NFFC Employee Fired After Illegal Move Was Detected

[Greg Ambrosius]

SportsHub Holdings, LLC, (“SportsHub”) (https://www.shgn.com/), which operates various fantasy sports contests, including the National Fantasy Football Championships (NFFC), prides itself on integrity and transparency to its players and the public. As part of this commitment to honest and fair gaming, SportsHub publishes timestamps for each transaction in each of its contests. These timestamps are viewable to every participant to see for every contest under the Transactions tab.

Recently, with help from reporting by a public source, we successfully revealed a post-deadline move in one of our NFFC Post-Season Hold ’Em contests that was detected and quickly confirmed, resulting in SportsHub being able to take immediate action to resolve the issue without any impact to the results of the contest.

As a result of its internal investigation, an employee was terminated and a contest participant has been banned from further play on our platforms.

Due to pending legal matters, SportsHub cannot comment on the specific details or the responsible individual. While it may not be possible to stop all problematic activities, detection and swift resolution are key to maintaining the integrity of the games.

To further enhance its commitment to integrity and transparency, SportsHub is contracting with U.S. Integrity, Inc., (https://www.usintegrity.com/) - the gaming industry leader in integrity investigations and consulting – to provide third party verification of all lineups and transactions moving forward. SportsHub thanks its players and the public for the continuing success of SportsHub, the NFFC, and all of its fantasy gaming platforms.

[Greg Ambrosius]

This is outside the legalese from me, someone who has worked in this industry for 34+ years and who created these contests 20+ years ago. These contests are as important to me as anything outside of my immediate family. And this announcement hurts.

I know you have a lot of questions and even some trepidation, so I'm going to surmise this very quickly:

* This incident happened with one team in the NFFC $200 Post-Season Hold 'Em Contest. An illegal move in Round 1 and an illegal move in Round 2. One team with players switched by one employee.

* That team and all of his teams are now locked and he is ineligible to ever play again in the NFC contests.

* The employee has been terminated for cause.

* We can easily track the use of the software for this move and we GUARANTEE no other moves were made on any other team in this contest. We have tracked all of our contests and know for a fact that this was a one-off incident and no other contests from previous years have ever been affected.

* We were alerted of this illegal move by a fellow player in the contest because it showed up under Transactions for this team with a time stamp that was after two games started. I have no idea why this person would do this for this owner, but it's as plain as day thanks to the transparency that we provide in our time-stamps. This was so easy for a fellow competitor to detect that someone made a terrible, terrible mistake. But it's a mistake that can't be accepted or allowed one minute further.

* NOTHING is more important than the integrity of our contests. NOTHING. Nobody trusts us with their money if anything can happen. I'm sad. I'm disappointed. I'm shocked. I'm mad. I'm so mad. But we can never let something like this happen and we now have safeguards in place to alert multiple people if this ever happened again. Which it won't.

The contest remains intact and this didn't affect anyone else's teams. This owner's teams have been eliminated and the employee released. So sorry that I can't say more, but please understand that we thank those who alerted us to this situation and we acted immediately and with the appropriate punishments. Thanks.

[Baseball Furies]

[Greg Ambrosius]

This morning I MUST address one thing: The employee involved.

He has been fired. His life has been ruined. His dream job is gone. He's let everyone down. He's let his kids, who he loves more than anything in this world, down. He let his wife, who he has been with since high school, down. He let me and Tom down more than you can imagine. He let down our management team who he has been working for since the 1990s, more than half of his life!!!

He knows he's damaged our contests very bad. He knows he damaged our reputation after 20 years of solid integrity. He knows he's let all of you in this great community down. He's let down some very close friends he's made through the NFBC and the NFFC. He knows they are VERY mad at him. He would be too. At heart, he's a fantasy player and he would go off on anyone who would be so stupid as to do something like this. He knows this is just so stupid it's unexplainable. He knows what everyone is saying about him now.

And yet I decided to text him yesterday and tell him that we all loved him and we all wanted to help him. I heard that he wanted to reach out to me but just couldn't do it. He was so ashamed of what he did, so embarrassed that he couldn't talk to me. I had just talked with him on Sunday and we talked about the Packers' loss. Little did I know that would be the easiest loss of the weekend.

