NFBC Message Boards

We have had an incredible last eight days of signups in the NFBC and we now stand at 200 teams officially signed up for the NFBC Classic main event. This is the quickest that we've ever hit this mark and we're definitely on pace for a sellout of all 405 spots. The NFBC main event has sold out each of the past five years.



Keep the signups coming and remember that we won't hit credit cards until Feb. 15th. You can also pay via check this year and receive insurance on one of your players. Look for more details on how you can pay by check very soon.



Thanks everyone for helping us get off to a record start. Get your travel plans secured and then secure your spot in the NFBC Classic before it's too late. Thanks all.



[ February 04, 2010, 03:17 PM: Message edited by: Greg Ambrosius ]

We now have 210 teams officially signed up for the NFBC's main event, a fantastic number 2+ weeks before the Super Bowl. We have five full leagues at the Bellagio in Las Vegas and we began our sixth league there today. All of the cities are pulling well right now, but let's keep the momentum going. There's nothing wrong with an early sellout.



Thanks all. We're pass the halfway point now. It's all downhill from here!!

The signups keep rolling in as we now have 15 full leagues for the NFBC's main event and we're already working on our 16th league. This is the fastest we've ever reached 225 signups and there is no doubt we're headed towards a record year for the NFBC Classic. We've never had this much interest in the NFBC before the Super Bowl.



Our signups for the main event include veterans who have been with us since our inaugural season of 2004 along with a good mix of new signups. It's great to see so many new owners joining the NFBC so far. Many have signed up after seeing the NFBC in our first two magazines and others have been lurking for years and finally decided to jump in. It's been fun to talk with all of these folks as they call up to ask questions before officially jumping in.



For the Slow Drafts and satellite leagues, we've already received signups from Australia and Norway. Pretty cool. One owner from Australia is currently competing in a Slow Draft and loving it. He said with any luck he will join the main event one day and join us live. Great stuff.



Thanks all and don't wait too long to make your travel plans for the NFBC. We're moving forward with yet another great week of signups.

Greg,



If you reach your target for signups early this year, any chance we can do kds and get our drafts slots more than a week in advance this yr??



Rich

Greg, at the pace signups are moving along, there's the possibility that this event sells out ealier than anticipated.



If so, is the game plan for Fanball & the NFBC just to close out registrations at 405, request KDS, and hand out early draft slots?

Or is the plan to expand the event to 420, 435, 450 or more and increase the prize pool proportionately? If this is the option, what would be the absolute drop dead total?



Doesn't really matter to me either way....just curious.



Glenn

Originally posted by rkulaski:

Greg,



If you reach your target for signups early this year, any chance we can do kds and get our drafts slots more than a week in advance this yr??



Rich Sure, if we're able to close out the cities in advance we'll hand out draft picks in advance. We may even have a special visual surprise for you this year with the draft picks if all works out and the timing is right. So yeah, we'd like nothing better than to finalize all of this in advance. We had to wait until one week before Draft Day the last five years because that's when our final signups came in. This year, it doesn't look like we'll have to do that.



We want to get this thing rolling as soon as possible, especially with staff being out of the office for 12+ days in March. So let's keep the signups coming in.

Originally posted by Glenneration X:

Greg, at the pace signups are moving along, there's the possibility that this event sells out ealier than anticipated.



If so, is the game plan for Fanball & the NFBC just to close out registrations at 405, request KDS, and hand out early draft slots?

Or is the plan to expand the event to 420, 435, 450 or more and increase the prize pool proportionately? If this is the option, what would be the absolute drop dead total?



Doesn't really matter to me either way....just curious.



Glenn The final number could be determined by how we're able to close out full main event leagues in each city. In other words, if we hit 405 but don't have full 15-team leagues in any of the cities and we're still in early March, we'll continue to take signups to try and close out each city perfectly with full leagues. Nothing would please us more to do that this year. In fact, in some cities we may close out signups earlier than others if we reach a full multiple of 15 and are satisfied with the final number there. So we will watch each city closely as we hit March and then make smart decisions so that we can avoid phone hookups anywhere for the main event and Double Plays.



Of course, if we go beyond 405 we'll increase the overall prize pool. We'll see where we land, but at this point it looks good and it could be a lot of fun in each city with more prize money for the top teams than we anticipated. Let's just see if this incredible pace continues and then make smart decisions.



We did the right thing last year when the NFBC Online Championship went from a goal of 300 teams to a max of 600 teams and everyone trusted us to fill the leagues perfectly and expand the overall prize pool. We did that. This will be handled in the same manner if our success is similar. I'm not used to this type of success, so call me a skeptic, but so far this is very exciting. It's fun to see so much excitement for the NFBC's main event. Was it really just six years ago when I had to beg folks to sign up with free Pete Rose autographed baseballs? My, the times, they are a changin'.

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

quote:Originally posted by rkulaski:

Greg,



If you reach your target for signups early this year, any chance we can do kds and get our drafts slots more than a week in advance this yr??



Rich Sure, if we're able to close out the cities in advance we'll hand out draft picks in advance. We may even have a special visual surprise for you this year with the draft picks if all works out and the timing is right. So yeah, we'd like nothing better than to finalize all of this in advance. We had to wait until one week before Draft Day the last five years because that's when our final signups came in. This year, it doesn't look like we'll have to do that.



