NFBC and Online Setup

Walla Walla · Post by **Walla Walla** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 4:19 pm

I have a couple of questions that I’m sure some have wondered about.

1.Probably the most important is will Stats be doing the team pages or Fanball for the in season management of teams?

2.Will Satellite and the Online Championship drafts be done by MDC or Fanball?. There was a post saying Fanball was preparing a site if MDC and Fanball did not agree.

These are very big issues for a draft and for the course of a season. As the New Year will tick by and the drafts will quickly be upon us we need these answers now.

After the delays with Fanball getting the home page up and running. Than the magazine snafu people are waiting and watching.

Hopefully Happy New Years!

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 11:34 pm

Originally posted by Walla Walla:

I have a couple of questions that I’m sure some have wondered about.

1.Probably the most important is will Stats be doing the team pages or Fanball for the in season management of teams?

2.Will Satellite and the Online Championship drafts be done by MDC or Fanball?. There was a post saying Fanball was preparing a site if MDC and Fanball did not agree.

These are very big issues for a draft and for the course of a season. As the New Year will tick by and the drafts will quickly be upon us we need these answers now.

After the delays with Fanball getting the home page up and running. Than the magazine snafu people are waiting and watching.

Hopefully Happy New Years!

They are all good questions John and I wish it were as easy as just answering "yes" or "no" on these. But I think we'll know for sure on each in the next 7 to 10 days.

As everyone knows, NOBODY has been a bigger supporter of STATS, Inc. than me. There is no way the NFBC would have ever gotten off the ground without STATS, Inc. Krause Publications, at the time, had no IT and no ability to build a web site in 2003 and if Steve Byrd hadn't told my boss on the golf course in August of 2003 that he thought my idea was a good one and they wanted to be a partner in this we never would have created the NFBC. My boss was so impressed that instead of partnering with STATS he dove all in on the idea and we hired STATS as the back-end provider.

STATS has helped us develop the game site and helped us grow the NFBC and NFFC through six great years. With the ideas and suggestions from our customers, we have evolved the game site from a rough model in 2004 to one of the best contest sites in the industry, with undoubtedly the best free agent pickup setup. The Conditional Bids, Copy and Move features that we added in the last two years have saved you folks dozens and dozens of hours of work and allowed all of you to play in multiple NFBC and NFFC leagues. Not only that but we had the fewest hiccups with Live Scoring, FAAB bids, standings, etc., last year in the NFBC and NFFC than in any previous year.

We understand how important the game site is COMPLETELY. If we could just keep the game setup with STATS, we would. But life is more complicated than that.

STATS and Fanball compete in many areas of this business and sometimes they bump heads along the way. I think both sides agree that it will be tough to work the same way we have in the past and right now we are preparing to create the back-end for the NFBC. We'll know for sure shortly, but that is the plan if nothing changes in the immediate future.

Obviously, anyone would be worried about using a new site, but we have every intention of duplicating the same look and feel and features as the old NFBC site. We have copies of every page on the NFBC site and it's not as tough to duplicate what we had as it is to create a new site from scratch. And the Conditional Bids, Copy and Move features that everyone loved in FAAB will be duplicated in full before the start of the season. We have had several meetings about this already with NFBC members and the IT team in St. Louis and I've been down there for development and will be back down there in early January again, so we're ready if we have to go this route.

As for MockDraftCentral.com, this will be announced shortly so I think it's safe to say here but there is an ownership change happening there and we just don't know how the new owners will work with us or other industry partners in the future. We just have to talk with them when things are finalized in the next 7 to 10 days and go from there. If we can continue to work with them we will, but creating a new draft room for the Satellite Leagues and Online Double Play is the least of our worries. Fanball ran thousands of online drafts last year for CDM, FFOC and others, and the draft room can be created without too much effort before Feb. 15th. But right now we are working with MDC.com and will continue that way until told otherwise.

I hope these honest answers help. Nobody has been evasive about this, it's just that all of this has been a work in progress with the other companies. Right now STATS is transferring all of our historical data to us in preparation for us creating your MY TEAMS pages and most of that was sent yesterday. You do not have access to last year's teams and results yet through the NFBC site (you can log into the NFFC page and get them that way), but that's the first thing being done now. Hopefully you'll gain that access again in the next 7 to 10 days once all of this is finalized.

