Live Chat For Wednesday Starts Now

King of Queens · Post by **King of Queens** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:37 am

I believe the $25,000 in 2nd, 3rd and 4th place money is needed to cover costs. Nevada, if you're concerned about the dropoff from $100,000 to memorabilia, ask yourself what would be better: $100,000 for 1st and prizes for 2nd, or $50,000 for 1st and $25,000 for 2nd?

First priority is the $100,000 overall prize. Always has been, always will.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:41 am

That's absolutely right. We could drop the grand prize total, but we don't want to. Trust me, we're not trying to be cheap, but if anyone can get 30 more signups over the last 4 days this could be a mute point. Again, we're still shooting for that as we know how some people wait and I have plenty of phone calls to make after this chat session, but the contingency plan to cut the dollar total for three payout positions is being proposed and we want the input of the NFBC family on this. We're all in this together and today is an important day.

Gordon Gekko · Post by **Gordon Gekko** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:41 am

As much as I'd like to see the GP at $100,000, the dropoff to second and third place is too steep. There will be one very happy person, and lots of unhappy people.

I'd suggest...

Overall champ $90,000

2nd overall $10,000

3rd overall $5,000

4th overall $2,500 + free entry into 2005 NFBC

You can't assume that the top 4 overall owners would have won their respective leagues.

FresnoFanatics · Post by **FresnoFanatics** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:42 am

I agree with KoQ. The one problem I still have is with the Sunday Monday timing Greg I can understand your desire to use CT but I still think MT makes a better use of all time zones 1 for Pac and Cent and 2 for EC. Afterall all those smart ones on the east should be able to subtract 2 from the number....more importantly the times u have chosen still are unfair to West Coast as cent time will have until 11 on monday east until 12 and west has to have it done by 9 in the morning meaning in all liklihood sunday night....can this not be revisited?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:43 am

It's a pity you and Lenny couldn't do the deal.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:43 am

I believe everyone is shooting for the $5,000 league prize and the goal of winning the $100,000 grand prize. We are keeping that in place. Please remember that. And again, your odds of winning the overall grand prize are greater now than when you first entered expecting 300 teams. So we're giving a little here and getting back a little there. At least that's how I hope everyone is looking at it. And in the end, we'll make the numbers manageable here and build our base beyond 200 teams next year.

FresnoFanatics · Post by **FresnoFanatics** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:45 am

or add 2 actually, see we west coast need time help lams

Racktors · Post by **Racktors** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:47 am

When you talk about the three auction leagues, one of them is the NL auction league in Vegas?

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:48 am

Don't worry about the lineup changes yet on Mondays. We'll work that out. Our original goal was one hour before the first game of Monday and there are three early games of the season. So I think we'll make this work for everyone, even those of you on the East Coast.

viper · Post by **viper** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:49 am

Just catching up on posts. I agree that most are going for the league prizes with hopes for the $100K. If you win your league, you make money and should be right in the running for the BIG money.

rmurph3 · Post by **rmurph3** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:49 am

Greg,

Appreciate your being open an honest about your plan. I think your approach here is the right one, in taking a hard look at the 2nd-3rd-4th place prizes.

Some passing thoughts on how to close the gap on these prizes: instead of a free entry next year, how about a pair of entries for the auction/draft doubleheader (that so many people seem to be pulling this year)? Or a free entry into all of your events (incl. football, baseball auction, NFBC) for the next year? How about a free trip to Vegas to defend their "titles" next year?

Nevadaman · Post by **Nevadaman** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:49 am

KOQ: The math in your post is a bit strange. Of course I would prefer $100,000 over $75,000! You probably meant to say $75K and $25K. No one is arguing that the $100K isn't the highest priority. I just hope that Greg's bosses understand how great a job he's done and what a potential gold mine they have for the future. There are hundreds of thousands of roto baseball players that are unaware of this event. A certain percentage of those players would enter this contest if they knew about it. Considering that this is the first year of the contest, I think the turnout is incredible. If we could get some significant media coverage, the number of entries will skyrocket next year. Why can't we have over 1000 entries? I think all that is needed is more exposure.

FresnoFanatics · Post by **FresnoFanatics** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:50 am

That was what I was hoping would happen make a change for the 3 early games and then have a different time for the rest of the year to not penalize the west coast (not east Greg) thanks for the answer

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:50 am

Sometimes in life even friends can't make business deals. Nobody wanted to work together more than me and it just didn't work out. Now we'll both finish below our expectations. But that happens sometimes in life.

Gordon Gekko · Post by **Gordon Gekko** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:50 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

I believe everyone is shooting for the $5,000 league prize and the goal of winning the $100,000 grand prize. We are keeping that in place. I have a feeling there will be some very unhappy people.

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

At least that's how I hope everyone is looking at it. Again, the dropoff from 1st to 2nd is too steep.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:51 am

Three Auction Leagues are AL and NL in Las Vegas and AL in New York.

