good promotional way even though social media is the way many of you talk these days. For me, this is still a great place to hear back from many of you and to communicate with most of you.

When I think of things I want to discuss, I'll do it here. For now, the message is that we're full-steam ahead for the 18th season of the NFBC and we hope that many of you can join us as well. There's no guarantee that it will be a smooth ride, but let's hope for a full season that includes more fans with each week that goes by and healthy players throughout the season. Stay well everyone and stay in touch.
Greg Ambrosius
Founder, National Fantasy Baseball Championship
General Manager, Consumer Fantasy Games at SportsHub Technologies
Twitter - @GregAmbrosius

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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Philippe27 » Tue Jan 12, 2021 12:13 pm

I just want to say that the new $150 NFBC Best Ball 12 are awesome and I hope more people hop in. Love being able to draft and not have to worry about setting any lineups or FAAB. Also since these are 12 teams, even the 4 hour drafts are pretty quick from what I've seen.

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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Bronx Yankees » Thu Jan 14, 2021 7:54 am

Sounds great, Greg. Very happy that, at least as of now, we're slated to get a full MLB season with an on-time start date. Especially looking forward to the NFBC's live drafts in NYC and Vegas. Always an awesome time. It's like Christmas in March for me! Hope you/we can pull it off.

Mike
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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Mon Jan 18, 2021 9:34 am

If everything goes well, two months from today Tom and I will be flying to New York City for the live events. Hopefully our country is in a better spot by that time and we can safely welcome everyone to the Stewart Hotel for live drafts and auctions. We have SiriusXM aligned to broadcast the Friday night MTM Invitational Ultimate League on Friday night, so let's gooooooo!!!! We're ready.

Opening Day is less than 2 1/2 months away, so it's time to ramp up the nightly drafts now. We have put together a tentative schedule of events during the week and obviously we'll add drafts each night as demand warrants. But right now we want to have a set schedule that you can plan on accordingly. And again, we'll add where needed.

January Schedule Of Nightly Drafts:

Rotowire Online Championship Leagues:
Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday nights at 8 and 10 pm ET

NFBC Draft Champions Express Leagues:
Friday nights at 8 ET and Sunday nights at 7 ET

NFBC Cutline Best Ball Championship Leagues:
Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday nights at 9 pm ET

NFBC $150 Online Auction Championship Leagues:
Tuesday at 8 pm ET

NFBC $125 Draft Champions Online Auction Leagues:
Sundays at 7 pm ET

NFBC $150 Satellite Leagues:
First one is set for Feb. 15th, but we can start earlier upon request

We don't have $50 OC Qualifiers or $125 Main Event Qualifiers set up until mid-February as well, but we can add these sooner if demand is there. Any feedback is welcome. Thanks all and enjoy. Nightly drafts are coming your way!!
Greg Ambrosius
Founder, National Fantasy Baseball Championship
General Manager, Consumer Fantasy Games at SportsHub Technologies
Twitter - @GregAmbrosius

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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by mdecav » Thu Jan 21, 2021 10:17 am

Suggestion: The Player Shares page is a useful tool but if you're on mobile there is neither a sort nor search capability if you're looking for one player. If you do a number of teams and have dozens/hundreds of players, this makes finding someone a bit difficult if you're on your phone. If you can either add a column showing a player's position and/or adding sort/search capability on the webpage that would be helpful.

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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Fri Jan 22, 2021 3:11 pm

One item we added today can be found on each Player Card within the NFBC pages. An easy way to look at these is to go to the ADPs at https://nfc.shgn.com/adp/baseball and click on any Player Name.

There you'll see a new Draft Trend graph below the seasonal stats that shows a dot-by-dot graph of every draft pick for this player in NFBC 15-Team Draft Champions leagues. We're using that data for this purpose and you can see the highs and lows of each pick. There are some real variances with guys like Randy Arozarena, Aaron Judge and James Karinchak. It's fun to look at this as we drill down a little further on draft value.

We're also using this on Twitter to drive more people to our ADP pages as we try to expose more fantasy baseball players to our results and our games. Feel free to spread the word or to just dive into the data. It's all good. Enjoy.
Greg Ambrosius
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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Tue Jan 26, 2021 1:45 pm

As a lifelong Packers' fan, I've always admired the NFL for keeping my attention for most of the year. For me, it started with the NFL Draft each April and continued into training camp (which I loved to attend each summer in Green Bay) and through the regular season into the Super Bowl. The NFL hooked me early with the draft and just never let me go.

But today's NFL doesn't even let me forget about football now after the Super Bowl. The NFL Combine follows the next month, followed quickly by free agency and then into the NFL Draft. The NFL dominates free agency like no other sport as the first day of free agency is filled with signings of top players, which changes the narrative for those teams. Then it continues into OTAs and mini-camp. I'm not sure the NFL is EVER off the front page of the sports section.

I think of that today after my beloved Packers were eliminated from the playoffs, yet the top news in Wisconsin is Aaron Rodgers possibly asking for a contract extension or a trade. The news never stops, even if there's no news there. Pundits, columnists and talk radio talking heads never give up on the NFL and they even make up story lines if that helps their cause. It's a 365/24/7 sport in America.