Happy New Year and I PROMISE we'll get this right.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 11:50 pm

I do want to address the back-end setup separately here because I'm sure there is some concern by long-time NFBC members about the possible switch away from STATS. I understand that and nothing new is simple or easy. We had the setup close to the way we wanted it before and anything new deserves to be a concern.

Not only that, but Fanball's football commissioner product was not the best system this year and anyone who used that or is using the basketball commissioner product naturally has some concerns. But trust me, this is a different beast altogether.

For one thing, commissioner products are customizable pieces with a ton more programming involved. Think about all of the customizable features you can have with a commissioner product, from size of rosters, starting configurations, various scoring methods from receptions to yards to tackles, etc. It's a maze of configurations and everyone from ESPN to Fox Sports to Fanball has struggled out of the gate with new commissioner products. It's unfortunately the nature of the beast.

What we are creating is not a commissioner product. We are creating a CONTEST site with one set of rules, one set of guidelines, one FAAB system for all games, one contest back-end. We are also duplicating the pages and features of our game site that we've upgraded for the last six years. We are creating one contest site. There is a big difference between duplicating all of the features we had before and creating a customizable commissioner product.

Now I understand there could be some hiccups out of the gate with the setup, but it won't be like the Fanball Football Commissioner. And it will include all of the FAAB features you came to like and expect from 2009. That has been promised and in fact all of CDM's games may see some of these similar features going forward as these upgrades we've created work for those games as well.

Finally, outside of the host hotels, the biggest expense we had with the NFBC and NFFC was our back-end support. It was a needed expense because Krause Publications and F+W could NEVER have done this on their own. Fanball, on the other hand, does the back-end for several third-party companies and they compete with STATS for this business. It makes economical sense to do this in-house and eliminate that expense to make the P&L that much better on a product with an already slim margin.

Not only that, but going forward any change needed to the site or the rules or the back-end is now in-house and can be done quickly and more easily. Nothing against STATS, but even text changes had to go through them and it wasn't as easy as just calling up a fellow staffer and asking him to do this NOW. Again, Mike and everyone at STATS have been great to work with and I loved working with those guys for six fabulous years. But if we have to go this route, the advantages will be numerous and you'll see them immediately. The web site will have an improved look and in time we'll add avatars to the message boards, personal features to your team links and more. It will be best to have this in-house.

Thanks all and we'll update for sure very shortly.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 11:59 pm

Originally posted by Walla Walla:

After the delays with Fanball getting the home page up and running. Than the magazine snafu people are waiting and watching.Just to address these two here:

1. I think everyone can see now that the NFBC site involved a LOT of programming and it was tough to finish and announce before we had six separate hotel deals done. Fanball bought the NFBC and NFFC on Aug. 15th and after hosting the football drafts in late August and early September did a great job of creating the new site by late November. We could have unveiled it slightly earlier, but the Citi Field contract was the holdup and we felt unveiling all of the host sites without Citi Field wasn't right. So we waited one more week and finished that deal.

But I hear ya John on the web site. It did seem like a long time from the end of the MLB season in early October to late November. But again, look at the site now and you can see why it did take the extra month.

2. As for the magazines, let's just say that we learned not to send them through the printer again. Doing this yourself is always the best answer. Going forward, orders will be sent through the Fanball offices in St. Louis. We'll take the blame for this one, no doubt about it.

As for fulfilling the Fantasy Sports Magazine subscriptions, we have not received that sub list from F+W's fulfillment house yet and Charlie is doing his best to get that. I'm not sure why that isn't being provided, but no one who had a sub before has received a magazine. We can't do it until that list is provided to us. Again, Charlie is working on that and it's out of our hands for now, but we'll do our best to fulfill those subs.

Transitions are never easy, but honestly we are doing all we can to fulfill all of these promises.

Oh, and don't forget to give us credit for a few things. We did get out NFBC checks faster than at anytime in past history and our NFFC checks are going out two weeks after results are finalized this Friday. Elias scoring changes aren't final until tonight and two weeks from tomorrow checks will be mailed. So guaranteeing your prize money and getting your winnings are already improved from past years, so not all is as bad as you think.

Glenneration X · Post by **Glenneration X** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 1:30 am

Thanks for the in depth responses Greg...

Two followup questions....

1) I used Fanball's commissioner product for one of my local football leagues, our NFBBC league, and the FFOC. Besides the ease of use STATs provided when compared to Fanball, I have another concern due to my experience with the FFOC.