I must go pick up some little ones from school. Keep the post going and I'll chime in later. Thanks guys.

rotatorcff · Post by **rotatorcff** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:52 am

I think it would be a tough deal to finish 2nd or 3rd overall and come away with less than a 2nd place league finish. Obviously there are financial issues in play and I want to be mindful of those.

I'm thinking of some type of hybrid for 2-4 involving perhaps some combination of cash, memorabilia and free entry for next year. I just think that's too good an overall result to go unrewarded.

If it was me, I would be selling the wonderful positive publicity Krause Publishing is receiving/will receive as a result of this event. Of course, the value of that publicity is difficult to quantify thus making it a tougher sell.

This event has been handled in a first class manner all the way ... I'm confident that the resolution to this matter will be the same.

FresnoFanatics · Post by **FresnoFanatics** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:56 am

I mean they could adopt the ESPN prize rules for league and give nothing to 2nd and 3rd in league and use all that money to payout to 2 through 4 in overall, but under this scenario I think there would be more unhappy cmapers than Gordons with changing the overall. I mean you would have 22 that could complain versus 3 let the three eat cake I say and live with it...

SoonerC · Post by **SoonerC** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:59 am

The fact that Greg is here everyday and genuinely asking for our input is pretty much unprecedented and and bodes well for the future of this event. It would have been so easy to just put in a disclaimer about reduced prizes without any debate. I feel confident that this is the only year that this will be an issue as word gets out for next year. Just my opinion Greg, but I would be in favor of reducing the league prizes $500 a pop or so in order to keep the value in finishing 2nd and 3rd overall. I hate to agree with Gekko, but the drop from 1st to 2nd would just be too steep.

Nevadaman · Post by **Nevadaman** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 9:03 am

Sooner is right. How about changing 2nd place in league to a free team for next year? That would save $500/league and help the cashflow somewhat by not actually paying out the prize until next year.

Gordon Gekko · Post by **Gordon Gekko** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 9:17 am

Originally posted by Nevadaman:

Sooner is right. How about changing 2nd place in league to a free team for next year? That would save $500/league and help the cashflow somewhat by not actually paying out the prize until next year. People don't play for a free entry. People want $$$$. I have a feeling that a lot of posters on this thread haven't played in a high stakes event before.

1) Reduce the 3rd place league prize to below the tax cutoff

2) Reduce the GP to $90,000

3) Up the $$$ 2nd and 3rd overall prizes from proposed levels

nnoy · Post by **nnoy** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 9:22 am

There can be only one! Sure it would REALLY suck to finish second, especially if you were in the hunt on the last day of the season and you watched the closer blow your SP’s win or something. But think of the parallels to the real world and sports for that matter. Either you win or you don’t. If you bet a horse to win and it loses by a nose, you get $0. We aren’t playing for place or show here.

The fact that you get $5K for winning your league should be enough if you are not the ultimate survivor of this thing. Plus look at the math: $165x1250= $206,250. Take the 100K and add the $82,500 they currently plan to pay the top-3 in each league, add in marketing expenses (ignore G&A) and they likely take a bath (plus add Greg’s Vegas expense account and I’m sure Krause gets buried.)

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 9:26 am

My feeling is that everyone agrees that finishing second in a 15-team league is worth more than a free team for 2005. Finishing 1-2 in any 15-team league is very, very tough, especially in this type of competition. I'm surprised there are more people concerned about second overall than second in their own league, but I'll take that into consideration. I have fought for the league prizes as much as the $100,000 grand prize and am actually surprised by some of the posts here. Again, we're trying to protect 22 "winners" and affecting two overall spots (three if you count the fourth place prize). That's what we'll have to decide internally.

Thanks for all the posts. I'll likely be back online tonight and will continue to monitor the boards while doing everything I can to recruit more signups. There are so many unregistered people on the Message Boards that I assume the fence sitters will still come out and play.

Leaderboard Sports · Post by **Leaderboard Sports** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 9:27 am

Ok here's my take on the prize money package.

Change 2nd and 3rd place league finishes to free 2005 entries and take the second and third place league cash and pay $15,000 to second and $10,000 for third. Don't pay fourth place anything.

You increase the value of the third place league finish but you hedge the payout to 2005 when the event will most likely have a large increase in entries and can better absorb the hit. You won't have to payout as much cash this year (make your boss happy), league 2nd and 3rd finishers feel like they win $1250, and overall 2nd and 3rd get a nice prize.

Nevadaman · Post by **Nevadaman** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 9:47 am

Leaderboard's proposal is on the right track. It incorporates much of what I've said before and retains the integrity of the overall prizes - which are important for the image of the contest. Gekko doesn't seem to understand that some changes must occur in order to keep this contest going. A good way of doing that is to help this year's cash flow by giving free teams instead of money to 2nd place league finishers. (I still think $500 for third makes more sense than a free team which will cost a bit too much in the long run, although it is debatable.)Just doing second place saves $20,000 in cash flow for 2004 and is fairly invisible. That might be enough to take the heat off Greg and satisfy his bosses. That makes sense to me. If we can just get through this year, I think next year will explode.