![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif)
This could be one of our most challenging seasons when it comes to placing the guarantees because there are so many uncertainties with these state DFS bills. Let's start with New York, which is asking all current pay-to-play fantasy game operators to apply for a temporary license by Nov. 15, 2016. At that time the state has 90 days to decide whether to grant a license or not. And if a license is granted, it's possible that taxes of up to 15.5% of net revenue could be assessed to us. How we deal with those additional fees is another layer we must deal with before the 2017 season.
States like Virginia (exempt), Indiana, Texas, Tennessee and Missouri are also to be dealt with before the start of the season. All of those states have lumped season-long games with DFS and we must work with each to see what they expect from us to allow their state residents to play in the NFBC going forward.
We'll have to deal with all of that over the next few months, but right now I'm looking for feedback on two of our national contests. I have a separate thread for feedback on the NFBC Cutline Championship in 2017. This thread involves the Rotowire Online Championship, so let's get started:
Rotowire Online Championship: This year we were able to grow the grand prize to $100,000 by adding in a live component to our online format. We added 15 leagues (180 teams) in the Rotowire Online Championship Plus to give us a total of 1,632 teams in this contest. Even though we fell short of our goal of 1,776 teams, the format allowed us to grow the grand prize and to award the biggest league prizes in the NFBC's history for a 12-team national event. The league champs in the 7 $750 OC Plus leagues will earn $4,000, while the 8 league champs in the $1500 OC Plus will earn $9,000.
There was some concern that it would be tough to win the overall title from these higher-priced leagues because the competition is more intense. That has proven to be the case, but one $750 OC Plus team is 13th overall and three $1500 OC Plus teams are in the Top 50, with the highest being 30th overall. Five percent of the teams in this competition came from the $750 OC Plus and 7 of the Top 100 teams are from this format, while 6% of all teams in this competition came from the $1500 OC Plus and 8 of the Top 100 teams are from this format.
So the decision is to:
1. Continue with the OC Plus as part of this contest and keep the grand prize at $100,000, or
2. Go back to just the $350 Online Championship leagues and go back to the $80,000 grand prize. If we did this, we might offer the 12-team leagues as just private leagues, but we'd have to see about that.
I have feelings both ways for this contest, but let's hear from you first. Thoughts?