A couple of times during the draft season & the regular season, the Fanball server went down. An entire day of drafts went to autodraft because of it and in-season the entire FFOC contest lost the ability to make any moves one Sunday morning. You can imagine the message board controversy these two events caused....but rightfully so. The blame was put on the Fanball server....that it had more than it can handle. Now the server is being asked to take on the NFBC/NFFC on top of their own games, the CDM games, the FFOC, their commissioner products, etc.

Are there any plans to upgrade the server to avoid any issues like this in the future?

2)I haven't received my magazine either. I've never mentioned it on the magazine thread because I get my subscription through Rotopass. Is Charlie handling those as well? I've been occassionally following up with Jan over at Rotopass, but she says she's still trying to get an answer from Fantasy Sports Magazine. If I know Charlie is working on these as well, I'll know to be patient.

Again...thanks for the comprehensive answers.

Glenn

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 2:11 am

Originally posted by Glenneration X:

Thanks for the in depth responses Greg...

Two followup questions....

1) I used Fanball's commissioner product for one of my local football leagues, our NFBBC league, and the FFOC. Besides the ease of use STATs provided when compared to Fanball, I have another concern due to my experience with the FFOC.

A couple of times during the draft season & the regular season, the Fanball server went down. An entire day of drafts went to autodraft because of it and in-season the entire FFOC contest lost the ability to make any moves one Sunday morning. You can imagine the message board controversy these two events caused....but rightfully so. The blame was put on the Fanball server....that it had more than it can handle. Now the server is being asked to take on the NFBC/NFFC on top of their own games, the CDM games, the FFOC, their commissioner products, etc.

Are there any plans to upgrade the server to avoid any issues like this in the future?

2)I haven't received my magazine either. I've never mentioned it on the magazine thread because I get my subscription through Rotopass. Is Charlie handling those as well? I've been occassionally following up with Jan over at Rotopass, but she says she's still trying to get an answer from Fantasy Sports Magazine. If I know Charlie is working on these as well, I'll know to be patient.

Again...thanks for the comprehensive answers.

Glenn Good questions Glenn.

1. I don't know what happened during the offseason draft, but I do remember when they had a server problem during the football season. That was a mess that Sunday and yes it was a server problem. But trust me, they have enough server capability. They own that entire server business and it's located in their basement. They run other businesses and contests on those servers. Adding the NFBC and NFFC isn't going to push capacity to the limits, that's for sure. Whatever happened that day happened to the server and the backup should have prevented what happened, but it's not because of overload.

Maybe Ryan can explain better, but you should see their Primary.Net business. It's huge and it's in the same building as the rest of their business.

2. Yes, the RotoPass subs are part of this problem. As part of the acquisition we should have those names so that we can fulfill those subscriptions. F+W uses a third party for all of their subscription fulfillment and that company in Florida is not getting us the names we acquired. F+W outsourced this a few years ago and I'm not sure why we haven't gotten those names and addresses yet. Charlie is on it, but feel free to email him if you'd like. Sorry on that one.

billywaz · Post by **billywaz** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 2:29 am

Greg,

Thought this might be the appropriate thread (and forgive me if it has already been asked).

Are the current slow drafts being done at MDC, or are they being done on the Fanball site?

Thanks, and Happy New Year!

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 2:40 am

Hey Billy, the current Slow Drafts are being done on Mock Draft Central.

Walla Walla · Post by **Walla Walla** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 4:17 am

Greg, Since it's sounding like we're starting all over again can I have a Barry Bonds Baseball to put next to my Pete Rose Baseball??

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 4:31 am

Originally posted by Walla Walla:

Greg, Since it's sounding like we're starting all over again can I have a Barry Bonds Baseball to put next to my Pete Rose Baseball??

That would be a classic combination John. Sorry to say I've never had a Barry Bonds autographed item and never want one. I'm looking at my stash of goodies right now and the best I can do is a Mike Ditka bobblehead!!

Damn.

I have a big bar tab I have to use up at the Flamingo that first weekend, so orange juice and vodka will suffice, I'm sure!!

edelman24 · Post by **edelman24** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 8:21 am

Greg,

Will there be any opportunity to see the new back end service prior to the 2010 NFBC? This change is big news for me and will determine how many teams I sign up for, I know you are saying everything will be different then what happend with the NFBBC but it would help a lot if its something that can be seen with our 2009 teams at least before hand.

