Open Chat With Greg, Tom & Darik

[KJ Duke]

Greg, D & T ... great job all-round on the decision process, timely calls and action.

You've removed 1% of the sting of having no baseball for me, rather than adding to it. No easy task given that it's a direct hit to your business and no doubt a worse situation for you guys than us.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Greg, D & T ... great job all-round on the decision process, timely calls and action.

You've removed 1% of the sting of having no baseball for me, rather than adding to it. No easy task given that it's a direct hit to your business and no doubt a worse situation for you guys than us.

I would just like to say thank you for the compliments. Tonight Tom and I are stuck in Manhattan in an empty sports bar across the street from Madison Square Garden with nobody in sight. It feels like the apocalypse now. We are trying to celebrate Tom’s birthday with nobody around us. Sad and lonely. Sad and lonely!!

But the sun will rise again and somehow, someway, we will be drinking with the NFBC community again. Say happy birthday to Tom and let’s hope for better days ahead.

[Bronx Yankees]

Man, that sucks. Tom, try to have a happy birthday. Just know that all of your efforts (all three of you) to try to salvage the live drafts when it looked potentially feasible, and your timely calls when it became impossible, were and are greatly appreciated. If it makes you feel any better, there are many of us anxious to use our new credits drafting online and planning on trekking to rescheduled live events whenever normalcy returns.

[rkulaski]

Greg,

I’m just now seeing this open chat thread... I haven’t read all of the pages so just tell me to read a previous page regarding any of my questions:

1. Will you be adding any satellite leagues or OC leagues closer to the start of the new tentative opening day ??

2. Is there a national contest for the bestball10 leagues? I didn’t see any on the site. Draft.com had a similar format last year with multiple national contests with different entry fees.

3. Is there any cap or limit of teams for the DC contest ? I assume there isn’t and these will continue to fill indefinitely until we get close to the start of the season. Correct ?

[rkulaski]

Greg,

I’m just now seeing this open chat thread... I haven’t read all of the pages so just tell me to read a previous page regarding any of my questions:

1. Will you be adding any satellite leagues or OC leagues closer to the start of the new tentative opening day ??

2. Is there a national contest for the bestball10 leagues? I didn’t see any on the site. Draft.com had a similar format last year with multiple national contests with different entry fees.

3. Is there any cap or limit of teams for the DC contest ? I assume there isn’t and these will continue to fill indefinitely until we get close to the start of the season. Correct ?

[Steel Lugnuts]

I don’t think anyone has any idea when this will be over. Unless this virus is totally eliminated, I mean 100%, isn’t there a strong likelihood it stays around for a while?

The virus isn't going away, it is part of the world now just like other flu viruses. If the country waits until it is 100% eradicated we will all be dead from starvation.

Likewise, if the economy shuts down until there is a vaccine - maybe next flu season - more people could die from the economic fallout than the virus. The worst in terms of transmission risk is likely to be over the next month or so - at which point my working assumption is that daily activity begins to normalize. There is a clear cost/benefit curve to shutting down the economy vs infection fallout (this is nowhere near the SARS/Ebola level of medical threat), and that will begin to shift quickly as we get thru flu season.

Maybe I'm crazy but I think in reality there's tens of millions of people that have this around the World and the death rate is in reality like 0.1%. Once they realize that they'll just decide to reopen everything and live with it like the flu.

Yeah, you're crazy! Seeing that there is no vaccine or coronavirus flu shot available, you can't treat this like the flu!

[Edwards Kings]

We are not adjusting the Main Event at this point, even though we don't know how many people will stay in it or how many people will add to them. I think we have 535 entries now and so our hope is that there's still time to make this work.

Greg, I am in. Whenever baseball starts games, I will go anywhere you/we can arrange to meet if we have live options. Main Event and Auction.

Not scared of this thing, not grossly over-reacting, not hiding in a bunker, not fighting people over toilet paper and hand sanitizer. I just want baseball and I want the NFBC. Don't want to break my streak of mediocrity I started in 2004.

Happy birthday Tom!

[Philippe27]

The virus isn't going away, it is part of the world now just like other flu viruses. If the country waits until it is 100% eradicated we will all be dead from starvation.