So I reached out to him to say we want to help. It's obvious to me now that he has a demon. That demon gave him the courage to do something so inexplicably stupid that he can't even understand it. That demon gives him the courage to say stupid stuff on Twitter, an account that thankfully he has deleted. That demon must die. That demon MUST be eradicated.

I've never been aware of this demon, but it obviously is lethal. That's why we all need to help him if we can. He's a great guy. He's like a little brother to me. He's a family man. A smart guy who went to an Ivy League school. He's fun and this was his dream job. But his life isn't over and hopefully people will believe us when we say that this was not an on-going situation by any means and stay with our contests. But that's the least of my worries; I just want him to get help, prove to his family he's still a good man and pick up the pieces. I seriously mean that.

If I can forgive him -- and trust me, it's not easy -- then I hope many of you can, too. The next step is up to him. He has to step up, be a man, get the help he needs and be there for his family. It's time to man up, admit this stupid, stupid asinine mistake, own it and be better.

We as a company and as people you are supposed to trust took immediate action and we were as transparent as we could be with all of you. We're taking our lumps in the industry now and we'll never have this stain removed. We understand that. And we've taken steps to never let this happen again. But now it's up to him to do the same thing with his life, kill any demons he has and be a father again.

And finally, we owe a debt of gratitude to the guys who found the mistake on the Transactions page and alerted us on Monday morning. They caught the problem before anything more happened and thankfully it's in a contest that is still going and we could delete the affected team and every other team associated with this owner. Had this demon been allowed to live out of our sight, even worse things could have happened in the future.

Sorry for the long rant, but I'm not giving up on him and I'm not giving up on our contests. I'm not going to let the actions of one person we trusted with every tool at his disposal ruin what we've built over 20 years (and 34+ years in this industry). We're going to regain the trust of this great community and our industry and move forward. And I hope he does as well. Please do that D, will you?

[Greg Ambrosius]

I know this is little consolation to everyone now, but we know for a fact that this was an isolated incident recently in a football contest. The software used is rarely used and mainly used for Keeper League teams if someone missed the deadline for the 5 Keepers with the draft two weeks away. If we have an orphaned team, let's say, the new owner can still pick his 5 keepers after that Keeper deadline and then the draft still follows many days later. That's why it's so easy to track when that tool was used because it's rarely used.

And there is no sign of anything like this being done in baseball. Still, we've placed alerts on this software now that tells everyone in our division when a move like this has been made. We honestly see nothing that is of question between the employee and the player through the years, but we still need to investigate that and have locked that account as a result. We will update if there's anything more we learn on that front. Thanks.

[Baseball Furies]

This morning I MUST address one thing: The employee involved.

He has been fired. His life has been ruined. His dream job is gone. He's let everyone down. He's let his kids, who he loves more than anything in this world, down. He let his wife, who he has been with since high school, down. He let me and Tom down more than you can imagine. He let down our management team who he has been working for since the 1990s, more than half of his life!!!

He knows he's damaged our contests very bad. He knows he damaged our reputation after 20 years of solid integrity. He knows he's let all of you in this great community down. He's let down some very close friends he's made through the NFBC and the NFFC. He knows they are VERY mad at him. He would be too. At heart, he's a fantasy player and he would go off on anyone who would be so stupid as to do something like this. He knows this is just so stupid it's unexplainable. He knows what everyone is saying about him now.

And yet I decided to text him yesterday and tell him that we all loved him and we all wanted to help him. I heard that he wanted to reach out to me but just couldn't do it. He was so ashamed of what he did, so embarrassed that he couldn't talk to me. I had just talked with him on Sunday and we talked about the Packers' loss. Little did I know that would be the easiest loss of the weekend.

So I reached out to him to say we want to help. It's obvious to me now that he has a demon. That demon gave him the courage to do something so inexplicably stupid that he can't even understand it. That demon gives him the courage to say stupid stuff on Twitter, an account that thankfully he has deleted. That demon must die. That demon MUST be eradicated.

