600 Online Championship Teams
Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2009 2:41 pm
Tonight, we hit 300 teams for the debut NFBC Online Championship, an incredible response that I'll admit was unexpected. I had a feeling that we could grow our NFBC customer base by offering a solid, 12-team league format online with a fair overall grand prize, but I was unsure of the demand when I first set our guaranteed grand prize. In fact, I was a little nervous about guaranteeing $30,000+ in prizes.
Maybe only Shawn Childs saw this coming, but we are now at our overall guaranteed level and we need to go above 300 teams to fill each league perfectly with 12 teams each. Our rules state that we can go up to 600 teams while continuing to pay out 80 percent of all additional revenues and we will do that for each additional league we add.
In the last seven days, we've added almost 100 teams, so honestly I'm not sure where we're going to land. I don't want this to get too big, but I've already met with our entire sports staff and we will ramp up the staffing for those eight days to make sure we have enough administrators for each league on each night. Tom and I will work all eight nights, but we'll have the help of MDC.com and additional staffers to make sure these run very smoothly.
So here's how the prize breakdown will work for each additional league. League prizes will remain $1,300 for first place and $650 for second place. Since each league brings in $4,200, 80% of that is $3,360. Since $1,950 goes to league prizes, that leaves us with $1,410 for the overall prize pool. The prize breakdown will be as follows for each additional league past 300 teams:
League prizes = $1,950
Overall grand prize = $810
Combined Standings = $200 (for main event and online)
Overall 2nd through ? prizes = $400
This is the same breakdown that we currently have based on the first 300 teams. I will play with it slightly to make sure we have the grand prize as a nice round figure, like $25,000 or $27,500 or something once we land at the final figure, but for now you get an idea of what the breakdown will be with every new signup that comes in. Everyone wins.
So the $20,000 grand prize will increase $810 per additional league. If we get 120 more teams -- which is very possible -- the grand prize will be $28,000 instead of $20,000. We'll also be able to increase second through sixth overall and will even extend that to second through 10th or 11th overall. I want to pay more overall finishers and this will allow us to do that. The final figures will come once we know the final number of teams.
Obviously we have to stop the signups at some point once we have full 12-team leagues on certain nights and some of the later drafts are getting pretty full already. So keep an eye on the signup list and don't wait too long if you see a night that works best for you.
We will hit all of the credit cards for the online championship next week sometime, likely the 12th or 13th. This is going to take some time with all of these signups, so I think we may need to start sooner than I had wanted. And we need to make sure everyone is set up on MockDraftCentral.com beforehand. This will be a lot of work, but I have a feeling this will run smoothly.
I'll put a post tomorrow about cuts in this league and how that will work. The 12-team leagues will have lots of good choices in free agency and we will need to monitor the cuts like we do in the 15-team format. You can cut anyone you want, but if we see a major star cut in just one league, we hold the right to freeze that player out of free agency in that league. Again, you can cut anyone you want but we also reserve the right to take him out of free agency.
We'll discuss that tomorrow. And remember, we'll have Combined Standings with the main event and a car of your choice up to $75,000 in value to anyone who can win the overall titles in both the main event and the online championship. Oh, and the highest scoring team will win $5,000 and we'll add second, third, fourth and more prizes going forward as $200 from each additional league will now go towards that prize fund. We win all around.
Thanks again for the incredible participation and good luck all.
[ March 27, 2009, 11:03 AM: Message edited by: Greg Ambrosius ]
Maybe only Shawn Childs saw this coming, but we are now at our overall guaranteed level and we need to go above 300 teams to fill each league perfectly with 12 teams each. Our rules state that we can go up to 600 teams while continuing to pay out 80 percent of all additional revenues and we will do that for each additional league we add.
In the last seven days, we've added almost 100 teams, so honestly I'm not sure where we're going to land. I don't want this to get too big, but I've already met with our entire sports staff and we will ramp up the staffing for those eight days to make sure we have enough administrators for each league on each night. Tom and I will work all eight nights, but we'll have the help of MDC.com and additional staffers to make sure these run very smoothly.
So here's how the prize breakdown will work for each additional league. League prizes will remain $1,300 for first place and $650 for second place. Since each league brings in $4,200, 80% of that is $3,360. Since $1,950 goes to league prizes, that leaves us with $1,410 for the overall prize pool. The prize breakdown will be as follows for each additional league past 300 teams:
League prizes = $1,950
Overall grand prize = $810
Combined Standings = $200 (for main event and online)
Overall 2nd through ? prizes = $400
This is the same breakdown that we currently have based on the first 300 teams. I will play with it slightly to make sure we have the grand prize as a nice round figure, like $25,000 or $27,500 or something once we land at the final figure, but for now you get an idea of what the breakdown will be with every new signup that comes in. Everyone wins.
So the $20,000 grand prize will increase $810 per additional league. If we get 120 more teams -- which is very possible -- the grand prize will be $28,000 instead of $20,000. We'll also be able to increase second through sixth overall and will even extend that to second through 10th or 11th overall. I want to pay more overall finishers and this will allow us to do that. The final figures will come once we know the final number of teams.
Obviously we have to stop the signups at some point once we have full 12-team leagues on certain nights and some of the later drafts are getting pretty full already. So keep an eye on the signup list and don't wait too long if you see a night that works best for you.
We will hit all of the credit cards for the online championship next week sometime, likely the 12th or 13th. This is going to take some time with all of these signups, so I think we may need to start sooner than I had wanted. And we need to make sure everyone is set up on MockDraftCentral.com beforehand. This will be a lot of work, but I have a feeling this will run smoothly.
I'll put a post tomorrow about cuts in this league and how that will work. The 12-team leagues will have lots of good choices in free agency and we will need to monitor the cuts like we do in the 15-team format. You can cut anyone you want, but if we see a major star cut in just one league, we hold the right to freeze that player out of free agency in that league. Again, you can cut anyone you want but we also reserve the right to take him out of free agency.
We'll discuss that tomorrow. And remember, we'll have Combined Standings with the main event and a car of your choice up to $75,000 in value to anyone who can win the overall titles in both the main event and the online championship. Oh, and the highest scoring team will win $5,000 and we'll add second, third, fourth and more prizes going forward as $200 from each additional league will now go towards that prize fund. We win all around.
Thanks again for the incredible participation and good luck all.
[ March 27, 2009, 11:03 AM: Message edited by: Greg Ambrosius ]