We want to get this thing rolling as soon as possible, especially with staff being out of the office for 12+ days in March. So let's keep the signups coming in. [/QUOTE]You mean like streaming video? Not sure if you have the man power, but I picture coming home from work on the day the draft order for each league was selected. Then, I'd go to the fanball/nfbc web site, scroll to a link for Draft Orders, click on my city, click on my league, and then actually watch streaming video of my league's draft order unfolding, waiting for my name and home city to be called. It kind of be like watching the NCAA Tournament Selection Show, seeing where each team is seeded and when they play.

Greg,

If you substantially exceed the 405 limit, would you consider expanding the league prizes? Possibly offering more money for first or second in the individual leagues, rather than increasing the prizes for the top overall teams?

Originally posted by freddiezee:

Greg,

If you substantially exceed the 405 limit, would you consider expanding the league prizes? Possibly offering more money for first or second in the individual leagues, rather than increasing the prizes for the top overall teams? We'll see. We're getting ahead of ourselves now anyway. I think as everyone has seen since 2005 when we sold out for the first time, the first thing we wanted to do was increase the league prizes. Second place went from $1750 to $2500 and third place went from $750 to $1300 this year. We like the 4x multiple for first place in all of our events so with the increase from $1250 to $1300 at some point we'd like to increase first by $200 and second by $100, but I think we also see a need to increase third through 10th overall more. It's quite a feat to finish in the Top 5 overall with 400+ participants and we've been unable to increase those overall prizes too much.



So let's sell out first and then we can worry about all of this. It's all possible, but first things first, which is why we're all working on Sunday morning. Now is no time to sit back and relax. Keep studying and keep working hard all and we'll have good problems to deal with down the road, just like we did with the NFBC Online Championship.

We now have 16 full leagues and 240 teams signed up for the NFBC Classic. We have 60 teams currently signed up for the opening weekend with another 180 set for the second. We still have plenty of great deals available, including the back-to-back Main Event Special, so now's a great time to secure a spot in what promises to be our best year of the NFBC yet.

Great job all while I was out of the office. We are well onto our way to filling up a 17th main event league. Awesome news. Let's keep things rolling. This is easily our best total of signups before the Super Bowl. Now let's keep it going.

Thanks to our good friends the Kleemanns jumping in with three teams in Chicago, we are now at 250 signups for the Main Event. We are way ahead of last year's pace and Greg, Ryan and I are very excited about the potential for this year's event. Don't forget about the great special offers we still have available. So if you're looking to secure your spot or take a package deal now's the time to do so. Sign up now, kick back, enjoy the exciting Pro Bowl this weekend featuring superstar quarterback David Garrard and we'll keep this train rolling.

Kevin Schiller of Phoenix, Arizona finished second overall in the NFBC main event last year and he's back for the big dance both weekends in Las Vegas this year. That puts us over 255 total for the main event, leaving us with less than 150 spots left for the main event!!! It's almost time for the countdown!! We now have 17 FULL LEAGUES FOR THE MAIN EVENT and we're already working on our 18th league. Awesome start everyone. Let's keep it going and get draft spots out early this year!! Thanks all.

We now have 270 signups for the main event or 18 full leagues overall!! We have never had this many signups before the Super Bowl and we're definitely on pace for an early sellout. We now have only 135 GUARANTEED SPOTS LEFT for the main event. Our goal is to fill each city perfectly with full 15-team leagues, so don't wait too long this year.



Great job everyone and let's get started on League #19. Who wants their draft spot early this year?

Thanks all once again. Since last night's NFBC newsletter went out, we added 11 more main event signups, bringing us 284 teams or one short of a 19th full league. Every day just exceeds my expectations. It's amazing. Great job all.



We also are close to filling some auction leagues in Chicago and Atlantic City on Friday afternoon. We also have 12 owners for the main event in St. Louis and should add one more tonight. I'm not sure if we'll go beyond that because our goal is to have completely full 15-team leagues in each city for all of these live events. Anyway, I'll start to talk about all of this with separate threads soon.



It's all good. Thanks again everyone for the fantastic response in the last 24 hours. Tomorrow I promise more Slow Draft results. I know I promised that two days ago, but we're working hard on our next announcement and that's tied up my time. But I'll do this tomorrow.



Enjoy Shawn's Live Chat tonight and don't wait much longer to join the NFBC. It's hard to believe, but we are almost 85 signups ahead of last year's pace. LOVE IT!!

Thanks to Shawn Childs driving almost 100 folks to the message boards tonight, we added a few more main event signups and now have 19 full leagues and 285+ signups. We're already working on our 20th main event league with a goal of 27 leagues. This is pretty amazing.



We've had a big run on NFBC veterans this week locking up their spots after seeing that we had less than 135 guaranteed spots left. Well, now we have less than 120 guaranteed spots left. Great job all and thanks again. We are ON A ROLL!!

We're at 290 now and we're still a few days away from the football season coming to an end. That's amazing. I was talking to Greg the other day about what it was like in 2004 when we were down in Houston for the Super Bowl and were sitting with 69 signups that week. Not only did we have our Super Bowl tickets taken from us but we were a long ways off our projected goals for the event.



Things sure have changed a lot since then. The Classic numbers are terrific so far. Keep those signups coming.