Unlike America's Pastime.

As much as I love baseball, I just don't get this sport. I don't understand why the owners aren't better promotors of the game. I'm not sure why the owners seem to not love the game as much as the fans do. I don't get why they devalue the regular season for more playoff spots (okay, I admit, I do under$tand that).

But someone should stand up and say it's time to get baseball back on the front pages of sports sections in America. Seriously, have you heard anything about baseball since the World Series ended? This was the COLDEST Hot Stove League I've ever seen in MLB history. With no Winter Meetings and a cold free agent market, baseball wasn't heard from in December and it's been a quiet January as well. Here we are on Jan. 26th and the average fan wouldn't even know if baseball is playing or not.

Yesterday we heard that the game will go on as planned. Arizona officials wrote to MLB owners to let them know that they would like to see spring training in their state wait another month. It was a letter that seemed to be written by the owners, who would love to start the season on May 1st instead of April 1st. But the MLB Players Association wasn't having any part of this, saying there is nothing in the CBA allowing the owners to delay the start of the season and that their members would be in spring training three weeks from now. Case closed, the game goes on.

So while I know we don't have as much interaction on the boards as we used to, I'm interested in seeing your thoughts on the following:

1) Is baseball as quiet/dead as I'm imagining? Are you surprised how cold the Hot Stove League has been as well?

2) Are you worried about the upcoming season? Do you think it still starts on time? Are you worried that it won't finish as planned?

3) Are you holding off on your fantasy baseball plans until you know more about the upcoming season? Do you NEED to see baseball being played in Florida and Arizona before signing up for the 2021 season?

4) Do you have more or less interest in the upcoming season? During this pandemic, shouldn't we all be more fired up about green grass, sunshine, outdoor sports and America's Pastime than we are? Or am I the only pessimist right now?

I ask these questions from a personal standpoint. While we are still hosting a lot of Draft Champions leagues and Cutline leagues, our higher-stakes leagues are lagging far behind in signups. We have 120 Main Event signups right now, about one-third of our total at this time last year. I don't ever recall having this few Main Event signups around Feb. 1st, going back at least 10+ years. I certainly feel things will even out and we'll have another great NFBC season, but something is lagging between commitments and enthusiasm for the season.

I hope I'm wrong and I hope one day Major League Baseball will learn from the NFL and keep the sport front and center for 12 straight months. They could easily do that with a more robust free agent signing period (once called the Hot Stove League), trades and the MLB Draft. They could make the Arizona Fall League more prominent if they wanted to. Everything is in place to make the players more visible and the game more loveable, but the lack of a true partnership between owners and players has slowed the progress. Maybe the next CBA will change that for the better (or make it more divisive). Only time will tell.

Thanks for any feedback on your love for the upcoming 2021 season. I remain confident...but scared of 2021 and into 2022 with the CBA expiring. Lord Help Us All who love this game.
Greg Ambrosius
Founder, National Fantasy Baseball Championship
General Manager, Consumer Fantasy Games at SportsHub Technologies
Twitter - @GregAmbrosius

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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by mdecav » Tue Jan 26, 2021 4:03 pm

I've been watching and waiting to see what transpires. Preferably they delay the season 2-3 weeks but still get the 162 games in somehow. I think the TV contracts are what holds up having November playoff baseball.

I can walk to the Stewart Hotel from my home but outside of the $2500 NYC Auction on that Friday I have real reluctance at physically being at the Live Events this year. Any Main Events I plan on doing will likely be online.

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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Philippe27 » Wed Jan 27, 2021 4:25 am

Greg Ambrosius wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 1:45 pm
1) Is baseball as quiet/dead as I'm imagining? Are you surprised how cold the Hot Stove League has been as well?

2) Are you worried about the upcoming season? Do you think it still starts on time? Are you worried that it won't finish as planned?

3) Are you holding off on your fantasy baseball plans until you know more about the upcoming season? Do you NEED to see baseball being played in Florida and Arizona before signing up for the 2021 season?

4) Do you have more or less interest in the upcoming season? During this pandemic, shouldn't we all be more fired up about green grass, sunshine, outdoor sports and America's Pastime than we are? Or am I the only pessimist right now?
1. I've actually been surprised at some of these contracts of late and there's more teams than I expected that are spending. I think the reason it's been a slow with free agents is because there's teams unloading contracts so the trade market was holding up the free agents. When Lindor and Bryant are available for trade, you try that route before signing free agents. With all the infielders signing in the last few days, I wouldn't be surprised if something happened with Kris Bryant soon.

Hopefully they announce the NL DH soon and we'll see another group of guys sign at that point.

2. I believe it was Evan Drellich or/and Ken Rosenthal who talked about this a few weeks ago but if the NBA and NHL are playing, then MLB can't delay the season. For that reason I believe it'll start on time, there'll be PPD games like last year and some frustration but it'll be easier to deal with than last year. Last year taking a 0 in a hitting spot even just for Friday-Sunday was what like 1/20th of the season? We'll have to adjust but it'll be manageable.

