Let The Online Championship Season Begin

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Greg Ambrosius
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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Sat Mar 28, 2009 4:42 am

With 600 teams already signed up and ready to go, we begin hosting drafts today at 1 pm EST for the debut NFBC Online Championship. We will have five drafts going simultaneously at 1:00 and two at 5:00. We'll also have seven more online drafts tomorrow.



50 drafts in eight days, plus several NFBC Satellite Leagues. Should be fun and we should keep Geoff busy at MockDraftCentral.com. :D



The 12-team format should be fun and the in-season free agent pickups will definitely be a big part of this contest. It will be great to see who can master this format. It will also be great to see who can master both the 12 team and the 15 team main event format. We'll have Combined Standings for folks in both contest.



Okay, any last minute thoughts on what it will take to win the NFBC Online Championship? Is the draft more important in this format than in the main event or can a mediocre draft be covered by good free agent pickups? Is draft position more important or less important in the 12-team format? Will starting pitching be devalued in this 12-team format or be more valuable? Will you need three closers to contend for the league and overall title or is it still okay to be one of the six or more teams with fewer than three closers?



Lots to talk about. First pitch for the debut NFBC Online Championship is less than 80 minutes away. See ya in the draft room and good luck everyone.
Greg Ambrosius
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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Sat Mar 28, 2009 6:40 am

We had 60 owners for the 1 p.m. Online Championship and all 60 owners were there at least five minutes before the start of the drafts. In one draft, I had 10 owners there 16 minutes before the start. I LOVE THESE FOLKS!!! :D



These are fun to watch and I'm so glad everyone was prompt and ready to go. We're cruising through at about 11 rounds per hour, so I'd say these will go in under three hours. Great fun and man do these rosters looked stacked compared to the 15-team rosters!!! :D Enjoy and remember that everyone is going to like their teams after Draft Day.



Round 2 starts with two more leagues at 5 p.m. EST
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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Sat Mar 28, 2009 8:19 am

This has been fun to watch so far today. In the two drafts I'm monitoring, we had a guy in each league drafting from Afghanistan. How cool is that? God Bless the troops...and I'm glad we're able to help them forget about things for a bit with this draft. Good luck guys.
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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by sportsbettingman » Sat Mar 28, 2009 8:22 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

This has been fun to watch so far today. In the two drafts I'm monitoring, we had a guy in each league drafting from Afghanistan. How cool is that? God Bless the troops...and I'm glad we're able to help them forget about things for a bit with this draft. Good luck guys. Now THAT'S cool!
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."

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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Sat Mar 28, 2009 9:29 am

Five drafts completed and in the books already. All five went smoothly. Great job Geoff and MockDraftCentral.com and great job by all 60 owners for being in the draft room on time and ready to go. All were completed within 2 hours and 30 minutes and 3 hours and 20 minutes. Good fun.



Okay, two more drafts to go in 30 minutes. See ya in the draft room.
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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Sat Mar 28, 2009 10:23 am

24 teams in tonight at least five minutes early again. That's 84 for 84 not only on time today but 5 minutes early. AWESOME. That's great for everyone involved as all seven drafts today started on time and with little to no problems. Thanks everyone. You're the best. That's showing some courtesy to all involved and makes our jobs so much easier.



LOTS of interesting picks in these 12-teamers. They definitely are different than the 15-teamers and the rosters sure look mighty good early on. Then it's down to the dirty business of finding the best bargains. Thanks again all. 43 more online championship drafts to go. ;)
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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Sun Mar 29, 2009 1:21 pm

14 NFBC Online Championship League drafts are in the books. 168 owners signed up and all 168 in on time. Just a couple of late arrivals, but all was well once we got them into the draft site. Great, great start to the Online Championship season.



36 more drafts to go. If you're in the next six nights of drafts, come into the draft room early like the others have done and be ready to draft. Three hours, give or take a few minutes, is how long it will take. Thanks for a great start everyone.
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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by DiamondKing » Sun Mar 29, 2009 1:35 pm

God Bless our troops in harms way.I am so glad that they can be part of this little game.
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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by Chest Rockwell » Sun Mar 29, 2009 2:36 pm

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

This has been fun to watch so far today. In the two drafts I'm monitoring, we had a guy in each league drafting from Afghanistan. How cool is that? God Bless the troops...and I'm glad we're able to help them forget about things for a bit with this draft. Good luck guys. Greg how about starting a fund to cover the leagues expenses for those guys overseas. I bet we can get their leagues covered for them in a day or less on these boards.