I've never been aware of this demon, but it obviously is lethal. That's why we all need to help him if we can. He's a great guy. He's like a little brother to me. He's a family man. A smart guy who went to an Ivy League school. He's fun and this was his dream job. But his life isn't over and hopefully people will believe us when we say that this was not an on-going situation by any means and stay with our contests. But that's the least of my worries; I just want him to get help, prove to his family he's still a good man and pick up the pieces. I seriously mean that.

If I can forgive him -- and trust me, it's not easy -- then I hope many of you can, too. The next step is up to him. He has to step up, be a man, get the help he needs and be there for his family. It's time to man up, admit this stupid, stupid asinine mistake, own it and be better.

We as a company and as people you are supposed to trust took immediate action and we were as transparent as we could be with all of you. We're taking our lumps in the industry now and we'll never have this stain removed. We understand that. And we've taken steps to never let this happen again. But now it's up to him to do the same thing with his life, kill any demons he has and be a father again.

And finally, we owe a debt of gratitude to the guys who found the mistake on the Transactions page and alerted us on Monday morning. They caught the problem before anything more happened and thankfully it's in a contest that is still going and we could delete the affected team and every other team associated with this owner. Had this demon been allowed to live out of our sight, even worse things could have happened in the future.

Sorry for the long rant, but I'm not giving up on him and I'm not giving up on our contests. I'm not going to let the actions of one person we trusted with every tool at his disposal ruin what we've built over 20 years (and 34+ years in this industry). We're going to regain the trust of this great community and our industry and move forward. And I hope he does as well. Please do that D, will you?

Well said, Greg. I feel your pain and can speak to it firsthand from my own personal betrayal I suffered many years ago from a similar demon I would later find out to be alcohol with my old business partner. I stand behind you, the NFBC, and others there who have valued us and the integrity of this amazing game you have created all these many years. I know you guys will make it right. Appreciate you keeping us all informed and your heartfelt transparency.

[Greg Ambrosius]

There is some obvious concern about a previous finish by this customer involved in this late swap and ShipChasing.com raised that concern last night. I addressed it with them earlier this week, but I'll gladly address it here again.

This customer finished 3rd overall in the 2019 NFFC Post-Season Contest and every move has been timestamped and archived. We put it on the spreadsheet below. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO QUESTION THAT HIS LINEUP WAS LEGAL!!!

The screenshot below verifies it. We did not have this tool available in 2019 for any staffer because we had just built the software in 2018. Per the timestamps, every move was legal and is verified.

And for the record, this owner was in 124 NFFC season-long contests in 2023 (lots of best balls) and cashed in 7 of them. That's right. SEVEN. There were no shenanigans that helped him win prize money. I cannot explain why a move was made in the post-season contest, but the record stands for his performance for the year as not good.

I totally understand the questions and the speculation, but when it comes to any money finish from this owner previous to this 2023 NFFC Post-Season Contest the timestamps prove that nothing has changed.

Rosters - Team_id 140126.png

[Tom Kessenich]

Hey everyone, I haven't responded to this point mainly because I've been pretty numb given all that's transpired and also because Greg summed things up and I didn't have much to add to what he said. Obviously I'm shocked and sad and angry about what's occurred. I've given my life to these contests for the past 20+ years. I'm not married. I don't have children. So I've devoted a great deal of my life to these contests and I've made a lot of sacrifices for them and I've done so happily.

I'm damn proud of what Greg and I built before we joined SportsHub and then what we grew together in the years since. To see all of that put to risk is not only stunning to me but also gravely disappointing. I realize we're gonna take some big hits now and that's completely understandable. To all those questioning us all I can say is that Greg and I spent a considerable amount of time building these contests together with honesty and integrity before SportsHub and we will run these contests that exact same way now. To all those standing beside us now I say thank you for your continued support and I will do everything possible to continue earning the trust and belief you've placed in me these past 20+ years.

I love this industry and I love the contests we've created for all of you. This is not a happy time for me or for any of us in our company. But I do believe we'll get through it because I am confident what occurred is not representative of the people who run our contests or the contests themselves. I realize all of this may sound like lip service right now to many people. The proof is in the pudding as they say. Whether many of you wish to put your faith back in us is up to you at this time.

