The Week Ahead At The NFBC

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 3:38 am

Rather than post on every single thread about the concerns folks have this week with rosters and free agency, I thought I'd start this thread to keep everything concentrated in one spot. Please post your questions here and I'll do everything in my power to get an answer.

As folks who were in Las Vegas know, we had our Chief Technical Officer with us for all four days this second weekend and he sat down with several NFBC players and wrote down every concern and suggestion they provided. It started on Thursday night at the NCAA Viewing Party and John met with KJ, RT and others to get their suggestions for the site and the draft software. John then sat down with Shawn and Glenn and others throughout the weekend and even when we were celebrating on Sunday night, he pulled the notepad out of his back pocket and sat down with Quahogs to get some final suggestions on everything.

John and the entire IT team now has an even better appreciation of the passion of this audience and they are going to go the extra mile this week to make sure our back-end is as strong as our live draft experience was. They are going to finish this off this week and close out this win. I'm not concerned about this at all. The hard part has been done and we know how to run free agency and run a fantasy game.

I hope those who talked with John can interact on the boards and relay their thoughts on how those conversations went. I think folks related well to John and they now know they are talking to someone who gets it, who is real and smart and passionate about what we're doing, and who is going to work all week to make sure that the contest goes off as planned. And his team back in St. Louis is passionate about this too and they are taking John's lead and building an updated product that will be better than we had before.

As for the week ahead:

** Co-manager link. Yesterday we unveiled the co-manager link. We had this in place before the live events went off, but we didn't want to unveil it until the drafts were over. Yesterday Tom, myself and Geoff were flooded with emails from folks who were so excited about their live event teams and wanted to get their co-managers hooked up. I asked John and his team to make this live right away to stop the emails from coming. I didn't realize that folks couldn't add a co-manager until their rosters were loaded, so I'll take the blame for that. But I wanted this nice feature out there and asked for them to push the button probably before I should have.

You guys need to realize that every time Fanball is able to automate something like this it saves Tom and I many, many man hours of work. In the past, you guys always just emailed me or Tom and asked us to add your co-manager to your team and we physically did it. It doesn't sound like much, but each time we would have to find that person's username and password, log into their team page and do it. Now we've automated the process thanks to Fanball thinking this through and YOU can now add a co-manager. It's done by YOU, and Tom and I can do other things to help the cause.

So again, blame me if you want for the miscommunication but this feature is very, very important to us and to you and once rosters are all loaded you'll appreciate this nice new addition.

** Rosters loaded. The process is much simpler this year for the satellites and online championships because we are using our own draft software and rosters are loaded immediately after the draft. For previous drafts on MDC.com, those rosters have all been loaded and teams should see their rosters now. Geoff has identified a few leagues that don't seem to be showing up and he has sent all of the results to IT again to re-run. I'm not sure what happened during the process of transferring the data from MDC.com to Fanball, but we are rerunning those now and they should show up shortly.

As for the live events rosters, we had Fanball staffers typing in every league once they were completed and I think all of them are done now and in the system. We are double checking everything, but this is finished. This has been a quicker, more efficient process than we ever had in past years and in the future we are going to automate this so that the person doing the small boards are instead typing them in with a laptop. Results should be entered immediately after the draft in the future if our plan works the way we've discussed since this weekend.

If you have a roster error, feel free to contact me. Yes, we may even have a wrong roster in some cases as the people working the live events entered the wrong team name. Trust me, this is not an IT issue; this is a human error on the ground of the live events. And trust me, we did the same thing when we worked at F+W/Krause/STATS. S**t happens sometimes, but it's not always an IT issue. These are actual human mistakes that we'll readily admit to.

Okay, I'll tackle more issues soon. But I wanted to start this thread and get folks on the same page. Are you with me yet?

[ March 30, 2010, 09:40 AM: Message edited by: Greg Ambrosius ]

Return of the Aces · Post by **Return of the Aces** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 3:48 am

Greg,

Thanks for the update. Please note that the rosters cannot be accessed yet for NY League 4. I received this message:

"Sorry, your league's rosters haven't been loaded yet".