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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by Jim Young » Mon Mar 30, 2009 1:34 am

Originally posted by Chest Rockwell:

quote:Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

This has been fun to watch so far today. In the two drafts I'm monitoring, we had a guy in each league drafting from Afghanistan. How cool is that? God Bless the troops...and I'm glad we're able to help them forget about things for a bit with this draft. Good luck guys. Greg how about starting a fund to cover the leagues expenses for those guys overseas. I bet we can get their leagues covered for them in a day or less on these boards. [/QUOTE]I think Reed Rothchild has a GREAT idea here. Any word on getting this going? If we all chipped in something, it could happen!
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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by sandckaye » Mon Mar 30, 2009 3:24 am

Count me in for a donation GREAT idea



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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Tue Mar 31, 2009 2:37 am

We finished five more Online Championship league drafts last night without any hiccups and now have 19 drafts in the books. I believe that some of the weekend leagues are already loaded into your team pages, which is sweet. Everyone was in the draft rooms on time and everything went without a hitch.



Thanks all for being so prompt in the draft rooms. It makes our jobs so much easier. We have five more drafts tonight and will be near the halfway point at that time. Great stuff and every draft is so different. It should be a fun, fun, fun Online Championship season.
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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:43 am

Okay, two more online championship leagues went smoothly this afternoon, bringing our total of completed drafts to 26, past the halfway point. Everyone has been on time and there's been very few problems so far. Great job everyone and for the last 24 leagues, please keep our perfect record intact by being in the draft room early and ready to make your picks. Thanks all.



$40,000 is on the line and these 12-team leagues are really shaping up as interesting contests. Should be a fun rush to the finish line.



See ya tonight at 7:00 for two more online championship drafts and SIX other satellite leagues. Yikes.
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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Fri Apr 03, 2009 10:26 am

Okay, 35 online championship leagues have drafted, leaving us with 15 more drafts tonight and tomorrow. We have seven tonight and eight tomorrow. Of the 420 owners so far, we've had only two who showed up after we started but they eventually got in a bit later and drafted their teams. That means 418 owners have been on time and ready to go. Gotta love it.



I'm going to ask all of the owners over these last two days to please be prompt and ready to draft. I'm also going to ask everyone to prepick, prepick, prepick. That means set aside players you hope to draft and put them in your que so that you're not searching for players all of the time. This speeds up the process and keeps the drafts flowing. Most are getting done around three hours, which is a nice steady pace for 30 rounds. We want winning teams, but we also want fun experiences in the draft rooms.



If everyone is there on time, it allows Tom, me , Scott and T-Bar to interact and not spend the first five minutes calling owners and walking them through the process of getting in.



And finally, if you need to walk away for a bit and press auto select for the players in your que, please uncheck it when you're back. If you don't do that, the computer will pick your top player in that que immediately. That's forced us to pause and correct picks enough times in the last six days.



I'd also like to thank all early participants for not revealing their teams or talking about where players went in your drafts, etc., on the message boards. We wanted all eight nights of drafts to be consistent, fair and without advantages and I think for the most part we've accomplished that. There has been some player movement and decisions in the last eight days, but I don't see any big advantage to drafting on April 4th compared to drafting on March 28th.



All in all, this has been a great debut for the online championship, but let's get through these next two days first. :D We've had just a few hiccups along the way and with any luck we can get through this weekend unscathed as well. Every league looks tough, every team looks good in this 12-team format, and right now everyone thinks they have the $40,000 winner. :D I love it.



And a special thanks to Geoff and Jason at MDC.com. They've really done a good job, running as many as nine drafts at once per night and always being there when changes need to be made. Great, great, great job guys.
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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Sat Apr 04, 2009 3:44 am

Thanks for a GREAT night last night everyone. All 84 owners were in the draft room on time and we had seven drafts go off very smoothly. That means we have 42 Online Championship League drafts in the books, with eight left for today. Again, thanks everyone for being prompt last night.



I'll make one last request to all of the owners in today's drafts to be prompt and ready to go. It's a Saturday, so everyone has busy schedules before and after the drafts, but there's a reason you picked this day to draft. Please be in the draft room early so that you can make life easy on me, Tom, Scott and Tom Bartsch. We're all working today to make sure these eight drafts and the two satellite leagues go off without a hitch.



Thanks again. Today is the last day of drafts!!! We hosted more than 110 online pay leagues this year, which is just truly amazing. Thanks to everyone for a job well done.



Good luck and let the games begin....tomorrow. :D
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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by fandango » Sat Apr 04, 2009 10:50 am

Greg, you deserve a long vacation after tonight!



Thanks for all your hard work, here's to you! (gulp)

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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Sun Apr 05, 2009 4:04 am

Originally posted by fandango:

Greg, you deserve a long vacation after tonight!



