NFBC Satellite Auction League Plans

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 3:49 am

As most folks know, we've used FantasyAuctioneer.com for all of our NFBC Satellite Auction Leagues in the past and we've had some success with them. Unfortunately, we also have had some folks who struggled on the site and thus we've limited our offerings this year because these auctions take a lot of manpower to run.

In the last month, FantasyAuctioneer.com was sold to RotoExperts.com and we've been told that the site is being completely retooled and will debut before the 2009 football season. FA.com will not have a baseball product this spring.

That means that we either will be unable to run online satellite auction leagues this year or we'll have to find another option. Fortunately, CBS Sportsline.com is unveiling a new online auction league product under its Commissioner.com label and we could easily run these auctions on that site. I am actually in an AL-only auction league tomorrow and will be able to test out the site. From the early looks of it, the site is VERY sweet and could open up a new avenue of business for auction leagues, but let's see if there are any bugs in the system.

Give us a week or so to figure this all out, but it's very possible that we can still run the two NFBC Satellite Auction Leagues that we have planned now on CBS Sportsline.com and make this work. We are unsure, however, if we can transfer the results to the NFBC site or it these leagues would have to be run on the CBS Sportsline.com site. It's possible it's the latter, just for these satellite auction leagues.

I'll have more info after tomorrow's auction league, so stay tuned, but honestly this is pretty exciting for the industry. And if you haven't heard already, I believe that ESPN.com will be unveiling an auction league product in the next week or so, too. It's all good news for auction lovers.

jim.s · Post by **jim.s** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 4:40 am

First, I very much hope you can run the auction leagues.

I played in an auction league on CBS last year. The auction software worked great, as long as you set the rules to correspond exactly to the software (our rules were for 23 round auction followed by snake for bench where needed a legal roster after 23, but software was set for 30 rounds -- we should have changed rules to simply do 30 round auction).

Can CBS handled FA bidding? If not, how would you handle that?

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 5:16 am

CBS has FAAB set up for their football and basketball leagues, so I'm assuming it's part of their baseball leagues as well. I don't expect that to be a problem.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 5:18 am

Originally posted by jim.s:

First, I very much hope you can run the auction leagues.

I played in an auction league on CBS last year. The auction software worked great, as long as you set the rules to correspond exactly to the software (our rules were for 23 round auction followed by snake for bench where needed a legal roster after 23, but software was set for 30 rounds -- we should have changed rules to simply do 30 round auction).

Can CBS handled FA bidding? If not, how would you handle that? Last year on FantasyAuctioneer.com, we set up each team with $267 for 30 players because it didn't have the serpentine draft feature. I suppose we could go that route again here if that helps. We'll look into that before finalizing this, but I don't see a problem either way with this site and the $1,000 FAAB on CBS is very easy to use.

Chest Rockwell · Post by **Chest Rockwell** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 5:41 am

Greg,

Why would you not convert the team over to the stats platform after the auction? Logging on to 2 different sites, learning a new one just seems like a pain. I am probably in either way, but wanted to bring this up.

Thanks

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 5:44 am

Originally posted by Chest Rockwell:

Greg,

Why would you not convert the team over to the stats platform after the auction? Logging on to 2 different sites, learning a new one just seems like a pain. I am probably in either way, but wanted to bring this up.

Thanks I'll let Greg answer this as well but it may not be possible to do that. STATS wants us to provide all of the players with IDs so they can be entered into their database. That's something MDC works with us on and something FantasyAuctioneer had done as well. It's possible CBSSports won't be able to although we're going to check on that. Plus, if we're paying for each league to be set up on CBSSports.com, it might make more sense to run the league on their site. The rosters would be loaded immediately after the auction and you guys would be all set.

Again, we're looking into all of this so we'll see what we can and can't do on CBSSports before making a final decision.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 7:52 am

Originally posted by Chest Rockwell:

Greg,

Why would you not convert the team over to the stats platform after the auction? Logging on to 2 different sites, learning a new one just seems like a pain. I am probably in either way, but wanted to bring this up.

Thanks If we can transfer the player IDs over to our site, we'll do it. It's not a matter of just typing in new players into our NFBC site as every player has a player ID#. I don't have all of those. When we draft on MockDraftCentral.com, all of those player IDs are automatically transferred to our NFBC site. We're going to check with STATS to find out if we could just as easily do that with Sportsline.com. I'm not sure where they get their stats from, but I'll find out.

If we can transfer, we definitely will. We want these auction leagues on our NFBC site. Now we'll find out if we can do it.

KJ Duke · Post by **KJ Duke** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 7:55 am

NBC auctions, brough to you by CBS!

bluenose · Post by **bluenose** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:09 am

Originally posted by KJ Duke:

NBC auctions, brough to you by CBS!

Nice

Captain Crunch · Post by **Captain Crunch** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 1:32 pm

If you're interested in mapping cbs names and IDs to nfbc names you might find what I posted here worthwhile ... :-þ

poopy tooth · Post by **poopy tooth** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 1:50 pm

Greg, any option is fine with me. One thing to consider - will CBS allow you to create a league if you are a commissioner only? I know in the past, that couldn't be done, you were listed as a team - if that makes sense.

I've played in their leagues before, no complaints from my end.

Cubsfan22 · Post by **Cubsfan22** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 2:17 pm

Greg -

I am on board for whatever you decide.

Jason

jim.s · Post by **jim.s** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 11:12 am

Greg/Tom,

Have you made a decision on the status of these and (hopefully) how they will be run?

poopy tooth · Post by **poopy tooth** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 12:52 pm

how are auctions looking?

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 12:47 am

Originally posted by jim.s:

Greg/Tom,

Have you made a decision on the status of these and (hopefully) how they will be run? Yes, once we fill these up Tom will try to set these up on CBS Sportsline.com and get everyone signed up there. Everyone will have to have an account on Sportsline and we'll host the auction league there. We will try to run this on our game site, but I need to talk with STATS to figure out how to transfer the teams over here. But we are going forward with the auctions and I think the Sportsline site will be more than fine for this. I'll have Tom contact everyone with our plans once we fill those satellite auction leagues up.

The Mighty Men · Post by **The Mighty Men** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 3:03 am

The auctions on 3/9 and 3/10 have been filled up for some time.

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 8:37 am

Originally posted by The Mighty Men:

The auctions on 3/9 and 3/10 have been filled up for some time. The March 10th auction has one opening.

I'll set up the March 9th auction league on Sportsline tomorrow. Once I set the league up everyone will receive an email invite to join the league. I'll also send out an email to all of the owners once I have everything set up. So look for the March 9th auction league to be set up tomorrow.

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Thu Feb 26, 2009 4:32 am

Hey everyone, I have created both of the auction leagues on Sportsline and sent out invites. If you have not received one please let me know. Also, the setup on Sportsline only allows for 29 players. So what we'll do is have $266 set up to bid on 29 players. Once everyone has their 29 players selected, we'll have a 1-15 draft to let you add your final player.

Also, you'll see my name listed as an owner. I am not in the league. This was the only way I could set the league up. So just ignore me.

If you have any questions about all of this please let me know. Thanks and good luck in these leagues this year.