Just to clarify, when do you anticipate that the rosters will be accessible?

Thanks, again.

Heels · Post by **Heels** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 3:49 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

Rather than post on every single thread about the concerns folks have this week with rosters and free agency, I thought I'd start this thread to keep everything concentrated in one spot. Please post your questions here and I'll do everything in my power to get an answer.

As folks who were in Las Vegas know, we had our Chief Technical Officer with us for all four days this second weekend and he sat down with several NFBC players and wrote down every concern and suggestion they provided. It started on Thursday night at the NCAA Viewing Party and John met with KJ, RT and others to get their suggestions for the site and the draft software. John then sat down with Shawn and Glenn and others throughout the weekend and even when we were celebrating on Sunday night, he pulled the notepad out of his back pocket and sat down with Quahogs to get some final suggestions on everything.

John and the entire IT team now has an even better appreciation of the passion of this audience and they are going to go the extra mile this week to make sure our back-end is as strong as our live draft experience was. They are going to finish this off this week and close out this win. I'm not concerned about this at all. The hard part has been done and we know how to run free agency and run a fantasy game.

I hope those who talked with John can interact on the boards and relay their thoughts on how those conversations went. I think folks related well to John and they now know they are talking to someone who gets it, who is real and smart and passionate about what we're doing, and who is going to work all week to make sure that the contest goes off as planned. And his team back in St. Louis is passionate about this too and they are taking John's lead and building an updated product that will be better than we had before.

As for the week ahead:

** Co-manager link. Yesterday we unveiled the co-manager link. We had this in place before the live events went off, but we didn't want to unveil it until the drafts were over. Yesterday Tom, myself and Geoff were flooded with emails from folks who were so excited about their live event teams and wanted to get their co-managers hooked up. I asked John and his team to make this live right away to stop the emails from coming. I didn't realize that folks couldn't add a co-manager until their rosters were loaded, so I'll take the blame for that. But I wanted this nice feature out there and asked for them to push the button probably before I should have.

You guys need to realize that every time Fanball is able to automate something like this it saves Tom and I many, many man hours of work. In the past, you guys always just emailed me or Tom and asked us to add your co-manager to your team and we physically did it. It doesn't sound like much, but each time we would have to find that person's username and password, log into their team page and do it. Now we've automated the process thanks to Fanball thinking this through and YOU can now add a co-manager. It's done by YOU, and Tom and I can do other things to help the cause.

So again, blame me if you want for the miscommunication but this feature is very, very important to us and to you and once rosters are all loaded you'll appreciate this nice new addition.

** Rosters loaded. The process is much simpler this year for the satellites and online championships because we are using our own draft software and rosters are loaded immediately after the draft. For previous drafts on MDC.com, those rosters have all been loaded and teams should see their rosters now. Geoff has identified a few leagues that don't seem to be showing up and he has sent all of the results to IT again to re-run. I'm not sure what happened during the process of transferring the data from MDC.com to Fanball, but we are rerunning those now and they should show up shortly.

As for the live events rosters, we had Fanball staffers typing in every league once they were completed and I think all of them are done now and in the system. We are double checking everything, but this is finished. This has been a quicker, more efficient process than we ever had in past years and in the future we are going to automate this so that the person doing the small boards are instead typing them in with a laptop. Results should be entered immediately after the draft in the future if our plan works the way we've discussed since this weekend.

If you have a roster error, feel free to contact me. Yes, we may even have a wrong roster in some cases as the people working the live events entered the wrong team name. Trust me, this is not an IT issue; this is a human error on the ground of the live events. And trust me, we did the same thing when we worked at F+W/Krause/STATS. S**t happens sometimes, but it's not always an IT issue. These are actual human mistakes that we'll readily admit to.

Okay, I'll tackle more issues soon. But I wanted to start this thread and get folks on the same page. Are you with me yet? Thanks for allaying our fears and laying it all out there for us. Just wanted to make sure that the March 14th 4pm Online DP was on your list for leagues that rosters are not showing up for.

