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Just in case all your questions haven't been answered already, I spoke with Greg over the weekend and posted the interview.



CREATiVESPORTS.com

The word, growth, was ok until a couple of years ago, now, we must grow exponentially.



I know Q has to be disappointed, not one mention of the word, synergy.



I poke fun, but very informative.

I think the overriding fear for most posters and customers is that in growth or "growing exponentially" that we may lose some of the downhome customer care and service that we've become accustomed to with Greg and Tom. The customer service has always been what has set the NFBC/NFFC apart from other services or companies. With Greg and Tom still in the saddle, we'll continue enjoying the ride.

[ August 30, 2009, 08:57 PM: Message edited by: Walla Walla ]

Originally posted by DOUGHBOYS:

The word, growth, was ok until a couple of years ago, now, we must grow exponentially.



I know Q has to be disappointed, not one mention of the word, synergy.



I poke fun, but very informative.

I think the overriding fear for most posters and customers is that in growth or "growing exponentially" that we may lose some of the downhome customer care and service that we've become accustomed to with Greg and Tom. The customer service has always been what has set the NFBC/NFFC apart from other services or companies. With Greg and Tom still in the saddle, we'll continue enjoying the ride. No worries about the customer service changing in the NFBC. Tom and I are still going to be front and center with the NFBC and in fact with our own office in Iola we'll likely have fewer problems to deal with internally. We really like the setup and the support we'll get from Fanball.



Right now we're in St. Louis meeting our new co-workers and as we approach our deadline for the NFFC signups we were able to send out an e-mail blast to 300,000+ of their fantasy players. We never had that luxury before. Our banners are all over the Rototimes and Fanball sites for the next two weeks and they have a Google Ad Word campaign in August that we'd never pay for in 50 years at F+W. So the opportunities to reach more folks like us is now available through Fanball.



And again, with Tom and I still leading the charge, you can always reach us via phone or e-mail and get a quick reply. Nothing will change there.



We hope our duties expand. We hope our events expand. We hope our customer base expands and we hope our events continue to grow and be more prosperous. And through it all, we hope that this national contest still has that home-league feel with Tom and I as your commissioners.

Great job Brian. Here's the interview if anyone would rather have it here in one place to read:



New Owners Mean New Opportunities for NFBC/NFFC PDF Print E-mail

Written by Brian Walton

Monday, 17 August 2009 14:00



Each week, CREATiVESPORTS’ National Fantasy Baseball Championship combatants break down one aspect of the industry’s premier high-stakes fantasy baseball contest. This week, Brian Walton discusses a major announcement that affects both the NFBC and the NFFC with their founder and leader, Greg Ambrosius.







In case you missed what may be the biggest announcement in the fantasy industry this year, here is a summary of last Friday, August 14’s release:





Fanball, the premier provider of online fantasy sports contests, content, strategy and insight, announced the acquisition of the fantasy sports properties from F+W Media, Inc-- including the National Fantasy Football Championship and National Fantasy Baseball Championship contests as well as Fantasy Sports Magazine and the Company’s fantasy sports custom publications division. Fanball, PicksPal and CDM Sports are all wholly owned subsidiaries of Liberty Media Corporation, which owns interests in a broad range of electronic retailing, media, communications and entertainment businesses.





In addition to the properties moving, so did founder Greg Ambrosius and top lieutenant Tom Kessenich. I caught up with Ambrosius this past weekend to discuss the news and the upcoming NFFC season.







Brian Walton: Greg, first of all, I have to start with the question that everyone wants to ask. How will the sale affect the operation of the NFFC and NFBC?





Greg Ambrosius: The sale of F+W’s fantasy properties to Liberty Media will be good for our contests, good for our publications and good for our players. It will be good for Tom Kessenich and myself, too, because we go from a big print publishing company to a very big media company that has a very strong Internet presence. The hardest part about trying to grow our contests while working at F+W Media was that we didn’t have that big online presence that could allow us to grow exponentially each year. We did a good job of retaining our current customers, but our growth of new users was incremental each year.