I cannot make that decision for you. I just know the type of person I am, Greg is and all of us who continue to work in our high-stakes division. And I know what occurred is not representative of any of us. All we can do now is prove that with our actions going forward and I trust that we will.

[COZ]

I stand with Greg, Tom, the NFBC/et al and (gulp) Darik for their years of building trust and integrity and it is not something I am quick to dismiss. Though only through brief business interactions, I know Darik and this is not the Dairk I know. Call me a fool, but I do not think Darik would throw it all away to do something like this, so as difficult as it may be to do, I am going to withhold judgment on all of this for now until all the facts are in. Thank you.

[Greg Ambrosius]

So people have asked about the locked owners' 2024 NFBC teams that have already been drafted. We can't let those go unattended or it will create an unfair advantage for teams in those leagues and hurt the national contests. We were going to discuss that today and then a great NFBC customer reached out to me.

Bob Cramutola will take ownership of those teams, pay for them and run them. There are 20 teams right now and 2 Rotowire OC teams are in the same league as Bob. Those will still be abandoned for now and we'll try to find someone to run those. But Bob is taking care of the others and will manage them going forward.

I thank Bob for this and for stepping out to help the NFBC. We didn't want to dissolve those finished leagues and now we have a great, competitive owner running them. Thanks and good luck all.

[Greg Ambrosius]

We know we need to put all of this information together and email this out. I tried to answer some questions on our Discord channel under main-chat-lobby. You can join or go to our Discord channel here:

https://discord.gg/7Tm9eqPy

Tom and I will find a way to put a newsletter together. We aren't hiding this from our customers, but I wanted to write the stories here, get all the facts together and then yes try to summarize this in a readable newsletter. That will take some work, but we will try to do it tomorrow.

[Gb2715]

So people have asked about the locked owners' 2024 NFBC teams that have already been drafted. We can't let those go unattended or it will create an unfair advantage for teams in those leagues and hurt the national contests. We were going to discuss that today and then a great NFBC customer reached out to me.

Bob Cramutola will take ownership of those teams, pay for them and run them. There are 20 teams right now and 2 Rotowire OC teams are in the same league as Bob. Those will still be abandoned for now and we'll try to find someone to run those. But Bob is taking care of the others and will manage them going forward.

I thank Bob for this and for stepping out to help the NFBC. We didn't want to dissolve those finished leagues and now we have a great, competitive owner running them. Thanks and good luck all.

Nothing against Bob but this isn’t right. Just deciding to sell off the teams to a single owner is the idea you came up with?

[Greg Ambrosius]

So people have asked about the locked owners' 2024 NFBC teams that have already been drafted. We can't let those go unattended or it will create an unfair advantage for teams in those leagues and hurt the national contests. We were going to discuss that today and then a great NFBC customer reached out to me.

Bob Cramutola will take ownership of those teams, pay for them and run them. There are 20 teams right now and 2 Rotowire OC teams are in the same league as Bob. Those will still be abandoned for now and we'll try to find someone to run those. But Bob is taking care of the others and will manage them going forward.

I thank Bob for this and for stepping out to help the NFBC. We didn't want to dissolve those finished leagues and now we have a great, competitive owner running them. Thanks and good luck all.

Nothing against Bob but this isn’t right. Just deciding to sell off the teams to a single owner is the idea you came up with?

Yes. Do you want to see any of the teams to purchase? Does anyone want to? Let me know.

Many of these are part of national championships with overall prizes. Some are Draft Champions without FAAB. To keep the integrity of the contest, we can't have one league with a dead owner making no moves, no free agent pickups and making it easier for other teams not only to win the league money but the overall prize. "Hey, how did Joe win the overall? Oh, he was in that league with a dead team." Some teams are still drafting and Bob is willing to finish them out.

I'm all ears if you or anyone else wants to jump in and keep these teams competitive and keeping these leagues as competitive as every other one in these national contests. Thanks.

[Gb2715]

Oh I absolutely agree you can’t have dead teams in a national contest. I just think these leagues should be redrafted. I’ll probably sit this year out now so I guess it is what it is and everyone is free to do what they please

[Gildz Nation]

Greg what about the 2 leagues Bob is in with this owner? What if you can’t fill those spots? Curious as I’m in both of them.