Thanks

Geoffrey Stein · Post by **Geoffrey Stein** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 3:54 am

Originally posted by Heels:

quote:Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

Rather than post on every single thread about the concerns folks have this week with rosters and free agency, I thought I'd start this thread to keep everything concentrated in one spot. Please post your questions here and I'll do everything in my power to get an answer.

As folks who were in Las Vegas know, we had our Chief Technical Officer with us for all four days this second weekend and he sat down with several NFBC players and wrote down every concern and suggestion they provided. It started on Thursday night at the NCAA Viewing Party and John met with KJ, RT and others to get their suggestions for the site and the draft software. John then sat down with Shawn and Glenn and others throughout the weekend and even when we were celebrating on Sunday night, he pulled the notepad out of his back pocket and sat down with Quahogs to get some final suggestions on everything.

John and the entire IT team now has an even better appreciation of the passion of this audience and they are going to go the extra mile this week to make sure our back-end is as strong as our live draft experience was. They are going to finish this off this week and close out this win. I'm not concerned about this at all. The hard part has been done and we know how to run free agency and run a fantasy game.

I hope those who talked with John can interact on the boards and relay their thoughts on how those conversations went. I think folks related well to John and they now know they are talking to someone who gets it, who is real and smart and passionate about what we're doing, and who is going to work all week to make sure that the contest goes off as planned. And his team back in St. Louis is passionate about this too and they are taking John's lead and building an updated product that will be better than we had before.

As for the week ahead:

** Co-manager link. Yesterday we unveiled the co-manager link. We had this in place before the live events went off, but we didn't want to unveil it until the drafts were over. Yesterday Tom, myself and Geoff were flooded with emails from folks who were so excited about their live event teams and wanted to get their co-managers hooked up. I asked John and his team to make this live right away to stop the emails from coming. I didn't realize that folks couldn't add a co-manager until their rosters were loaded, so I'll take the blame for that. But I wanted this nice feature out there and asked for them to push the button probably before I should have.

You guys need to realize that every time Fanball is able to automate something like this it saves Tom and I many, many man hours of work. In the past, you guys always just emailed me or Tom and asked us to add your co-manager to your team and we physically did it. It doesn't sound like much, but each time we would have to find that person's username and password, log into their team page and do it. Now we've automated the process thanks to Fanball thinking this through and YOU can now add a co-manager. It's done by YOU, and Tom and I can do other things to help the cause.

So again, blame me if you want for the miscommunication but this feature is very, very important to us and to you and once rosters are all loaded you'll appreciate this nice new addition.

** Rosters loaded. The process is much simpler this year for the satellites and online championships because we are using our own draft software and rosters are loaded immediately after the draft. For previous drafts on MDC.com, those rosters have all been loaded and teams should see their rosters now. Geoff has identified a few leagues that don't seem to be showing up and he has sent all of the results to IT again to re-run. I'm not sure what happened during the process of transferring the data from MDC.com to Fanball, but we are rerunning those now and they should show up shortly.

As for the live events rosters, we had Fanball staffers typing in every league once they were completed and I think all of them are done now and in the system. We are double checking everything, but this is finished. This has been a quicker, more efficient process than we ever had in past years and in the future we are going to automate this so that the person doing the small boards are instead typing them in with a laptop. Results should be entered immediately after the draft in the future if our plan works the way we've discussed since this weekend.

If you have a roster error, feel free to contact me. Yes, we may even have a wrong roster in some cases as the people working the live events entered the wrong team name. Trust me, this is not an IT issue; this is a human error on the ground of the live events. And trust me, we did the same thing when we worked at F+W/Krause/STATS. S**t happens sometimes, but it's not always an IT issue. These are actual human mistakes that we'll readily admit to.

Okay, I'll tackle more issues soon. But I wanted to start this thread and get folks on the same page. Are you with me yet? Thanks for allaying our fears and laying it all out there for us. Just wanted to make sure that the March 14th 4pm Online DP was on your list for leagues that rosters are not showing up for.