Likewise, if the economy shuts down until there is a vaccine - maybe next flu season - more people could die from the economic fallout than the virus. The worst in terms of transmission risk is likely to be over the next month or so - at which point my working assumption is that daily activity begins to normalize. There is a clear cost/benefit curve to shutting down the economy vs infection fallout (this is nowhere near the SARS/Ebola level of medical threat), and that will begin to shift quickly as we get thru flu season.

Maybe I'm crazy but I think in reality there's tens of millions of people that have this around the World and the death rate is in reality like 0.1%. Once they realize that they'll just decide to reopen everything and live with it like the flu.

Yeah, you're crazy! Seeing that there is no vaccine or coronavirus flu shot available, you can't treat this like the flu!

Haha maybe, it's just a random thought I had since I can't think about baseball anymore. My point was just that if the virus has been around for 3 months and it's as contageous as they say then more people than we think have had it with maybe little to no symptoms.

The other option is that it's quite deadly but not nearly as contageous as we think so with all the measures being taken, in a month or two it'll be gone.

I just hope either of those scenarios are right because I need some baseball

[bjoak]

What is the easiest way to remove my team from an upcoming league/draft?

[Steel Lugnuts]

Maybe I'm crazy but I think in reality there's tens of millions of people that have this around the World and the death rate is in reality like 0.1%. Once they realize that they'll just decide to reopen everything and live with it like the flu.

Yeah, you're crazy! Seeing that there is no vaccine or coronavirus flu shot available, you can't treat this like the flu!

Haha maybe, it's just a random thought I had since I can't think about baseball anymore. My point was just that if the virus has been around for 3 months and it's as contageous as they say then more people than we think have had it with maybe little to no symptoms.

The other option is that it's quite deadly but not nearly as contageous as we think so with all the measures being taken, in a month or two it'll be gone.

I just hope either of those scenarios are right because I need some baseball

Hey, I'm with ya...I just drafted the best Cut-Line team, do I get the $75,000 if the games don't go on? lol

[Greg Ambrosius]

What is the easiest way to remove my team from an upcoming league/draft?

Brian, you can change any upcoming draft as long as it isn't full this way (and everyone will need to learn this soon):

Go to My Teams
To the left of that team link is a gear icon. Click on it.
Pull down to whatever date and time you want or to TBD or anything else
Save

Done.

[Greg Ambrosius]

I originally started this thread as an open forum for our customers to ask any question or discuss any topic with me, Tom and Darik. I was hoping we'd have all kinds of baseball talk or even contest talk, but the participation was less than expected.

But it's been helpful these last three days as we've tried to make live event and contest announcements here, while allowing you to comment or ask questions. So we'll keep this thread for that.

We can use it for announcements, but now that I'm back from New York City and now that I'm in the office since my family doesn't trust me to be completely healthy, I think I'm going to use this thread as a psychologist's couch. If you don't mind, I'll lie down here and give you my thoughts on this last week. Don't charge me for this visit. Instead -- as I know it's coming whether I like it or not -- feel free to give me your advice. Enjoy shortly.

[rkulaski]

Greg,

I’m just now seeing this open chat thread... I haven’t read all of the pages so just tell me to read a previous page regarding any of my questions:

1. Will you be adding any satellite leagues or OC leagues closer to the start of the new tentative opening day ??

2. Is there a national contest for the bestball10 leagues? I didn’t see any on the site. Draft.com had a similar format last year with multiple national contests with different entry fees.

3. Is there any cap or limit of teams for the DC contest ? I assume there isn’t and these will continue to fill indefinitely until we get close to the start of the season. Correct ?

Also, I know Main events are on hold. Are the satellite leagues also on hold as of now or do we need to be prepared to draft ??????

[bjoak]

What is the easiest way to remove my team from an upcoming league/draft?

Brian, you can change any upcoming draft as long as it isn't full this way (and everyone will need to learn this soon):

Go to My Teams
To the left of that team link is a gear icon. Click on it.
Pull down to whatever date and time you want or to TBD or anything else
Save

Done.

I'm so confused. I clicked on the gear icon. The only place I see anything about the date or time is hard-coded at the top of the page where it has the league listed above my account number. The word delete is on the bottom of the page but that is also not anything I can press.

