Jack's Flash - Collusion

[Jackstraw]

Money plays an important role in the NFBC. It’s the reward for playing well. Since the game is an investment of money and time, you can’t go for very long without getting rewarded. Like I said in one of my other posts, the average player spends around $5000 a year to participate in this league (that’s my average anyway, but Greg may can tell you the real number). The normal American can’t sustain that type of loss for too many consecutive years. You need to find ways to earn your money back in this game because it is an investment. If you can afford to spend that kind of money, then don’t worry about my opinion. I’m trying to speak from the voice of the average fantasy consumer.



The NFBC has done a great job of virtually eliminating any collusion in the satellite leagues and in the Main Event’s individual leagues. However there is a flaw that could effect only the Overall League in the Main Event. I think every other base is covered fine.



As everyone has probably noticed over the past few seasons whenever there is an extremely low scoring team there is typically a very high scoring team. If there are two low-scoring teams, then there are typically two high-scoring teams. These represent the weaker leagues, and they usually have an owner or two who has gone dead-beat.



Right now in my Chicago 1 League the leader has 131.5 pts. The lowest score is 39.5. Our league leader is also the Overall League Leader. There was a post on our league’s page that one of the guys in the league was also in the same league with a guy from last year who nearly won the whole thing. Not surprisingly, the guy also stated that he was last. Watching where that team started out this season, and seeing the results in our league to date, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Navel Lint go all the way. This league is super-skewed with super strong players and very weak players.



No offense to the bad teams that I am talking about, you just need to brush up on your skills. And whatever you do, no matter how bad it gets, DON’T QUIT!!!



Now let’s expand outwards to the Overall League standings, currently our league has 4 teams in the top 50. If you take the current results and graph the rank vs. the number of overall points, you can see that there are as many super-high scorers as there are low-scorers. Everyone else is in the middle, along a predictably flat line.



First you have to realize that the events that take place within the individual leagues constitute the events that take place in the overall event. If someone enters a league and just dies, and they’re taking 1’s and 2’s in every category, then someone’s team in that league is going to be inflated. That inflation is not going to be occurring in the balanced leagues, meaning that teams that are in leagues that have dead-beat or non-skilled players have a better chance of winning.



Point 1: An outlying bad team will have the effect of creating an outlying good team.



Point 2: Skewed league standings will skew the overall standings.



Point 3: Since Points 1 and 2 are true, then what happens in other leagues has as much effect on you in the overall standings as does events in your own league.



There are countless ways that this relationship can be exploited by any group. You could be in one league competing for first place overall while your partner is in another league competing against the team that is in second place overall. A crucial player comes available that the second place team needs, and your buddy goes and snatches him up for you since you are in a different league. That’s just one way.



I’m sure that as the NFBC grows and the U.S. economy gets worse, there will be people out there trying to exploit it. This is the U.S. and we are all either capitalists or entrepreneurs.



I believe that the integrity of the game can survive only if you make ownership of a team in the NFBC a sole-proprietorship or partnership where both names are shown on the title. I don’t believe that players should be allowed sponsors and I don’t believe that any entity should have multiple stakes in the game. To me, the NFBC is like the Hall of Fame for Fantasy Baseball. This is where you go to show that you are the best out there, not what fantasy-touting website has the best stuff.



I think that mentality would be better for the industry as well. If the players were able to compete on their own abilities, then the cream would naturally rise to the top. The customers will have an objective place where they can go to and see whose advice is really good advice. This is what I bought into when I first joined the NFBC and why I keep coming back. I have always seen this as the Hall of Integrity. In the past I was jaded and I believed that everyone competed for the competition, but like Gekko pointed out there are a lot of people here just to make money.



You can’t separate reality from the game. Many people seek the monetary reward just as much as they want to stand up and say they’re the best.



Make the NFBC the home for competition, not for making a buck. Let NBC worry about the money.