Live Chat With Ryan Houston On Tuesday, Feb. 16th At 4:00 PM ET

Ryan E. Houston · Post by **Ryan E. Houston** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 10:03 am

Originally posted by GOD Loves You:

quote:Originally posted by Ryan E. Houston:

quote:Originally posted by Chest Rockwell:

Settle the office pool what does the E stand for? I have Edward. The E stands for Eric.

I think there is a IV in there somewhere also, but I rarely use that.

I love how Greg is fueling the fire -- I think he's used "Easy E" nine times in this thread.

[/QUOTE]If the "Easy" is an ode to Eric Wright, you can definitely tell you're a bunch of white guys! It's Eazy-E

Since you are a IV, have you or did you name your son the V? I'm a junior, I just couldn't bring myself to making my son a sophomore.

Regarding fanball, I'll be honest, I thought the software was one of the worst I've ever used, especially with the FAAB. Will it now be one of the best? [/QUOTE]Couldn't bring myself to do it. Thus I named him Devon!

Ok -- FAAB. Huge deal -- I know it's the #1 priority in rectifying. With Greg / Geoff / Tom running that portion of design, I'm sure we'll fix that.

I know we can do better and we will strive to make it the best experience. If not the best -- I know we can do a lot better then we did last year.

Ryan E. Houston · Post by **Ryan E. Houston** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 10:05 am

I have to attend a content meeting + NFBC review.

I'll get to the rest of these questions later today.

Thanks again for listening and sharing.

RH

DOUGHBOYS · Post by **DOUGHBOYS** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 10:13 am

Originally posted by Ryan E. Houston:

Well maybe not - you aren't one to be very impressed with much

Regardless -- we'll do our best to ensure the product you get meets your expectations.

Thanks doughboys! So true!

I am getting older and with age, and less and less things impress me.

One thing that does impress me is how the NFBC has been run over the last seven years.

DON'T SCREW IT UP!

Raskol · Post by **Raskol** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 11:22 am

Originally posted by Ryan E. Houston:

quote:Originally posted by eddiejag:

E, i love just E damn i could have gone with that title but just didnt think of it.Damn their is even the Big E REMEMBER him. Well now the letter E is gone.Be proud of the letter E and take good care of it.

E HOW BOUT SOME SLEEPERS at pitching say after round 17 or 18 that might have a little value.

Last year i was able to draft De La Rosa and Happ after the 20th round. I really like Brett Anderson / Homer Bailey/ Kevin Slowey / Clay Buckholz, Sean Gallagher

Will be interesting to see where they fall in the initial ADP report - but Brett Anderson is one of my must-haves!

Positional sleepers I like Ian Stewart, Julio Borbon, Brandon Wood and Andrew McCutchen (though he's starting to go WAY too high). [/QUOTE]Ryan-

First of all, thank you for chatting with us. I think you guys are heading in a great direction, and I for one am not able to attend the live events due to family concerns. That being said, expanding the satellite and slow draft offerings is going to be a very important avenue for you to pursue. Just looking at the increase in slow drafts this year should provide sufficient evidence that the interest is out there.

Secondly, I can answer this regarding the above player's ADP. Very few if any of those players are there in round 17 in the NFBC. I would venture to guess that none of them are.

Spyhunter · Post by **Spyhunter** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 11:40 am

Originally posted by Ryan E. Houston:

I have to attend a content meeting + NFBC review.

I'll get to the rest of these questions later today.

Thanks again for listening and sharing.

RH Ryan

anychance of making the auction an auction for all 30 players?

CC's Desperados · Post by **CC's Desperados** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 11:41 am

Four questions/Four answers

The answers-Greg Ambrosius, Tom Kessenich, Charlie Weigert,and Ryan Houston

These four contestant are snowed in Vegas for a week. Yes..snowed in!! There is no power and none of you have any cash on hand. You have to work to survive.

Here are the four possible options: Male stripper, taxi cab driver, bouncer, and Bartender.

Male Stripper pays $2000 for the week.

Taxi Driver pays $500 plus the use of the car.

The bouncer pays $300 plus the use of the girl of your choice for a week.

The bartender job pays $800 plus all the booze you can drink.

What job is your first choice?

Which position suits each person and why?

If it came to a fight, who would fight for which job?

Will there ever be a fantasy reality show?