[bjoak]

Ugh, I see it is because the one league is full though the KDS hasn't run yet.run yet. So, really, I am stuck there now? I joined with the understanding that the season would begin right after that.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Here's my story:

The roller coaster of this last week was unlike anything I've ever seen. Last Friday I actually broke down and went to see a specialist because I once again hurt my shoulder playing basketball. As expected, I had a torn labrum, but I'm too old to fix it, so we agreed to play through the pain and look at shoulder replacement down the road (I just humored him; no way in hell am I doing that). But before seeing the doctor, they had to get my vitals and she was surprised by how high my blood pressure was. I was surprised too because I've never had high blood pressure before, but I knew what it was from: This job.

Still, everything was coming together nicely and it was looking like all live event leagues were going to fill perfectly and we were going to have 5 full Main Event leagues in New York City and 12 leagues overall. That's a good year for the Big Apple. The hotel was accommodating, we had table tents and work sheets ready to go by Tuesday and all of this hard work was paying off. Las Vegas was set for 32-33 live leagues and when we sold out both the Ultimate Auction and the Diamond Auction on Tuesday I went home and made myself a nice strong, tall celebratory old fashioned!!

Then of course a few hours later we had a tech hiccup that affected multiple online drafts. We found the source of the problem and fixed it for good, but after 100+ days and nights of very smooth drafts we had a tech hiccup that pissed me off to no end. Tout Wars then cancels their live auctions in New York City and a flood of industry writers cancel their trips and will be drafting online rather than live. After no sleep, Wednesday comes and there's more bad news about coronavirus and NFBC owners saying they won't be coming live as well. I work all day to get headcounts on who will be live and who will be on the phone with me during New York auctions and it looks like we have a chance to maintain all 5 Auction Championship leagues.

Now comes the fun part: I get home late after not eating most of the day and feel like everything is done and ready to go for the First Weekend live events. Not a peep from Chicago owners, so I think we're good there. This is the God's truth: Since I hadn't slept much in the last week, I decided to take a sleeping pill before going to bed (I never take pills) so that I could get 8 hours of sleep before getting up at 5:30 am. I decide to just catch up on Twitter before falling asleep and I see something about the Utah Jazz game being cancelled. I read a little more and see how they stopped the game and why: Rudy Gobert has tested positive for coronavirus.

Now I feel the sleeping pill kicking in and I next see that the NBA has suspended the season. I Slack Tom and Darik that and say something unprintable here before shutting off my phone and getting 8 hours of sleep, like I had planned.

I knew when I woke up on Thursday morning everything would change. I picked up Tom and we had a 2 hour drive together to the Milwaukee airport. We listened to ESPN Radio and there was talk of the NCAA Tournament possibly being cancelled, and of all conference tournaments being cancelled (except the Big East Tournament, which was being played at Madison Square Garden, across the street from the Stewart Hotel). It gets more dire the closer we get to Milwaukee and we both agree we have to make a strong and quick decision. I call up my boss and I say all 5 New York Auction Championship leagues and the Chicago Auction Championship league has to be cancelled. He agrees. They call us to board our flight, but on my phone I whipped up a post that would be sent out immediately in an NFBC newsletter and then hop on the plane.

I get WiFi on the plane and try to stay on top of everything. Now the news is getting worse and I wonder if even the drafts can be saved for First Weekend. Not only that, but NOBODY is on our plane to LaGuardia. If you flew after 9/11, you know this feeling. It was scary. We get to the Stewart Hotel and the Big East had just cancelled the first game at halftime of the Creighton game. The Stewart Hotel is the host hotel for Creighton alumni and everyone is checking out and changing flights. We ask to meet with our salesperson about our contract that has room rental, and food & beverage minimums. She immediately says they will let us out of the contract and asks us to make sure nobody comes there. It's not safe for folks and to call everything off. She basically made our decision for us. I call the Sheraton Northbrook in Chicago and tell them our news and they totally understand and say they will work with us as well to get out of the contract.

With that, another newsletter was put together and another announcement that all First Weekend live events and Online Mains were cancelled. We then cancelled the first Solo Shot Online league for that night because we could see that there would be a delay to the start of the MLB season, even though Major League Baseball struggled to admit that.