3. I signed up for all my leagues last week. I know if there's a season I'll be playing and if there isn't you'll be refunding us like last year so I have zero concerns about signing up early.

4. I have more interest than I usually do. I love the new best ball contests and not having to worry about FAAB so because of that I started drafting much earlier than I have in the past years.

Assuming we have a normal 162 game season it'll be weird to adjust. Last season was so intense every week with FAAB that the season felt much longer than 10 weeks and I couldn't imagine doing that for 27 weeks. It'll be nice to get back to the 27 weeks grind but where FAAB isn't as intense every week.

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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Frozen Tundra » Wed Jan 27, 2021 9:21 am

This fellow lifelong Packers fan is still trying to recover from Sunday's game. Yet another playoff game we could have (should have) won. But on to baseball. I am definitely looking forward to the season and, having gotten my first shot, I can't wait to actually attend a Tigers game once it is allowed. As for fantasy, my two home leagues will be back to normal and I think participation in the NFBC's offerings will pick up substantially once spring training starts. I suspect many are simply waiting to see what kind of season awaits us before they commit, especially for the big money contests.

As for baseball, I totally agree with Greg. It is stunning to see how badly this industry continues to be managed and both the League and the Union bear responsibility. Sadly, it does appear that the game has far too many owners who simply do not love the game.) That they couldn't even work amicably last spring in the face of the pandemic was the poster child for the total dysfunction of their relationship. Both the game on the field and its salary structure need to be addressed and they can't even resolve the NL DH question. The looming CBA negotiation is a frightening prospect.
"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions"
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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by DOUGHBOYS » Wed Jan 27, 2021 9:47 am

A good, optimistic reply, Phillippe.

Comparing baseball to football is apples and oranges. Baseball is an everyday sport . Even on the three days taken off in the middle of the year, it is used to promote the game. Baseball has never been a strong 'off season' sport.
We want it to be because we're involved with fantasy baseball almost 12 months of the year, but real baseball has never really worked that way.
Football lovers love their game.
How much?
One fella complained to me that due to the pandemic and players missing a game on a weeknight, he could not believe an NFL game game was even being played.
The next morning, he called and said, "Did you see that game last night?"
They can't lose.

Baseball Owners are going to be baseball owners. They really haven't changed as a whole through history. As much as we'd like to see more Maverick owners like George Steinbrenner or Ted Turner, whose main purpose was to win, we will not.
Instead, we have owners who care more about the bottom line.
Nothing has changed in that regard. Heck, we can even say things have improved. Ownership today has payrolls that take up 50-70 percent of a teams total revenues.
In 1929, teams made a little over 11 million dollars and only had a payroll of three million dollars. A little over 26% of their intake went to payrolls!

Hall of Fame player and .400 hitter Bill Terry once said, "Baseball must be a great game to survive the fools who run it."
He was, of course, right.
Now though, the players have actually joined the fools brigade.

Marcus Semien gets 18 million dollars? Really?
The players can hardly complain about their contracts. But they do.
JT Realmuto thrust his chest out and says he restructured salaries for future catchers by beating Joe Mauer's salary by a few bucks.
Bullshit.
JT Realmuto wanted to beat Joe Mauer because JT Realmuto wanted to beat Joe Mauer.
But I don't care. Let the players get their money.
The players will never say they earn enough money. Sorta like us with our everyday jobs.
It's all relative.
In 1919, Ty Cobb was the highest paid player in baseball. Cobb took down $20,000 a year.
That same year, Mary Pickford, the leading actress in Hollywood, made $10,000 a week!
Meanwhile, most laborers were taking home $10 to $20 a week.

All this said. Why do we care about their economics?
Our job is to put the best fantasy team together using the players who are getting paid by the owners.
Last year, there was nine months of bitching and moaning.
Two months of fine baseball.
One month of extraordinary playoffs.
I'm not falling into the bitching and moaning trap again.
The players and owners will do what they do.
I'm looking forward to baseball this year.
And I know, that even with a pause, there will be more baseball this year, than last year.
I can't wait.

Edit: We've had a trade between the Yankees and Red Sox.
We all know how rare those are.
It leads me to believe that only one transaction will be an impossibility this year.....
Mike Fiers will NOT be signing with the Houston Astros.
On my tombstone-
Wait! I never had the perfect draft!

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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Bronx Yankees » Wed Jan 27, 2021 1:29 pm

Greg Ambrosius wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 1:45 pm
As a lifelong Packers' fan, I've always admired the NFL for keeping my attention for most of the year. For me, it started with the NFL Draft each April and continued into training camp (which I loved to attend each summer in Green Bay) and through the regular season into the Super Bowl. The NFL hooked me early with the draft and just never let me go.

But today's NFL doesn't even let me forget about football now after the Super Bowl. The NFL Combine follows the next month, followed quickly by free agency and then into the NFL Draft. The NFL dominates free agency like no other sport as the first day of free agency is filled with signings of top players, which changes the narrative for those teams. Then it continues into OTAs and mini-camp. I'm not sure the NFL is EVER off the front page of the sports section.