Mike

Cotton1 · Post by **Cotton1** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 8:48 am

sometimes i go 6-8 months or more with no posts, but i will weigh in on this one. my local league used fanball this past year for baseball, primarily because we could view it from work! overall, a pretty good site, but....i was the commissioner, we had more than a few mornings when the live stats page showed lineups from 2 or 3 weeks prior, with players that were not even on the roster any longer. the fanball people were quick to respond to my inquiries, but the answer was alway "it doesnt matter, the live stats dont map over to the actual stats" then the next day or so it was fixed. my league bought the explanation, and the stats appeared correct in the end, but at a miminmum it was disconcerting and threw overall accuracy into question. i can see where this would be a major issue here. secondly, the live stats were good, but didnt feed into the standings on a minute-by-minute basis the way stats inc's did, which i thought really added to the experience. you could see your up to the minute stats but didnt know how it was affecting the standings til the next day. not throwing stones, just offering input.

sportsbettingman · Post by **sportsbettingman** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 9:09 am

Originally posted by Walla Walla:

I have a couple of questions that I’m sure some have wondered about.

1.Probably the most important is will Stats be doing the team pages or Fanball for the in season management of teams?

2.Will Satellite and the Online Championship drafts be done by MDC or Fanball?. There was a post saying Fanball was preparing a site if MDC and Fanball did not agree.

These are very big issues for a draft and for the course of a season. As the New Year will tick by and the drafts will quickly be upon us we need these answers now.

After the delays with Fanball getting the home page up and running. Than the magazine snafu people are waiting and watching.

Hopefully Happy New Years!

Upon reading the posted answers...

1) Fanball

2) MDC unless Fanball gets a great deal from MDC, or Fanball fine tunes their own set up...then Fanball exclusively.

[ December 31, 2009, 03:10 PM: Message edited by: sportsbettingman ]

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 9:37 am

Originally posted by edelman24:

Greg,

Will there be any opportunity to see the new back end service prior to the 2010 NFBC? This change is big news for me and will determine how many teams I sign up for, I know you are saying everything will be different then what happend with the NFBBC but it would help a lot if its something that can be seen with our 2009 teams at least before hand.

Mike Yes, of course. In fact, we'll ask for beta testers beforehand. Of course we know this is big news, but we understand the concerns and will get continued input from whomever wants to be involved in the process. Sound good?

The goal is to show it to you in advance so that you can see what we have. No problem if you feel you need to hold off on doing multiple leagues, but we know we have to get it right in order to give you all confidence to do as many leagues as you did last year with the same setup.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 9:40 am

Originally posted by moon over my hammy:

sometimes i go 6-8 months or more with no posts, but i will weigh in on this one. my local league used fanball this past year for baseball, primarily because we could view it from work! overall, a pretty good site, but....i was the commissioner, we had more than a few mornings when the live stats page showed lineups from 2 or 3 weeks prior, with players that were not even on the roster any longer. the fanball people were quick to respond to my inquiries, but the answer was alway "it doesnt matter, the live stats dont map over to the actual stats" then the next day or so it was fixed. my league bought the explanation, and the stats appeared correct in the end, but at a miminmum it was disconcerting and threw overall accuracy into question. i can see where this would be a major issue here. secondly, the live stats were good, but didnt feed into the standings on a minute-by-minute basis the way stats inc's did, which i thought really added to the experience. you could see your up to the minute stats but didnt know how it was affecting the standings til the next day. not throwing stones, just offering input. Thanks for the feedback. The Live Standings addition in the NFBC the last two years was a great, great feature. We didn't have that the first four years in the NFBC, but we did have it the last two and it was GREAT. I hope we can have that as well but I don't know at this point. And I agree that STATS did a great job with live scoring the last couple of years, but again, the first few years that was the biggest complaint. Live stats are still coming from STATS, so hopefully we can get this right. But I hear ya.

Lunatic · Post by **Lunatic** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 11:59 am

I hope Fanball puts out a good site for Stats; CDM sure did not have a good thing with TQ Stats; they were terrible. I have not used any of the Commissioner software from CDM/Fanball; a friend of mine here in Rochester used the Fanball Football Commish this year; I helped an owner in the local league and I thought the product was terrible!!!