Later that night, I call Park MGM to let them know that things are changing. They were NOT receptive to any change in the contract. I won't try to explain the exchange after that, but I was not pleased. She called back later that night to say they might be more flexible. The NCAA Tournament was being cancelled and they could feel all the cancellations. We finalized some things the next morning and then quickly cancelled all Las Vegas live events. It was important for us to get the word out quickly so everyone could cancel their trips and hotels. The good news is that it sounds like everyone has been able to adjust their travel plans and now we just await what is next with the baseball season, with our country, with our world.

I must acknowledge Anthony Palavis and Eric Burd because they unfortunately still flew from West Virginia and Tampa, respectively, before they got the word from us. They saw Tom and I at Mustang Harry's on Thursday Night and we did an elbow bump. They totally understood but wanted to get to New York City early and have some fun with all the guys. I wish they could have cancelled their flights and I'll make it up to them someday.

We tried to be as quick as possible with our decisions and we spent most of yesterday working through our hotel contracts, changing our flights, cancelling hotel rooms, having discussions with management, etc. At this point, I'm wiped out and honestly a little tired of all the speculation about what comes next. If you were in Ground Zero like we were last night -- where Manhattan was a ghost town and there were about 7 patrons in Mustang Harry's last night (a two-floor sports bar across the street from Madison Square Garden) -- you'd know how I feel. I feel like people are so scared they are ready to hide for months if that's what it takes to survive. So to talk about 162 games, or no we need 144, or no refunds on anything less than 161 is pure guessing game. We have no idea what is going to happen IN THE NEXT HOUR.

And Major League Baseball has been radio silent. I know they said they are pausing for two weeks, but c'mon. The Masters starts after that and they postponed. If the NCAA thought they could play on April 15th they would have postponed the tournament, not cancelled it. C'mon Rob Manfred, give us some direction on what happens if the season starts May 1st or later, which is likely.

Okay, I'm done laying down for now. I got too riled up and am standing up. They're taking my blood pressure again and it's not good. Seven hard months of work and preparation by us and all of you is now laying in the unknown next to me. I love that some guys still want to draft to stay sharp, to stay ready, to still believe we're having a full season. I hope for that too and I'll watch some of these drafts soon. But for now I'm going to try to not touch anyone in my family for 5 days, try to forget the nightmare that has been this past week and hope everyone in the world can survive this coronavirus. Let's do that first and then we'll hopefully get to the upcoming baseball season.

I see polarization coming in this community already, but I guarantee I'm going to continue to make fast, hard decisions and communicate with all of you the best I can. Once I have more facts, I can do that. Until then, stay safe and please keep your blood pressure down.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Ugh, I see it is because the one league is full though the KDS hasn't run yet.run yet. So, really, I am stuck there now? I joined with the understanding that the season would begin right after that.

Brian, you can email any of us and we'll look into this one. The Message Boards is for ranting. Try me at [email protected] or Darik at [email protected]. I don't know what contest you're talking about, but we'll look into it and change you if it's possible.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Greg,

I’m just now seeing this open chat thread... I haven’t read all of the pages so just tell me to read a previous page regarding any of my questions:

1. Will you be adding any satellite leagues or OC leagues closer to the start of the new tentative opening day ??

2. Is there a national contest for the bestball10 leagues? I didn’t see any on the site. Draft.com had a similar format last year with multiple national contests with different entry fees.

3. Is there any cap or limit of teams for the DC contest ? I assume there isn’t and these will continue to fill indefinitely until we get close to the start of the season. Correct ?

Rich,

1. Yes. We only have scheduled drafts through March 26th, but we hope to add more soon. Again, I just got back from New York City and we have no f---ing idea when Major League Baseball is going to start, so please bare with us. My goal is to fill up the last two weeks before whenever the new/projected Opening Day is for Main Event leagues, Solo Shot leagues, Supers, Ultimates, Diamonds, a Platinum maybe, and the rest. It's going to be an insane time to try and get everyone into the dates and times they want, but we'll try. A lot is ahead of us. And if we have enough leeway, maybe (I say maybe) we can see if somehow we could host something live. No idea on hotel availability, flights, facilitators, us being available or anything else, but if this starts to turn for the better and concrete plans can be made on the season soon we'll discuss.