Thx

[Greg Ambrosius]

Greg what about the 2 leagues Bob is in with this owner? What if you can’t fill those spots? Curious as I’m in both of them.

Thx

I have two separate owners who will each take a team tomorrow. I will email them the rosters when ready. People stepped up to keep these leagues intact. Thanks and both contacted me to help.

[Gekko]

Observations from someone who has been playing NFFC/NFBC since 2004.

1. Cheating has no place in fantasy sports.

2. A full and complete investigation should be completed as far back and as thorough as resources allow.

3. Anyone found “guilty” should be fired/banned.

4. All relevant findings should be communicated by NFFC/NFBC on public message boards, social media, and via email correspondence to all NFFC/NFBC participants.

5. Moving forward, game operator integrity must be a primary NFFC/NFBC goal. Proactively explain to NFFC/NFBC participants what specific measures are being taken to ensure this never happens again.

6. Regarding Greg Ambrosius – Although I have not always agreed with his decisions as commissioner, I can easily say I would not want any else as commissioner. He is reasonable, listens to customers, improves service offerings, and puts out a high quality product year in and year out. AND WHEN THE SHIT HITS THE FAN, like now or when a server goes down, he accepts responsibility every single time EVEN WHEN IT’S NOT HIS FAULT and vows to continually strive for improvement. What else can you ask for? This man has earned my trust. I don’t play other contests. Only NFFC/NFBC. Even given the current situation, I see no reason for me to consider playing elsewhere. Greg knows if the NFFC/NFBC ever experiences something like this again, there’s no coming back from it. Greg will simply not allow that to happen.

7. D – I’ve always valued the comradery we’ve had at live NFFC/NFBC events; however, I’m still in shock as to what’s happened here. If you need someone to talk to, you know how to reach me.

[Tom Kessenich]

For those looking to get into Discord here is a new link to join us there:

https://discord.gg/vYBdKKhy

[Greg Ambrosius]

Please know that we are working diligently along with U.S. Integrity to review and audit all of our contests, and that we will reveal the results of their investigation once it is completed.

Earlier in the week, in the heat of the moment when unimaginable things were coming to light, I made a mistake in thinking that the irregular player transactions were limited to just one contest. For that, I can only apologize. Since then, it has become clear that a few additional instances of suspicious transactions have occurred. I want to acknowledge that we are aware of those instances as well and everything will be considered during the third-party audit. The contests that we know about at this time are referenced below.

One move was in Week 1 of the NFFC $50 Post-Season Contest and that team is locked right now and unable to win any prize money. The other move was for a Rotowire Online Championship team in Weeks 15 and 16 of the Championship Round. That team finished 2nd in its league and 245th overall in the Championship Round. It won no prize money. To be very clear, none of the reported late changes have affected prize money, and all of the irregular entries in currently ongoing contests have been frozen and cannot win prizes.

Each late move can be seen in our timestamps and are pictured below. Please understand that until the third-party investigation is completed, we can’t comment any further about specific contests or transactions.

Rotowire OC - I Diggs It 2 - Wk 16.png (142.02 KiB) Viewed 2555 times

Mini HoldEm - Team Willis - WK19 (1).png (90.19 KiB) Viewed 2549 times

[Greg Ambrosius]

Eric Gailing took one of the orphaned Rotowire OC teams and we have one left. I found the email to the other interested owner and hopefully we'll get this done today. That email was buried!!!

Thanks and sorry about that. I am glad that all of these teams went to solid owners and that all leagues are now competitive again and intact. Thanks again to the best fantasy sports community in the industry.

[Rey]

For the last few days, I have followed the news on this scandal with sadness. I have heard so many different opinions and “takes.” I have seen the declarations of support for the NFBC, and the litany of criticisms against them. I have tried to absorb all the angles to this story that threatens a platform and hobby that I so love. And to my own shock, I have decided to jump in.

I do not have a podcast. I do not publish a newsletter. I do not have a twitter account with tens of thousands of followers. I do, however, have an opinion. And a story to tell.