Thanks for all your hard work, here's to you! (gulp) Thanks Scott. I will take you up on that offer this week. :D



Here's a final thanks from me, Tom and the rest of the NFBC gang to everyone involved in the NFBC Online Championship. You were prompt, you were well behaved, you were well prepared, your computers worked well, and I think we all had fun. Here are the final numbers:



** 50 drafts in eight days, ranging anywhere from 2 hours and 35 minutes to 4 hours and 30 minutes. For the most part, all drafts were done in about 3 hours and 15 minutes. Three hours was a good pace and many were in that ballpark, but more in the 3:15 range.



** 598 of 600 owners were in the draft room on time, give or take a handful who struggled to get in the draft room and needed a little MDC.com assistance. We had some owners who came in at the last minute after Tom, me or Scott called them to get them in, but really for the most part everyone was prompt (the stress level on our part is through the roof when 1 or 2 owners per league still aren't there with a minute to go).



** 599 owners showed up. One was late yesterday morning and I had no patience to wait around. I sold that team before his second pick and I'm glad I did because he never showed up. I don't know what happened, but all 600 were paid in full beforehand so we were ready to move on. This team was bought by an NFBC veteran and he ran it for all 30 picks.



** I don't know how many owners are in the Combined Standings, but I'll know that this week. STATS will set it up for us and we'll test it all week before making the Combined Standings live at the start of Week 2. I'll post the number of teams in the Combined Standings combination once I get that from STATS. I know we'll need to hook up some teams after the fact, so don't fret as I'm sure we still have more work to do.



We learned a lot from this 12-team national championship format and the first thing is this: It's a winner. I think the future of the NFBC Online Championship is VERY bright and we can build on this first year's success. But I will say one thing: I am not going to make this so big in the future that the odds of winning are unreachable.



No, next year I think I will shoot for 600 teams and a $40,000 grand prize and stick with that. I'd take the first 600 teams and keep the odds of winning it all reachable. Possibly $50,000 and 750 teams, but we'll see. I would take the first signups in this competition and move on.



If there's demand for more teams, then we could create a second contest with a much lesser grand prize ($10,000 or $20,000), but we'll see. No need to get too big because it's a lot of work doing all of these drafts during an eight-day window. But next year it will definitely be first-come, first-serve to get into the Online Championship and we won't go too big because honestly that doesn't do anything for me...or for the players who want a realistic shot at winning it all.



Okay, that's enough for today. Tom and I thank EVERYONE who participated and we wish you good luck. It was a great debut and now the best is yet to come. 26 weeks of BASEBALL!!! Bring it on.
Greg Ambrosius
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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Sun Apr 05, 2009 4:07 am

And just one final reminder: The first FAAB period for the NFBC Online Championship is Sunday, April 12th. Rosters from yesterday's drafts are already being loaded and thus there wasn't enough time for every online league to get free agency going this week, thus it starts next week. Good luck all.
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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by King of Queens » Sun Apr 05, 2009 4:36 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

** 599 owners showed up. One was late yesterday morning and I had no patience to wait around. I sold that team before his second pick and I'm glad I did because he never showed up. I don't know what happened, but all 600 were paid in full beforehand so we were ready to move on. This team was bought by an NFBC veteran and he ran it for all 30 picks.Pretty sure I know who bought this team. If so, I'm glad he was able to get into the Online Championship!

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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by eddiejag » Sun Apr 05, 2009 6:44 am

Rumor has it that the replacement player was a ringer.How bout the league where Prince went 4.7 and Sandoval in the 18th round.Cant imagine these two went later in any of the 599 other leagues.Anyway's Greg great job and im sure your happy it's about to begin,tonight.
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Let The Online Championship Season Begin

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Sun Apr 05, 2009 7:11 am

Originally posted by eddiejag:

Rumor has it that the replacement player was a ringer.How bout the league where Prince went 4.7 and Sandoval in the 18th round.Cant imagine these two went later in any of the 599 other leagues.Anyway's Greg great job and im sure your happy it's about to begin,tonight. I've asked MDC.com to create an ADP from the online championship for our NFBC users as a parting gift for the season. :D It's possible some of you may still have some drafts left or may just want the data for future reference. A list of 50 12-team drafts should be useful to anyone in the industry. Look for that ADP list this week, hopefully. That will also show the earliest each player was picked and the latest. Through 50 drafts, there will be some surprises as Eddie noted above, but that's to be expected. Heck, I saw A-Rod go in the fifth round and Adam Dunn in the 16th just in the last few days.
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