I think of that today after my beloved Packers were eliminated from the playoffs, yet the top news in Wisconsin is Aaron Rodgers possibly asking for a contract extension or a trade. The news never stops, even if there's no news there. Pundits, columnists and talk radio talking heads never give up on the NFL and they even make up story lines if that helps their cause. It's a 365/24/7 sport in America.

Unlike America's Pastime.

As much as I love baseball, I just don't get this sport. I don't understand why the owners aren't better promotors of the game. I'm not sure why the owners seem to not love the game as much as the fans do. I don't get why they devalue the regular season for more playoff spots (okay, I admit, I do under$tand that).

But someone should stand up and say it's time to get baseball back on the front pages of sports sections in America. Seriously, have you heard anything about baseball since the World Series ended? This was the COLDEST Hot Stove League I've ever seen in MLB history. With no Winter Meetings and a cold free agent market, baseball wasn't heard from in December and it's been a quiet January as well. Here we are on Jan. 26th and the average fan wouldn't even know if baseball is playing or not.

Yesterday we heard that the game will go on as planned. Arizona officials wrote to MLB owners to let them know that they would like to see spring training in their state wait another month. It was a letter that seemed to be written by the owners, who would love to start the season on May 1st instead of April 1st. But the MLB Players Association wasn't having any part of this, saying there is nothing in the CBA allowing the owners to delay the start of the season and that their members would be in spring training three weeks from now. Case closed, the game goes on.

So while I know we don't have as much interaction on the boards as we used to, I'm interested in seeing your thoughts on the following:

1) Is baseball as quiet/dead as I'm imagining? Are you surprised how cold the Hot Stove League has been as well?

2) Are you worried about the upcoming season? Do you think it still starts on time? Are you worried that it won't finish as planned?

3) Are you holding off on your fantasy baseball plans until you know more about the upcoming season? Do you NEED to see baseball being played in Florida and Arizona before signing up for the 2021 season?

4) Do you have more or less interest in the upcoming season? During this pandemic, shouldn't we all be more fired up about green grass, sunshine, outdoor sports and America's Pastime than we are? Or am I the only pessimist right now?

I ask these questions from a personal standpoint. While we are still hosting a lot of Draft Champions leagues and Cutline leagues, our higher-stakes leagues are lagging far behind in signups. We have 120 Main Event signups right now, about one-third of our total at this time last year. I don't ever recall having this few Main Event signups around Feb. 1st, going back at least 10+ years. I certainly feel things will even out and we'll have another great NFBC season, but something is lagging between commitments and enthusiasm for the season.

I hope I'm wrong and I hope one day Major League Baseball will learn from the NFL and keep the sport front and center for 12 straight months. They could easily do that with a more robust free agent signing period (once called the Hot Stove League), trades and the MLB Draft. They could make the Arizona Fall League more prominent if they wanted to. Everything is in place to make the players more visible and the game more loveable, but the lack of a true partnership between owners and players has slowed the progress. Maybe the next CBA will change that for the better (or make it more divisive). Only time will tell.

Thanks for any feedback on your love for the upcoming 2021 season. I remain confident...but scared of 2021 and into 2022 with the CBA expiring. Lord Help Us All who love this game.
Greg - I agree with your thoughts about the piss poor management of baseball. Manfred is horrible, as are many of the current crop of owners. That letter you mention from local Arizona officials requesting a delay to Spring Training not only sounded like it could have come from the owners, but a recent article in The Athletic reported that the letter was sent at MLB's request. No wonder the players don't trust the owners!

I think baseball really shot itself in the foot last year in terms of casual fans, who were disgusted last year by the labor/money fighting during the pandemic. When other sports were shutdown, baseball had a chance to own the summer, be the only active major sport being played, and grow its fanbase. Instead, it merely frustrated the hell out of all fans and blew a huge opportunity, giving the sport yet another black eye.

All that said, I love baseball and fantasy baseball, and am super-excited for the 2021 season, which I do think will start on time. The players want their full salaries and are unlikely to bargain that away. MLB hardly can justify delaying the season without violating the CBA when football, basketball, and hockey, among others, are playing their seasons and MLB already got through the 2020 season. Delaying the regular season by a few weeks or month and making it back on back-end makes sense, but the networks don't want MLB playoffs running through November, and so I doubt that gets done. Thus, I think we're going to see Spring Training open in a few weeks and the season begin, as scheduled, on April 1st.

If the sport was run well, issues such as NL DH, the length of doubleheaders, the playoff format, etc., all would have been resolved weeks or months ago. It is ridiculous that NL teams have to navigate free agency and build their rosters without knowing if there will be a DH or not. Oh, well. After suffering through an abnormally quiet Hot Stove season, things finally are starting to pickup speed. I guess teams are coming to a realization that they need to fill-out their rosters. While I expect many veterans will be left out in the dust or scraping for minimum or near-minimum contracts, many of the free agency deals completed to date have been quite lucrative and well above what I would have expected.