My father introduced me to Investing at a very young age. In High school, I was the proud owner of some Mutual Funds (though I may not have known exactly what they were, I knew a portion of my measly Blockbuster Video paychecks went into them). By college, I started to educate myself a bit more about the public Stock Market and American businesses. By my early 20’s, I was reading everything I could about Peter Lynch, Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett and other titan Investors. All of them described investing in like terms: Buy good companies that make exceptional products, and over time, your investment will be rewarded.

That simple axiom has guided many of my life decisions. From the home that I live in, to the wife that I married. Buy into something exceptional, and over time, riches will follow.

So, I bought Microsoft stock. I bought Coca Cola stock. I bought Amazon and Apple and MasterCard stock. I bought them because I used their product. Or I loved their soda. Or I couldn’t live without their 2 day delivery. They were incredible businesses.

But like all businesses, they had their growing pains. They had their missteps. They had those moments where the vultures flew overhead.

The vultures, more often than not, stood to benefit from the business’s demise. Surprisingly, the most dangerous vultures were often ones that were amplified by the rise of said company.

Steve Jobs started Apple (alongside Steve Wozniak) out of his garage. Wozniak was the “techie”, Jobs the creative mastermind. Together, they grew the company towards great success. The thing was, both were imperfect and hadn’t honed the skills to take Apple to the proverbial “next level”. And so, the Apple board, in a move focused more on the trees and less on the forest, decided to bring on a “seasoned executive” to run the ship. That executive, in all his wisdom, proceeded to fire Steve Jobs two years into his tenure. Threat removed.

I likely don’t have to tell you the rest of the story. Apple floundered for years, eventually turning back to the man that put them on the map in the first place. Because, sometimes, you don’t know what you have until you’re stuck with a “John Sculley”, the seasoned executive whose claim to fame will forever be firing one of the greatest business minds in history.

Anyways, back to investing….

As all of these companies hit their inevitable “bumps in the road”, the stakeholders of these companies are forced to make some tough decisions. Employees may leave. Clients may look elsewhere. Business partners may begin to flirt with the competition.

And investors? Ahhhh, the investors….

With the stock dropping and the news getting worse by the day, many investors choose to sell their stock. Who can blame them? The news is bad. Coca Cola has sugar in it! And the news says sugar is bad! Microsoft may be a monopoly! And Apple? Did you hear they just fired their founder? Sell all I have!

So many vultures overhead. Talons out.

But not every investor sells. Many just hold. The majority just hold. Holding is good. They love the company and they believe in the product. They understand that running a company is a mind-blowingly difficult thing to do, and mistakes will happen. So they hold onto what they got, and choose to listen to their instinct more than those pesky vultures.

I was the very first person to enter the NFBC back in 2003. I paid $1,300 to a bunch of people I did not know, to play on a website that was buggy beyond belief, in a format I was not familiar with. I did so because I believed in the vision they had: that fantasy sports could grow beyond the local leagues into a high stakes, national product that shed light on incredibly dedicated, talented and passionate players.

I did not know it at the time, but that $1,300 buy in was an investment that has paid me back 1000 fold over the subsequent 21 years. It’s paid me back in thrills, friendships, brutal losses and incredible victories. This investment is one of the most rewarding of my life.

That being said, I understand that the vultures fly. I also understand why they fly.
John Sculley wanted to be Steve Jobs too. He wanted that success too. He wanted those riches too.
John Sculley was no Steve Jobs.

Back to investing one final time.

I mentioned that investors have decisions to make when times get tough. Some sell. Some hold. I have not mentioned what the most successful investors in the world do when a company they believe in hits a rough patch.

They buy. They buy all they can afford. They buy hand over fist. They back up the truck and engorge themselves. They choose to bet on the 2 guys in the garage with the vision and the skill and the creativity and the patience to create a product that has enhanced innumerable lives.

That’s who I’ll bet on. That’s who I’ll always bet on.

[Edwards Kings]

Well said, Rey....

[Greg Ambrosius]

THANKS NO.1.

[poopytooth]

I ain't going anywhere. You guys are the best there is. PERIOD!