Now with Fanball and CDM behind us, we have an already existing fantasy user base to promote to and with their Internet reach and partnership with other media companies, we have a much better chance of growing in all of the events we host. Plus I think this will allow us to expand into other sports and hopefully host live events for basketball, hockey and other sports in the near future. So this is exciting news for everyone in the industry.



From a players’ perspective, nothing will change with the game. We still have our 14-team and 12-team format for football, our 15-team format for baseball is an unquestioned success and STATS Inc., is still our back-end provider for baseball and football. If anything, we now have the resources to improve the web site, add more content to our players, and provide more enhancements to the message boards and game site. I’d like to feature more past historical data on all of our players and allow them to post pictures of themselves and other personal data so that our competitors get to know each other a little better. With Fanball’s IT department behind us, I think we can really upgrade our sites and make the NFFC and NFBC an even better playing experience.



So yeah, I’m excited. After 20 years at Krause/F+W Publications, I’m ready for the move to Fanball and working with friends of the industry that I’ve known for 17+ years. It should be a good marriage.





What have been some of your experiences running two high-stakes football championships?





It’s twice as much fun running the industry’s only live high-stakes main event doubleheader. I remember one year after hosting the NFFC Classic and walking out of the Flamingo draft room with Jules McLean and she said “this was so much fun we should do another draft.” And since football drafts go so quickly, I walked out thinking, “yeah, we should do another draft.” So I came up with the idea to run two live high-stakes drafts in the same day, featuring two very different draft formats, the 14-team NFFC Classic and the 12-team NFFC Primetime. It’s great and our owners really like the doubleheader. And trust me, it’s still less draining that doing one NFBC baseball draft!!





What have you seen to be the major differences between the two - the 14-team format (NFFC Classic) and 12-team format (NFFC Primetime)?





Last season was our first year running the two different formats and it was a HUGE success. We had a $1 million bonus prize for anyone who could win both overall titles and 11 owners actually reached both Championship Rounds and had a shot at the bonus. Dave Gerczak of Appleton, Wis. came the closest, winning the $100,000 grand prize in the 12-team format and finishing 10th in the 14-team format, just 30 points away from winning that title. It was a lot of fun.



I think our owners learned that you don’t need to have the exact same lineups in both formats to do well, but it does help to have similar breakout players. In other words, you don’t have to start both league with the same draft spot and take the same top stars to win in both formats. But it sure helps to draft a guy like DeAngelo Williams during his breakout year in both leagues, or pick up Antonio Bryant in both leagues. That’s the key.





As for the format, since we run Third Round Reversal (3RR) in both leagues I think the same strategies pertain, but obviously there’s a little more leeway at QB, RB and WR in the Primetime 12-team format than in the 14-team Classic.



Let’s stay with that for a minute. A couple of years back, you introduced 3RR, designed to balance out early rounds of the draft. How do you assess its impact?





3RR by itself isn’t the cure-all in fantasy football. It’s an innovative idea, but it needs to be teamed with our KDS setup to work and I will say emphatically it is working to perfection right now. Third Round Reversal balances out the talent in the early rounds as we go 1-14 in Round 1 (1-12 in the Primetime event), 14-1 in Round 2, back to 14-1 in Round 3 and then serpentine 1-14, 14-1 after that. Because of 3RR and the plethora of top wide receivers going late in the first round, MANY owners now want to be at the bottom of the draft. But another section of owners still like the middle where they don’t get caught in long runs. And some folks still like the highest possible pick to get a top stud in Round 1.



So now when we run KDS preferences for our pay leagues, almost all owners are getting draft spots that they most prefer. We randomly pick each league and after that we take the time to look at each individual KDS listing and seed them accordingly, starting with the first owner randomly picked and going all the way down to the 14th owner. This morning I just ran a $250 satellite league and the average KDS preference received was 2.36, which means all 14 owners on average got their second preference. Seven of 14 owners got their No. 1 preference and nobody got a preference lower than sixth. When everyone is happy with their draft slot because they all have different opinions about how this year’s draft is going to flow, then we all win, right? I sure think so.