It is tough at times for me to separate my love for baseball and fantasy baseball with my complete disgust of how the sport is governed. That said, I'm going to try to adopt Dan's optimistic attitude, put aside labor squabbles (current and future) that I can't control, and enjoy the 2021 season and fantasy season as much as possible. In response to your questions:

1. Yes, the Hot Stove season has been colder than normal, but it is picking up and I expect it to remain relatively active from here on out. It's too bad only some teams give a crap about winning, or even being competitive, but most players will land somewhere.

2. I think the season will start on time and while there probably will be cancellations from time to time, I expect them to get through the regular season on time or very close thereto. At some point, the players, and the general public, will be vaccinated, and COVID-related delays will decline.

3. Nope, I'm ready for live events! I'm signed up for live drafts in New York City and Vegas, and hope and expect that more folks will make the trip. We'll mask up, socially distance, and be safe, and also have a great time. For anyone on the fence, the NFBC live events are great fun and highly recommended.

4. Despite baseball's best efforts to shoot itself in the foot, I'm very excited about the upcoming season. I'm hoping for a full 162 game season (of nine-inning games). Play ball!

Mike
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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Thurman15 » Thu Jan 28, 2021 9:17 am

Well, despite MLB trying to shoot itself in the foot, my interest is always high. But I'm Canadian and bloody well upset that it will be almost impossible for me to come to Vegas as rules get tighter and tighter. I joined 4 years ago and love the live auctions in Vegas but I have to settle for on line leagues.
My points on your questions Greg, are...

1) Agree it is a bit quiet of an offseason. There have been trades so that is good. But most talk is negative due to the owners being so negative

2) The season will start and finish on time with a few hiccups along the way. I wish they would delay a month but they won't.

3) My interest is still sky high as mentioned above. Laws will stop me from attending live otherwise I would have done both Vegas and New York. But I have done 8 on line drafts/auctions and will do more.

4) I'm always fired up and still am. Unfortunately I'm fired up against the Canadian Government which has been pathetic about getting vaccines in arms. For most of you American citizens, you should be happy with Biden as he races to get vaccines. Our Prime Minister is a liar and has done little to nothing about vaccines. So ya I'm bitter about no travel.

All in all, the NFBC continues to give us all sorts of opportunities to enjoy Fantasy Baseball. Thanks to Greg and company. I'm all in but jealous of you guys going to Vegas and New York. But full speed ahead gang. Baseball is back. The summer is coming. Spring Training is almost here.
Rogers Hornsby, Hall of Famer with the Cardinals was once asked " You love Baseball Rogers, but what do you do in the winter ? " His response......"I stare out the window and wait for spring "

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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Mon Feb 01, 2021 10:21 am

It's not a surprise that Major League Baseball owners waited until this past weekend to float the idea of delaying the season by one month to the MLB Players Association. Having no conversation and waiting until the last minute to make deals seems to be the negotiating strategy for Rob Manfred and the owners.

So here we are again, uncertain to the start of the MLB season.

But I think we'll get more clarity today or tomorrow when the Players Association flatly rejects this so-called "offer". I mean at a time when the NFL just completed a season during the worst part of the pandemic, and while the NBA and NHL are soldiering through their seasons, it's odd that Major League Baseball would ask the players for a shorter season and a delayed start. Well, it's not odd, but surprising that it took this long to do it.

Ideally, sure it would be better to start on May 1st and end in November for multiple reasons, as long as a 162-game regular season could be maintained. The weather in April isn't any better than it is in November anyway and the country SHOULD (not a given) be at a better spot in May than April. But with the same kind of testing that the NFL used, it seems like baseball could get through April and weather the storm of few fans in the stands until things improved into the summer. But that's not exactly what the owners want. Ideally, they want a season with fans in the stands from the start, fewer regular season games and expanded playoffs where the owners make more money.

While none of that is surprising, what surprised me yesterday was the way the national media covered this "news breaking" proposal. It's as if the core baseball writers (and you know who they are) were carrying the owners' water again with this announcement, putting the onus on the players to accept it in the best interests of the game/owners. There is little incentive for the players, who are two weeks away from spring training and have already ramped up their training, to accept this proposal. It would give Manfred the leeway to shut down the season at any point. And I'm surprised by the way these writers have framed the offer just two weeks out from spring training. Didn't they just cover the owners this way last year?

Whatever happens, I'm sure 2021 will work out, but the chances of 2022 going forward without a hitch seems to be slim and none. The owners are positioning themselves for a real battle after the CBA runs out in December and next off-season could get ugly. And I'm afraid the way the baseball media covers these negotiations are going to be very one-sided. A simple solution would be a pure 50-50 partnership between the owners and players to grow the game, grow the revenue for both sides and to grow the sports' popularity. That sounds too simple, which is why it will never happen.

Instead, the two sides will fight over the start of 2021, push through the season and then go to war next off-season. I hope I'm wrong, but to avoid a war in 2022 the two sides should start talking now and get the framework for a deal finalized well before the end of this regular season rather than wait until the last minute to begin negotiating. But the track record shows that won't happen, which means we better buckle up for 2022. It could make this winter feel like a heat wave compared to the Winter of '22.
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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Mon Feb 01, 2021 10:37 am

One of the things I will announce on a separate thread is more in-season NFBC games this year. We started this a couple of years ago with our NFBC $50/50 Teams Contest first on Fanduel and then on Fanball, and we are going to expand on that on the Fanball site this year.