Geoffrey Stein · Post by **Geoffrey Stein** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 12:23 pm

Originally posted by Ryan E. Houston:

quote:Originally posted by The RoundTrippers:

E,

any idea when the 1st set of ADP's will be sent out??? and how many versions will be sent?? in the past, we had 2 i believe. thanks RT Geoff told me they will go out after the first 10 drafts are completed.

Should be interesting to see how players fall into place. [/QUOTE]We have five or six slow drafts nearing completion -- look for the first set of ADP early next week.

rkulaski · Post by **rkulaski** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 12:47 pm

Originally posted by CC's Desperados:

Ryan-

I like the Double Play concept, but I'm not sure the average player wants to compete against a thousand players to win the top prize. Personally I'd like to see an overall prize plus some subdivisions. I was thinking something like this:

Overall $50,000

Double play $25,000

Then maybe three or four groups to win say a $20,000 prize. You would have to work on the numbers to make it work. Maybe you need 350 entries in each group. You could have a January, February, March, and Double Play bracket. Some player might like to do one in each group. With all the slow draft action, I think players are looking for something else. Hell one of the brackets could be a 15 team grouping and that could be a separate prize. What do you think? I love these ideas, couldn't agree more with shaun's first paragraph, and hope there is potential down the road to make some of this happen.

As for the main,

I know the large appeal of the main is the lure of the 100k, but I'd love to see it be 80k and then put the other 20k back into the leagues to offer higher league payouts. I know the payouts won't be like satellites, but would love for the league champs, 2nd, and 3rd, to see a little more profit for all of the work put into the season.

Ryan E. Houston · Post by **Ryan E. Houston** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 1:30 pm

Originally posted by Catch:

Ryan,

What are us Main Event players to expect @ Bellagio as far as events go? I believe you have special plans for the Diamond players; but, I don't want you to forget us little guys.

Count me as a fan of the double play (12 team drafts). How about a 12 team auction championship in the future?

NYMets offering Citifield is terrific for fantasy sports and Fanball. As a former Chicagoan, I would love the chance to draft @ Wrigley Field. Can you make that happen?

Thanks, Tom Z We have quite a few cool things we are planning. Yes, the Diamond will be great, but we have plans for everyone. I can't get into all of those now but know it will be a lot of fun.

At Citi -- ToutWars Experts League will be going on during Friday and Sunday so that will be great.

Additionally -- every participant will be greeted by Mr. Met so bring your camera.

12 Team Auction Championship -- not sure that's in the plans. We have a lot going on and I think our Auction Championship will definitely be the next thing to sell out. It's been a lot of fun and now we want to focus on getting that from 150 teams to 300 to make sure prizes go up and drive even more interest.

In regards to Wrigley -- we put our league across the street. That's pretty close.

I think we really need Chicago to grow in order to move into Wrigley. So far the response from Chicago has not been that great despite what we feel is a great venue at Cubby Bear.

Thanks for your questions.

[ February 16, 2010, 07:32 PM: Message edited by: Ryan E. Houston ]

Ryan E. Houston · Post by **Ryan E. Houston** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 1:42 pm

Originally posted by Hard Heads:

quote:Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

quote:Originally posted by Hard Heads:

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Plymouth:

[qb] You should be more profitable now that you don't have to outsource to Stats and MDC. Can't you take those new increased profits and use that to run your fancy events? In theory you should be making more money on your end which in turn should lead to better live events without extra customer fees or we should be seeing better payouts. Craig, fair enough questions and I'll let Ryan answer these. But in your analysis above, shouldn't we all be on the message boards of CBS Sportsline and asking them why they still charge $149 per league when they've owned this software for 15 years? I mean, under your analogy, there seems to be no more costs once you own the back-end and can thus just pass all the savings to the customers. I wish that were the case because then Sportsline would be charging me $49 per league instead of $149.

Again, the question about Events Fees is a worthy one and worth a good discussion. I'm sure you have no idea how much we spend hosting these live events. Anyone want to take a guess? For six different locations? Go ahead.

And you are right, for some people drafting in a basement with a case of beer is all they need. You admit you are in that group. But it's hard to take a national event to a higher level doing that. We're shooting for more than a modest increase each year in participation and no sponsorship revenue and no chance of TV. We're aiming higher than that.

I apologize for answering part of this question. I'll let Ryan do his part. I just think it makes good business sense to eventually own the back-end of your game and your draft software, but to think there has been no expense involved with the development of all of this is crazy. They have programmers working fulltime on just NFBC stuff now for months and all of that is on our NFBC budget. Even maintaining all of that and making steady improvements is on us. [/QUOTE]Fair enough Greg.