(Note: “KDS” is Kentucky Derby Style, where each owner specifies where in the draft he/she would like to pick.)





Roughly what percentage of your customers play in both main events?





Last year we had 162 teams out of 252 in the NFFC Primetime and 308 in the NFFC Classic play both main events. This year we already have 160 owners signed up for both and I’d say that over 55 percent of our unique customers will have teams in both main events. That’s pretty amazing at $2,150 per owner.





You offer a wide variety of lower entry-price games, too. Tell me a bit about them.





When we first introduced the NFFC in 2004, we had just the main event at $1,250 and Auction or Draft Champions Leagues at $650. We didn’t have any entry level games, which eliminated a lot of potential customers. Now we offer private satellite leagues at as low as $125 per team and as high as $1,000 per team. We also lowered our NFFC Primetime main event from $1,300 per team to $750 per team, giving more folks a chance to play in a national contest with a good $40,000 grand prize at a more affordable price.





And we even introduced our NFFC Online Championship this year, which costs just $350 per team and will offer a guaranteed $20,000 grand prize. The NFFC Online Championship will feature at least 300 teams in a 12-team league format and will allow someone to become a national champion while drafting from the comforts of their home. We debuted the Online Championship in baseball this year and expected 300 teams and instead finished with 600 teams and bumped the grand prize to $40,000. We already have over 200 teams signed up for this contest right now and I know we’ll have more than 300 teams and a grand prize greater than $20,000. These are all great additions to what we first offered in the NFFC.





So many of your customers come back year after year. How important is the community aspect of your games?





We have a 75+% retention rate in the NFFC and an 80+% retention rate in the NFBC, so obviously we’re doing something right. Our customers have a lot of options in the high-stakes markets to choose from, but I think they stay with us for these reasons:





A) They know the prize money is going to be there and it’s going to be paid IMMEDIATELY after the season. We’ve provided over $5 million in prize money since 2004 and Tom and I always get it out as fast as we can. We’ve had it long enough; we want our winners to have it when the season is complete.





B) The contests are the fairest in the industry, with KDS/3RR giving owners more input on their draft spots and balancing out the talent in the early rounds.





C) Customer service. We treat everyone like they are our best customer and our folks appreciate the hands-on approach. We also are very transparent with our information as everyone knows exactly how many teams are signed up in each event and exactly what we’re thinking when it comes to rules changes or tough decisions or anything involving the games.





D) And last but not least as you say, we have a community feel. As Tom says often, we treat this national contest like a local league. We want our drafts to have the feel of a college-guys fantasy draft in each city and we want folks to look forward to Draft Day each year. They can play anywhere, but we WANT them to choose us because they know all the top players in the contest, they like smack talking with the same folks each year on our message boards and they look forward to tipping beers with Tom and me each September!!!



Is the NFFC relatively insulated from the Nation’s economy or do you see an impact in participation when it is slowed?





There’s no doubt the economy is impacting everyone in the fantasy sports industry, us included. We have lost veteran players who just can’t find the money this year. I call all of my customers and some guys are down-right apologetic that they can’t play this year because they’ve lost their job or aren’t making as much this year. I just tell them to take care of the family and we’ll still be here when they’re back on their feet. We also have a lot of customers from the East Coast in the financial sector and that has hurt participation.





And finally, it doesn’t help when other national fantasy contests take players’ money and not pay out prizes at season’s end. We’ve seen that in each of the last two years and it really SUCKS for all of us. I just talked with one guy yesterday who was owed $6,000 by Fantasy Jungle and can’t play with us without that prize money as his automotive job in Michigan has hurt him financially. Well, our own industry betrayed him and that really has he and I upset. We need to police ourselves better as an industry.



What are the sign-up deadlines for the 2009 NFFC?





Signup deadline for our live events is Sunday, August 30th. We have less than 80 spots left in the NFFC Classic and less than 100 spots left in the NFFC Primetime. We’ve already sold out many of our Friday and Sunday events and we have more than 200 signups for the Online Championship, including 90+ in the last week. So we’re having a great year and I suspect these last two weeks will be great, pushing us to sellout levels in almost every contest.