In 2019, we found that Friday night was the best night for the NFBC $50/50 Teams Contest, a daily game that awarded the winner a FREE NFBC Main Event entry the next year. I think we filled a dozen of those leagues in 2019 and a dozen owners won free entries into this year's NFBC Main Event. We did this as well in football and this year we actually filled 22 leagues over 19 weeks and now have 22 FREE NFFC Primetime entries ready to go for 2021. It was a big hit in football once again.

So the plan is to host these NFBC $50/50 Teams Contests every Friday night starting in mid-April. The weekly winners will earn a FREE 2022 NFBC Main Event entry and a spot in a late-season Champions of Champions Tournament. All of the weekly winners will qualify for that Tournament and the winner will receive a FREE 2022 NFBC Super League entry. So two great prizes to win through this contest.

I also would like to expand on that concept and maybe do a $10/50 Teams Contest on Tuesday nights with the league champion earning a FREE 2022 Rotowire Online Championship entry. That contest might get more new players into our DFS format and again would give multiple free entries for the following season. Seems like an easy one to set up for every Tuesday night and to fill. And we'll also offer a Champions of Champions Tournament for these weekly winners and come up with a great free entry for that contest as well (we're still working on the details).

We are also formalizing plans for another new contest this season called the NFBC Weekend Challenge. This would be a contest that scores results from Friday through Sunday's games and we'd create private 15-team leagues at $50 per team. Prizes would be $400 for first, $200 for second, $50 for third. Rosters would consist of 14 players using NFBC Cutline points scoring: 3 Pitchers, 11 hitters (C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, CI, MI, OF, OF, OF, UT). There would be no draft; you'd pick the players you want for that weekend and score against other teams in your leagues. A DFS-style contest for three days' worth of games.

We are still working on all of these plans and will formally announce this once we have finished. But I wanted to let people know that we are working on new games that can enhance the fun of this upcoming baseball season beyond what we are offering before Opening Day. We want you to win all of those season-long leagues that you are entering, but hopefully you'll have some room to enjoy these other DFS and weekend games that will be coming after Opening Day.

Enjoy and good luck all.
Greg Ambrosius
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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by DOUGHBOYS » Mon Feb 01, 2021 11:46 am

A negative post about baseball followed by another with new ways to profit from it....
On my tombstone-
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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Mon Feb 01, 2021 12:42 pm

DOUGHBOYS wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 11:46 am
A negative post about baseball followed by another with new ways to profit from it....
Hah, let me clarify it for you Dan: A negative post about the owners trying to pressure the players to play under their best monetary scenario followed by new ways to enjoy America's Pastime even more.
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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by DOUGHBOYS » Mon Feb 01, 2021 1:10 pm

Greg Ambrosius wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 12:42 pm
DOUGHBOYS wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 11:46 am
A negative post about baseball followed by another with new ways to profit from it....
Hah, let me clarify it for you Dan: A negative post about the owners trying to pressure the players to play under their best monetary scenario followed by new ways to enjoy America's Pastime even more.
No clarity needed, Greg.
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Wait! I never had the perfect draft!

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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Thu Feb 11, 2021 2:16 pm

I'd like to say thanks to fellow Cheesehead James Tomony for joining Tom and myself on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio last night. It was fun to talk to James about his incredible Main Event title in 2020 as he dominated the competition like never before, earning 147 out of a possible 150 league points. James is a very modest champion, so listen to that interview On Demand if you can.

You'll also love what James did with some of his prize money as he gave back to the community and gave back to youth baseball. It's pretty damn inspiring. Well done James and we'd expect nothing less from a Badger from Madison!! ;)

I also want to thank the seven NFBC drafters who joined us on the air last night to talk about the Rotowire Online Championship and the NFBC Cutline Championship. We are so lucky to have this forum to give our great owners a few minutes to explain their draft strategies and how they are attacking certain players this year. Yes, it's great to listen to industry talking heads from time to time, but there's nothing like hearing from actual high-stakes players who are willing to put their money where their mouths are. Everyone gave great insights and I definitely learned something last night: There's a different way to attack Starting Pitchers this year. Many owners had the same thought process and it confirmed what I have been doing in recent drafts.

Anyway, we'll continue to feature Online Championship and Cutline drafts on our Wednesday night show and we want to get as many NFBC owners on air as possible. If you happen to draft in these featured drafts and haven't been on the air with us, let Tom know and we'll get you on. It's great PR for the NFBC contests and it's great exposure for all of you.

Keep the drafts rolling and we'll keep talking about that. Thanks again, and thanks James for being such a representative national champion of the industry's signature event.
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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Fri Feb 26, 2021 9:18 am

Thanks to everyone who took my calls this week or responded to my emails. It's always fun to check in with our customers and see what their plans are for 2021.