2. Yes: bestball10s.com. We created a Best Ball10s BestBowl Championship: The Pre-Draft $50,000 BestBowl Championship. $10 to enter with a chance to win the $20,000 grand prize. We'll only include drafts between February and April 25th, the day of the NFL draft. We'll then create a second national contest with another bigger prize pool from April 26-July 15 and then a third national contest from July 16-Sept. 12. Enjoy.
https://bestball10s.shgn.com/rules_new/622

3. Legally we have to announce a max team limit so that everyone knows their odds of winning. Prizes are budgeted on 3,600 teams, but we had a max listed of 4,500 teams. We are going to have to look at this and make a decision now that there are many more drafting days than we expected. If everyone would agree to a higher grand prize and more overall prizes we can raise them, but only if everyone agreed to that. If not, we have to cut it off at 4,500 teams and we'll increase 2nd on down in the overall prize pool. If we approach that number, I will contact everyone via email.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Greg,

Also, I know Main events are on hold. Are the satellite leagues also on hold as of now or do we need to be prepared to draft ??????

If your satellite league isn't filled yet, just move the draft date to TBD or another later date. If it's filled shoot us an email and we'll see what we can do with that full league. We totally understand that leagues people entered that looked like the last ones of the season (like the Thursday, March 26th 9 am Online Championship league) likely need to be cancelled and entries put as TBD. If you have a certain satellite league that fits that bill email me or Darik and we will look.

We probably haven't looked at those down the line yet because we needed to make sure all Auction Championship leagues got cancelled and refunded first, and all Mains and Solo Shots and private high-dollar leagues all got put to TBD. We did all of that yesterday and then flew home today. But we'll try to take a look soon at those.

[rkulaski]

Thanks for the response, Greg and keeping us all informed.

Online Satellite leagues will draft as scheduled correct ??



With the season on hold, I have no idea how much this impacts you guys financially, but I really do hope that, not only for those of us that love fantasy baseball, but also for the you and the rest of your crew that the season and drafts resume quickly .

[Greg Ambrosius]

Thanks for the response, Greg and keeping us all informed.

Online Satellite leagues will draft as scheduled correct ??



With the season on hold, I have no idea how much this impacts you guys financially, but I really do hope that, not only for those of us that love fantasy baseball, but also for the you and the rest of your crew that the season and drafts resume quickly .

If it's a full league it will draft as scheduled. Let us know ASAP if that wasn't the intention and we'll see what we can do, but again if you're not in a full league and want to draft closer to the start of the new season then move that signup yourself on your My Teams page. Good luck all.

We all do Rich. We all want the season to resume quickly. I think this next week is very, very, very, very important for our country.

[Chthroop]

Maybe I'm crazy but I think in reality there's tens of millions of people that have this around the World and the death rate is in reality like 0.1%. Once they realize that they'll just decide to reopen everything and live with it like the flu.

Yeah, you're crazy! Seeing that there is no vaccine or coronavirus flu shot available, you can't treat this like the flu!

Haha maybe, it's just a random thought I had since I can't think about baseball anymore. My point was just that if the virus has been around for 3 months and it's as contageous as they say then more people than we think have had it with maybe little to no symptoms.

The other option is that it's quite deadly but not nearly as contageous as we think so with all the measures being taken, in a month or two it'll be gone.

I just hope either of those scenarios are right because I need some baseball

Philippe, sadly, I would love see any of those situations happen, unfortunately the facts so far don't align...

People keep quoting the .1% Flu number. So far, Corona is ~3%. People say, "well many people had, but not reported". What, do you think the Flu is 100% accurately reported? If this was the same as the flu, we wouldn't have overloaded hospitals. Sadly, this looks far more deadly to us older folks than the flu. That is the issue - the flu just doesn't have mortality rates in the 10-30% range for older age groups+we have vaccines. Thank god for kids that they don't seem to have any issues at all, but the flip side of that is they can easily become transmission vectors.

I think Greg and Tom have done amazingly. While I wanted to draft no matter what (I was going in to clorox wipes and mask! per my wife's rules), they made the right call and are doing everything right. This is huge shock to their business and they are handling everyone questions/concerns with class.

Personally, I believe that the start is going to be longer than April 9th - I expect the shut down of NYC and most major cities next week (like Italy and France, Spain and Austria are either starting to do or have done). I really hope that we as a country setup and just go to lockdown quickly. If we try and do staggered shutdowns it will just keep popping back up..