I get it you are a business and businesses are in it to make money. I need to accept that fact and move on. Just as a guy who is hooked on the high stakes event and no longer has any desire to play anything else it is frustrating to see that we play in leagues where we pay in 75000 in entry fees and get paid back 65000. I need to either quit playing these leagues or I need to stop dwelling on the numbers cause as we have seen this year these payouts have stayed the same but fees have been added and that probably won't change in the consumers favor anytime soon. Thanks for answering the question. Maybe Ryan has something to add.... [/QUOTE]I think you will notice that we did increase the prize payouts for some of our higher stakes leagues.

Additionally we added a very cool Fantasy Insurance concept that is exclusive to NFBC.

I think we will continue to evolve and we have some great ideas planned for payout % increases for high stakes NFFC events.

Ryan E. Houston · Post by **Ryan E. Houston** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 1:46 pm

Originally posted by NorCalAtlFan:

Ryan, not to beat a dead horse about payouts, but at what point can the Main Event participants see a healthier return on their investment? Is there a plan in place that once say, X amount of leagues are signed up, payouts to the individual leagues will increase? As well as a healthier distribution to the top 1-10 or even 1-15? The 100k is a nice carrot to chase obviously, but loses its luster at a certain point.

Thanks. Greg and I talk about league payouts a lot and this is something we will focus on moving forward.

As we grow the number of entries you will see a lot of growth in all areas with us focusing on leagues first in the next growth assessment.

RH

Ryan E. Houston · Post by **Ryan E. Houston** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 1:49 pm

Originally posted by waiverwire:

-Any plans to allow payment for NFBC events by Paypal or from Snapdraft accounts?

-Any thoughts of potentially offering a contest with daily transactions in the future? The problem with paypal is the fees are way too high.

I think we can use snapdraft accounts to pay if that is something you want to do -- let Greg / Tom know.

We will definitely offer MLB Snapdraft games with a chance to win 2011 seats at the main event and other live events.

We may even have NFBC only style Snapdraft games. I'll keep everyone posted as those details come out.

Ryan E. Houston · Post by **Ryan E. Houston** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 1:51 pm

Originally posted by CC's Desperados:

Ryan-

I like the Double Play concept, but I'm not sure the average player wants to compete against a thousand players to win the top prize. Personally I'd like to see an overall prize plus some subdivisions. I was thinking something like this:

Overall $50,000

Double play $25,000

Then maybe three or four groups to win say a $20,000 prize. You would have to work on the numbers to make it work. Maybe you need 350 entries in each group. You could have a January, February, March, and Double Play bracket. Some player might like to do one in each group. With all the slow draft action, I think players are looking for something else. Hell one of the brackets could be a 15 team grouping and that could be a separate prize. What do you think? Great concept. I agree for the most part. Probably have to look at this but I honestly believe what we have now is going to sell out and be a huge draw as we continue to sell out our other events.

I'm happy to discuss with you and Greg if you want to set up a call.

Ryan E. Houston · Post by **Ryan E. Houston** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 1:53 pm

Originally posted by CC's Desperados:

There's a rumor on the street that no one from the west coast has won the overall prize. Some think the free agent time should be later to allow the coast to have a life on Sunday, do you see this as a problem? I know you see this as a problem.

We will discuss this and see if we can make a time work for everyone.

I want it to work for everyone so if west coast people feel they are at a disadvantage - it's definitely something we have to look at.

Ryan E. Houston · Post by **Ryan E. Houston** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 1:55 pm

Originally posted by CC's Desperados:

In football, why can't the free agent time be on the weekend? I've never played in a league with FAAB available on the weekend.

I've played in leagues where you have open transactions after the mid-week FAAB period but that's not going to work in this game concept.

At this point, I think our FAAB process is very solid in all our events.

Ryan E. Houston · Post by **Ryan E. Houston** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 2:12 pm

Originally posted by CC's Desperados:

In Snap draft, why can't you adjust players values every few weeks or every month? Is there a plan to make that game better? Do you have any insight or feed back on how the 1099's were handled in that game? Definitely a situation that we can handle differently and we will make some modifications as we move forward.

Player salaries will always be an issue but it's something we are looking at.

1099's were an issue and seem to be at NFBC / NFFC as well. Honestly, we do everything by the book and it's not our job to give tax advice. The IRS stipulates how we do things and thus, that's why we issue these and don't "hide" your money on account.