I think there was a consensus with the people I talked with this week: We're all excited about baseball's return, but damn I want to see how MLB handles Covid first. The other consensus was that a lot of people want to return to the live events and hook up with everyone again, but Covid is making that impossible for them this year.

And I get it. It's not easy to travel right now. Trust me, my wife and family aren't happy that I'm going to New York City and Las Vegas. But we proved in September when we hosted the NFFC live events at the Bellagio that we can do this right and keep everyone safe. I know we can do it again.

Still, this email from a veteran NFBC owner kind of sums things up from our die-hard customers: "I am really looking forward to the baseball season. I am not really a hockey or basketball guy, so I am dying for some games to watch on TV every night. I am still undecided about doing a Main Event or Super on line. I am having a hard time justifying $1700 or $2500 for what could turn out to be a Covid crap shoot, but I may change my mind in the coming weeks. Will let you know in the coming days, once I see how spring training shakes out and if the teams are able to keep the infection levels down."

That's just pure honesty there and I think it's the sentiment of a lot of our players. I mean, we just passed the 300 team mark in the NFBC Main Event, so we're just barely half full less than five weeks before Opening Day. We used to have 300 signups for this contest at this time back in 2007 and 2008. It's not been this low this close to the season for many, many years.

But I think the sentiment above summarizes where we are right now. I think a lot of you are waiting to see if MLB can pull this off and seeing some baseball on TV won't hurt, either. None of us want to be on the sidelines if Major League Baseball can play a full 162-game season and we enjoy ballgames on TV every night. Hopefully the pandemic will be contained at some point and a lot of fans can return to the ballparks. Wouldn't that be great? And if that happens, we all want skin in the game to enjoy baseball even more with our fantasy teams.

So my State of the Union speech today is that we hear you, we understand where you are with baseball right now and we'll be patient. We'll host whoever feels safe coming to live events and make sure you enjoy the experience, while being safe. And if you are drafting Online, we'll have plenty of hands on deck to watch every draft and help where needed. It's why we hired Brian and we have other folks on board from CDM and Fanball to help where needed. I think that final week will be overloaded like never before as everyone waits to jump into our contests and we'll be ready if that happens.

So we're at 310+ teams for the Main Event right now with a goal of 600 teams. Either ROI is going to be sick for you folks or we are going to get a rush of late signups to sell this contest out for a 17th straight season. I'm hoping for the latter option.

The Rotowire Online Championship has just over 500 signups with a goal of 2,400. Again, waaaaaaay down from recent years. Again, we are hoping for the best and will have scheduled drafts at 2 pm, 8 pm, 10 pm and 11:30 pm ET every day going forward and hope to have multiple drafts daily soon. But again, ROI is sick right now and I hope it doesn't stay that way.

Cutline is also only one-third to our goal with a guaranteed $75,000 grand prize. March has to be hectic and we think it will be, but still, ROI looks to be in your favor right now.

If live Auction Championship leagues can't fill and there isn't interest in a $1400 Online Auction, we'll have to re-evaluate the prizes for the Auction Championship. There's no two ways about it. Prizes are based on 12 leagues and if Chicago doesn't fill and New York loses 3 leagues it will be tough to reach that goal. We're evaluating that number now and will have an announcement soon. We are still excited for this format, but losing that many leagues in those two cities makes the current prize structure unattainable unless online auctions took off. We'll see.

The Solo Shot also needs a decision in the next week. This is the last go for a single entry national baseball contest and right now we hear all of you loud and clear. If we have to, we'll stick to football with this concept. I've received several positive responses to this concept and some have said they still plan to get in, but with 16 signups and a goal of 150 teams we'll act sooner rather than later on this one. Stay tuned.

The NFBC Draft Champions National Championship just topped 3,000 teams yesterday and that contest will sell out again. We'll keep this contest open as long as we can, but secure your spots soon for some of those later Express leagues because I'm not sure we'll keep adding multiple ones during that last week with everything else we'll have selling out. Slow drafts will go through March 18th (start date) and then we'll re-evaluate.

The NFBC Diamond Challenge also has a lot of work to do, but those contests historically fill just before Opening Day. Keep working on your lineups and officially secure your teams when you are ready. We are excited for this format and want to grow it under the NFBC umbrella. The prize payout has never been better for these contests, so enjoy and let's grow this salary cap format together.

That's it. Have a great weekend and join us in the draft room when you can. ROI is in your favor now, but we sure hope to narrow the gap during what could be a historic March. Now we just need MLB to keep it together and for baseball to return to the airwaves. PLAY BALL and good luck everyone.
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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Fri Feb 26, 2021 9:28 am

And I'll add one request: If you know you're going to return to the NFBC Main Event but don't know the date and time you want to draft just yet, please sign up now anyway as TBD. That will secure your spot, make me sleep easier at night and it will also allow you to easily slide into any date and time when you're ready before those leagues sell out.