Belated happy birthday tom!!! Sorry you had such a tough day in NYC on your birthday. Drinks on me next time we connect

Regards, and please stay safe everyone...

Regards,
Chris

[Greg Ambrosius]

I don't want anyone to post on our Official NFBC Statement thread, so I'll post my last response to that thread here. I don't need anyone to post on this subject here anyway, but if you do have to respond it's okay to respond here. Responses are okay here, just not on the other thread:


LAS VEGAS ALERT: So I heard second-hand this morning that Park MGM cancelled everyone's rooms who had booked through the NFBC room block. I did not ask them do to that and they did not email me or any of the people who had booked rooms through our room block that they were doing that, but apparently that is what happened.

Now, on the one hand that is a good thing. I spent 30 minutes yesterday afternoon on hold before getting a live reservation host and when I asked her to cancel my rooms she said that was already done. I then asked her to cancel Mike Ambrosius's room and it was already done. Then I asked her to cancel Brady Tinker's room and it was already done. I should have put 2 and 2 together then, but I didn't and the host didn't know who had cancelled those three reservations.

I then got an email from an NFBC customer last night and he said he had spent 2+ hours on the phone with Park MGM and once he got through to an operator and asked to cancel his reservation it had already been cancelled. He wondered if I had done that or if I had known that, which of course I said no. He did not get an email about this cancellation from Park MGM and obviously he didn't get one from me, so he just spent 2+ hours of his time for nothing.

I can't guarantee that your hotel reservation was cancelled in the same way, but my contact said late last night that she did this after I cancelled the live events. She never told me she was going to do that and I have no idea if all 315 room nights she cancelled includes yours. The communication about this has been half ass at best and that's giving half more credit than it deserves.

I won't even tell you where we are at for the negotiations of the guaranteed rooms, and food & beverage in my contract. Let's just say politely that Park MGM is NOT doing what the Stewart Hotel or Northbrook Sheraton did for us. They are holding strong with the terms of the contract, which is just bullshit. So I have my work cut out for me here, so please bare with me. My blood pressure over how Park MGM is handling this is higher than ever before. You may have gotten out of your room reservation -- as did I and our staff -- but I'm not getting out of the guarantee I promised for all of you. Hopefully, common sense prevails in Las Vegas, but so far it hasn't.

The only reason I'm posting this is to let you know that if you booked under our room block at Park MGM, I'm 99% sure your reservation has been cancelled. If you booked outside of our room block it likely still needs to be cancelled by you. Park MGM still wants me to reschedule for baseball and even come there for football, but it's obvious the person I am dealing with has no comprehension of the stakes we're all facing not only today but going forward. I hate to say a commission is involved here and I won't say that, but if I ever do return here this situation is going to have to be resolved beyond where we are today. Stay tuned and sorry that you weren't notified of your room cancellations at Park MGM. That was not on me.

[Roy's Outlaws]

Greg, Agreed we are all in a holding pattern . you can her 100 different thing or idea how this is going to play out . But Nobody know what is coming next. Just have to ride it out and wait for Definitive answers to when MLB game are going to begin,then plan from there(hopefully not to long). I think it safe to say that the GUILLOTINE CONTEST has had it head cut off.(couldn't resist). now going to watch only live sport on today FS1 sports...BOWLING

[Greg Ambrosius]

Greg, Agreed we are all in a holding pattern . you can her 100 different thing or idea how this is going to play out . But Nobody know what is coming next. Just have to ride it out and wait for Definitive answers to when MLB game are going to begin,then plan from there(hopefully not to long). I think it safe to say that the GUILLOTINE CONTEST has had it head cut off.(couldn't resist). now going to watch only live sport on today FS1 sports...BOWLING

We can't say that about the Guillotine or any format yet until we know if the MLB season will return or when the MLB season will return. We have no idea if it will be for 27 weeks or 7 weeks. We don't know if the owners will push the season past October and play part of their schedule in the South at neutral sites into December. We know NOTHING.

So speculating on anything right now, in my opinion, is wasted typing. Same the energy on all your fingertips.

And yes, bowling is a sport. In fact, if they really want to show bowling as a sport they should show Shawn Childs' league bowling live on TV. He has a 200+ average in one league bowling right-handed and a 200+ average in another league bowling left-hand. NOW THAT'S A SPORT!!! AND THAT'S AN ATHLETE!!