I understand there can be business differences between providers and STATS could be out, but man, I don't have much faith in a company that in the past and still today has issues in providing Commish software. I love Fanball challenge games but when it comes to STATS, nothing beats it and I don't believe Fanball can replicate it.

We'll see how much all this change has impacted the game by viewing signups come the middle of February. There are so many different games to play (I am happy because I signed up for 3 pack); but others might think differently and not play at all.

This is not meant to be negative, just an observation from a loyal customer...

Walla Walla · Post by **Walla Walla** » Fri Jan 01, 2010 2:08 pm

Will the next step be a charge for every FAAB bid or Friday move? Give it a year or two and it'll happen. I'm no expert on the Fantasy baseball workings behind the close doors. But I have a pretty good feeling that fanball never had a plan to use either Stats or MDC. They used MDC for slw drafts because like fanball's home page they couldn't get thier draft site together in time.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 4:51 am

Originally posted by Walla Walla:

Will the next step be a charge for every FAAB bid or Friday move? Give it a year or two and it'll happen. I'm no expert on the Fantasy baseball workings behind the close doors. But I have a pretty good feeling that fanball never had a plan to use either Stats or MDC. They used MDC for slw drafts because like fanball's home page they couldn't get thier draft site together in time.

John, don't ass-u-me anything!!! Just not accurate, not accurate at all.

We're using MDC right now for our satellite leagues and we would have loved to have worked with STATS going forward. We were interested in MDC when we heard they were for sale. We'll talk to the new owners to see if we can continue using them and continue offering premium service for our members once the new owners are in place. I can't speculate on anything past today because I'm not working with Jason and Geoff after next week. So just settle down and we'll all find out what they say about working with the NFBC going forward.

If you only knew everything about the STATS and MDC situations you wouldn't be going on a public message board speculating on such things. But you don't. We do know what happened in both situations and so do a few others. Your assessment isn't accurate.

This is such a sky-is-falling group that it's hard to answer each armageddon speculation. We'll do our best to prove you wrong, but if you want to worry about the worst then keep on worrying. I'm not sure what good it will do, though.

DOUGHBOYS · Post by **DOUGHBOYS** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 5:18 am

Greg, I didn't know Jason and Geoff were moving on from MDC. Too bad.

I thought they did a great job with MDC and will be missed by the NFBC.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 7:37 am

Originally posted by DOUGHBOYS:

Greg, I didn't know Jason and Geoff were moving on from MDC. Too bad.

I thought they did a great job with MDC and will be missed by the NFBC. I'm not sure what their roles will be for sure. I'm just stating that there will be new owners and once I know how they will work with us and other industry companies who use their service, I can't finalize our plans. Others are questioning my motives for saying why I don't know if we'll be using MDC.com or our own draft software and I'm just stating that we have to be prepared for either scenario.

Geoff is THE BEST and Jason and I formed a great working relationship six years ago. I've loved working with them and with STATS. I'd love for both to continue, but both situations are out of my control. Whether folks like John believe that or not, they really are. But we're prepared to move forward on our own if that happens.

DOUGHBOYS · Post by **DOUGHBOYS** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 7:54 am

No worries, Greg.

You just need a little larger grain of salt when it comes to John.

He always comes round, it just takes a little longer. His trademark.

headhunters · Post by **headhunters** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 9:41 am

greg- you mean you don't control everything? i thought iola was the capital of the universe and you ran everything from your little oz-like command post. are we counting the days till pack/vikings playoff game?

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Sat Jan 02, 2010 9:52 am

Originally posted by headhunters:

greg- you mean you don't control everything? i thought iola was the capital of the universe and you ran everything from your little oz-like command post. are we counting the days till pack/vikings playoff game? I can barely control my own life. I don't need control of a million more lives!!

Pack-Vikings III would be a ratings bonanza for Fox Sports and the NFL, but it will be tough to make that happen. The Vikings will take care of business tomorrow at home and the Eagles will beat the Cowboys, leaving Packers-Cardinals III (counting the pre-season) for next Saturday's NFL first round. Vikings may have a tougher road with Dallas and then Philadelphia as Favre returns to Philly, a place he has SUCKED before.

That NFC is going to be a fun, fun playoff run. I can hardly wait. I've got my newest Packer sweatshirt and hat on right now and can hardly wait for Sunday to roll around!!