I would LOVE to hold your money, pay off our other sports prize money and basically create a system to allow you to rid yourself from any financial reporting to the US Government. Unfortunately - that's illegal according to our lawyers.

We've looked at several different scenarios on how we can make this work as we are well aware of what our competitors are doing.

However, in the end it is best for us to do this the right way and that is what we'll do.

Ryan E. Houston · Post by **Ryan E. Houston** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 2:14 pm

Originally posted by CC's Desperados:

At some point in your career, did you want to be in the owner's position instead of employee? In the future, do you see yourself owning a game? If not, are you at the top of the mountain? I feel like I'm in a great position. Fanball has allowed me to grow as a professional and given me the opportunity to do things I never thought possible. I like challenges and right now I'm focusing a lot of my energy into making sure NFBC is the best live fantasy baseball event in 2010. I never know what the future holds but I can assure you that March 2010 is going to be a banner year for NFBC and the entire NFBC family.

Ryan E. Houston · Post by **Ryan E. Houston** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 2:16 pm

Originally posted by King of Queens:

Which of the following would you recommend for my next poolside-beverage?

A) Strawberry Daquiri

B) Pina Colada

C) Hummingbird

D) Dirty Banana I'm a grey goose type of guy so I don't drink any of those "girlie" drinks.

Sorry man.

Quahogs · Post by **Quahogs** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 2:45 pm

Originally posted by Ryan E. Houston:

quote:Originally posted by King of Queens:

Which of the following would you recommend for my next poolside-beverage?

A) Strawberry Daquiri

B) Pina Colada

C) Hummingbird

D) Dirty Banana

E) Cranberry Cleavage

I'm a grey goose type of guy so I don't drink any of those "girlie" drinks.

Sorry man. [/QUOTE]

Choice E didn't catch your eye?? What's wrong with you man !

Geoffrey Stein · Post by **Geoffrey Stein** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 2:47 pm

Originally posted by Quahogs:

quote:Originally posted by Ryan E. Houston:

quote:Originally posted by King of Queens:

Which of the following would you recommend for my next poolside-beverage?

A) Strawberry Daquiri

B) Pina Colada

C) Hummingbird

D) Dirty Banana

E) Cranberry Cleavage

I'm a grey goose type of guy so I don't drink any of those "girlie" drinks.

Sorry man. [/QUOTE]

Choice E didn't catch your eye?? What's wrong with you man ! [/QUOTE]Holy crap! I am thinking she should ask for a refund on those -- we could fit an entire round of picks between them.

Gekko · Post by **Gekko** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 2:58 pm

ryan - will there be any eye candy working AC and Citi Field?

Ryan E. Houston · Post by **Ryan E. Houston** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 3:00 pm

Originally posted by CC's Desperados:

If the football season was extended to 18 weeks, have you thought of a plan to attack fantasy football? We never stop thinking.

I like the use of the word "attack" and fantasy football in the same sentence.

Just maybe we'll be uttering those words as we look to expand our NFFC offerings in 2010.

I hope we go to 18 weeks -- I think that would mean NFFC would be hosted on opening weekend?

Ryan E. Houston · Post by **Ryan E. Houston** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 3:03 pm

Originally posted by CC's Desperados:

In an earlier comment, Greg referred to CBSsportlien commissioner software. The free agent part of their game is painful. If you get it right for the NFBC, do you envision that masses change to your league managment service? Definitely. We are looking at refining the entire suite with what we are doing for NFFC.

I think we'll make this something everyone enjoys. I know we'll do our best.

We took input from a lot of users and we have Geoff helping -- he brings tons of insight into mock drafts and draft software.

I'm hopeful we'll improve it in A LOT of ways.

Ryan E. Houston · Post by **Ryan E. Houston** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 3:06 pm

Originally posted by CC's Desperados:

By the way, the owners edge is a nice addition to rotopass.

With Stats being such pigs in the fantasy market, could Elias be bought and be the future stat provider for your games? Yeah -- we are happy to be part of RotoPass. Great product.

We really think our Owners Edge product is a leader in the content space. Lot of stuff to enjoy there and I know our guys work really hard putting out great content.

Live Advice is a product that people really seem to like so we'll continue to focus on that.

In regards to Stats -- I think they do a great job. Hard to say how the stat market will shake out in the next few years but right now we have Stats and they do an amazing job.

Gekko · Post by **Gekko** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 3:07 pm

Ryan - Are there enough Fanball servers to keep the NFBC from experiencing any downtime, esp on FAAB Sunday?