We have a lot more Main Event options this year because we knew that Covid would screw up everyone's schedules this year. That being said, for the earlier Main Event leagues that we have on the schedule, our goal is to fill a league and then move on. We aren't going to push those early leagues for multiple leagues and take them right up to the draft deadline. We'd like everyone to have 5 days to prepare for their Mains in those leagues and if we have to push some of those closer to Draft Day it will be those last week Online Mains.

Plan accordingly, but I'll love ya for a Main TBD entry right now!! :D As we inch closer to our goal of 600 teams, it will make me feel better because right now there's uncertainty from all of us as we head into March. But I'm confident we'll get there. Thanks all.
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Re: Live 2021 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Packman » Thu Mar 04, 2021 12:58 am

Greg Ambrosius wrote:
Fri Feb 26, 2021 9:18 am

If live Auction Championship leagues can't fill and there isn't interest in a $1400 Online Auction, we'll have to re-evaluate the prizes for the Auction Championship. There's no two ways about it. Prizes are based on 12 leagues and if Chicago doesn't fill and New York loses 3 leagues it will be tough to reach that goal. We're evaluating that number now and will have an announcement soon. We are still excited for this format, but losing that many leagues in those two cities makes the current prize structure unattainable unless online auctions took off. We'll see.

The Solo Shot also needs a decision in the next week. This is the last go for a single entry national baseball contest and right now we hear all of you loud and clear. If we have to, we'll stick to football with this concept. I've received several positive responses to this concept and some have said they still plan to get in, but with 16 signups and a goal of 150 teams we'll act sooner rather than later on this one. Stay tuned.
Are you still deciding on what to do with the Solo Shot? I can't imagine this is still a go, considering it is sitting at just 17 signups. I'm currently signed up for the Vegas 3/28 10am Solo Shot, and I'd like to re-appropriate my $1,000 toward an Auction Championship that is happening at the same time. And speaking of the Auction Championship, has anything been decided yet regarding the re-evaluation of the Auction Championship prize structure?

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Re: Live 2022 Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Tue Jan 11, 2022 1:43 pm

Okay, I'm resurrecting this thread today because I need a thread to talk baseball and our live events. And while I could easily start up a new Live Chat thread, I'm too lazy to do that and this one works just fine!!! :lol:

I haven't talked about baseball very much since the World Series because it's almost comical what the MLB owners are doing to their game. This is an $11 billion a year industry with the prospect for huge growth thanks to legalized sports betting and the owners purposely took the game off the map and off the sports pages for 2 months. It's insane what they've done and it hasn't created any negotiating leverage with the MLB Players Association. How could it, the players aren't losing any paychecks over this lockout, right?

But ESPN's Jeff Passan now reports that the two sides are going to talk on Thursday and the owners will even present a new economic offer. Are you excited? Do you have any hope for a settlement this month? Or is this going to drag out through February and be saved in time for spring training? I'd love to hear your feedback.

Again, I'm just flabbergasted that the baseball owners initiated this lockout and then just took the game completely away from sports fans for 6+ weeks and counting. I mean, everyone is just consumed by the NFL and college football now, and college basketball and the NBA will steal the headlines shortly. For MLB to just walk away from any news for months is pure insanity from a business standpoint. Can you imagine the NFL walking away from the sport for even one day? Of course not. And yet MLB.com took all player images off their web site, the MLB Network has been running vintage games for weeks now and the only news we read about these days is coaches refusing to work for the Mets. It's PURE INSANITY that they have created this void of interest in a sport that generates $11 billion a year!! :oops:

Anyway, I'm proud that NFBC players have more sense than the owners. You folks are still drafting, still posting draft results on Twitter, still talking about player projections and playing time, still digging into the minor leagues for the prospects, and more. It's amazing and I couldn't be more proud. The reason you folks are doing that is that you love the game more than the MLB owners do. It's true. If you really loved your team more as a fan than a business, you wouldn't have let the negotiations get to this point and a deal would have been done by the end of the 2021 season. Forcing this lockout on the players at this time does nothing but hurt the growth of the sport. It's a bad look.

I'm not sure the commissioner is a fan of the game, either. He's trying to get as much as he can for the owners at the sake of competitive balance and growth. There are plenty of ways to lift up small market teams, while still giving players freedom earlier in their careers. For the owners to fall on the sword in this CBA over not allowing free agency before six MLB seasons (and sometimes 7 years when they manipulate the Super 2 contract) is ridiculous. Give players free agency after 4 or 5 years and let the open market work. Small market teams can still retain their stars if they want and if they love a top prospect that they've nurtured then give that player a long-term deal before he becomes a free agent. Tampa has done a great job of doing just that.

I'm still excited and optimistic for the season because I just can't see the two sides agreeing to blow this up and expecting fans to come back later. This isn't the environment for a lengthy lockout when fans have far too many other options to bide their time with. They've played hard ball and now it's time to get a deal done. This self-imposed blackout has been ridiculous and outside of high-stakes fantasy baseball, I'm not sure anyone is even talking about you, MLB. So let's get this done and move on, okay?

What do you think? Optimistic or pessimistic? On either side or neither side? Chime in and I promise to toast a drink to you either way!! :lol:
Greg Ambrosius
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