What is next for the NFFC and NFBC?





This is our sixth year for the live events and the acquisition by Fanball allows us to think BIG. Stay tuned because I think the future is going to be MUCH better than our past. We need to get fantasy sports on TV and we need to make our high-stakes players stars in the industry. We also need to expand our reach with the live events and be in more cities in the near future. Stay tuned because I think we’re going to accomplish a lot of these goals and more.







Brian Walton is a long-time competitor in National League Tout Wars, the NFBC and Xperts Fantasy League (XFL). His work can also be found daily at stlcardinals.scout.com and at his blog, The Cardinal Nation, at thecardinalnation.com.

Greg,



I will attempt to address the same point as Walla Walla hopefully just with a different tone. I cannot believe that I am the only one who is wondering it.



My perception is that CDM had a hard time paying their customers a few years ago.



1) If that is not correct- correct me and we can move on.

2) If it is are there extenuating cicurmstances that should make it irrelevant in the future?

3) If the answer to 2 is not yes? Then what do we need to know?



I trust you as much as I am capable of trusting someone I have known for 5 years. However, in the end the money is not in your bank account so you have to trust someone too. Please help me get a little more comfortable with that. I hope you feel like it is a legitimate question and hopefully one that you have to only address once.



On a personal note I am happy for you and Tom. You go from being in a business where you are not part of the core offering to one where you are. People like you and Tom always thrive when that happens. I hope you both got a big raise because you deserve it. I assume the only downside is you just lost a few sign ups from the ST Louis crew?

I've been playing CDM challenges for 10 years with no issues. Plus remember that this is the company that sued MLB for the right to stats without paying a royalty and WON. Go CDM/Fanball/NFBC.



-Mace and Bailey, NY3

Originally posted by Chest Rockwell:

Greg,



I will attempt to address the same point as Walla Walla hopefully just with a different tone. I cannot believe that I am the only one who is wondering it.



My perception is that CDM had a hard time paying their customers a few years ago.



1) If that is not correct- correct me and we can move on.

2) If it is are there extenuating cicurmstances that should make it irrelevant in the future?

3) If the answer to 2 is not yes? Then what do we need to know?



I trust you as much as I am capable of trusting someone I have known for 5 years. However, in the end the money is not in your bank account so you have to trust someone too. Please help me get a little more comfortable with that. I hope you feel like it is a legitimate question and hopefully one that you have to only address once.



On a personal note I am happy for you and Tom. You go from being in a business where you are not part of the core offering to one where you are. People like you and Tom always thrive when that happens. I hope you both got a big raise because you deserve it. I assume the only downside is you just lost a few sign ups from the ST Louis crew? Everyone here in St. Louis at Fanball knows how important it is to continue paying our NFBC and NFFC players on time. This will NOT be an issue and I truly believe it. In fact, last year we probably had more issues in October than we'll have this October paying on time.



I know things happened a few years ago with some later than expected payments with the CDM games. I also know Brian, Carol, Charlie and John were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal expenses to defend the fantasy sports industry against the MLBAM suit and in the end they really did save the industry as we know it today.



I do not know of any problems with payments in recent years, but if I'm wrong someone let me know. But again, I feel MUCH better today about our ability to pay on time with our current setup than before, and we were pretty good before.



Tom and I will be on this payment schedule in October and do everything we can to get the W9's processed and payments out ASAP. We've had the money for 7+ months; we don't need it anymore!!



It's a legitimate question, but it's not going to be a problem. All of the money has already been squared up between the two companies and we're rolling as a new company now. Tom and I have been in St. Louis all week and we came up with something REALLY special for 2010 baseball. You'll like it and you'll like the aggressive team we have assembled now. It's all good.

Originally posted by Sebadiah23:

I've been playing CDM challenges for 10 years with no issues. Plus remember that this is the company that sued MLB for the right to stats without paying a royalty and WON. Go CDM/Fanball/NFBC.



-Mace and Bailey, NY3 Thanks Craig. I got an e-mail from one of our guys who said "my two favorite fantasy game companies are now one. It doesn't get any better than that." I kind of like that!!