Thanks [/QUOTE]Yes, I re-sent every March 14 league last night.

DrDobs · Post by **DrDobs** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 3:55 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

** Rosters loaded. The process is much simpler this year for the satellites and online championships because we are using our own draft software and rosters are loaded immediately after the draft. For previous drafts on MDC.com, those rosters have all been loaded and teams should see their rosters now. Geoff has identified a few leagues that don't seem to be showing up and he has sent all of the results to IT again to re-run. I'm not sure what happened during the process of transferring the data from MDC.com to Fanball, but we are rerunning those now and they should show up shortly.

Yes Greg, thanks for providing the vote of confidence we needed to hear. For what it's worth (and I'll email Geoff as well), NFBC $125 DC Slow Drafts #17, #18, & #19 have not been loaded as of yet.

Jon

matt25112 · Post by **matt25112** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 3:56 am

Greg first year player here,

I started with a double play this year just because I want to get used to the format/faab. I have no experience working with this crew so I do not have the comfort as most people. I am usually not a complainer (I'm sure most people would roll their eyes to this one ha ha). But I have been complaining a few times on here lately and that is a sign to me that there is a reason for concern.

On the flip side though the reactions I have received from Geoff, Tom and yourself have assured me that that everything is going to be ok and I thank you for that.

If all goes well this year I will be joining the Main Event next year...the double play which is a big league for me seems like small potatoes around here.

I was going to tell you March 14th DP not loaded yet but looks like some1 beat me to it.

Thanks

Matt

ReverseTheCurse · Post by **ReverseTheCurse** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 4:01 am

NFBC Slow Draft DC #16 has not been loaded yet either.

Atlas · Post by **Atlas** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 4:02 am

Geoff

I'm still showing a "placeholder" for slow draft 2 FAAB).

As it stands, my intention is to use/release him for the first FAAB period. I'm guessing that a name there won't matter? I'll be able to tag him for release?

Geoffrey Stein · Post by **Geoffrey Stein** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 4:04 am

Not all of the Slow Drafts are in the system -- that is correct. They will be there this week, but if anyone needs to set a lineup ahead of time, e-mail me, and we'll make sure that your roster is set to your Week 1 preferences.

Geoffrey Stein · Post by **Geoffrey Stein** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 4:06 am

Originally posted by Atlas:

Geoff

I'm still showing a "placeholder" for slow draft 2 FAAB).

As it stands, my intention is to use/release him for the first FAAB period. I'm guessing that a name there won't matter? I'll be able to tag him for release? Now that Greg and Tom are back in the office, I have time to go through every league to correct Placeholders and individual errors.

E-mail me your name and league, and I'll set that one first, so there are no FAAB issues.

Thanks, pal.

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 4:08 am

Originally posted by matt25112:

the double play which is a big league for me seems like small potatoes around here.

Matt, one thing I want to say with regard to this point is that no league is small potatoes in our eyes. Every league is important and we work just as hard on a $125 satellite as we do for the $10,000 Diamond. We certainly understand that first-time participants don't know Greg, myself or Geoff as well as the regulars do but trust me when I tell you that we do care about all of our leagues, regardless of the entry fee. It's the only way we know how to do business.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 4:16 am

Originally posted by Return of the Aces:

Greg,

Thanks for the update. Please note that the rosters cannot be accessed yet for NY League 4. I received this message:

"Sorry, your league's rosters haven't been loaded yet".

Just to clarify, when do you anticipate that the rosters will be accessible?

Thanks, again. Yes, we are loading everything now. Some are done. I don't know why this one isn't loaded, but all should be by the end of business today. They are all typed in and loaded, I'm sure of that, but for whatever reason this one isn't showing. We'll send to IT to get this done ASAP.

All free agents should be visible no later than the end of today. That's the goal and John confirmed today that this timetable is still reachable. So don't jump off the bridge just yet folks, we're on pace for a great, great, great season.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 4:20 am

Originally posted by matt25112:

Greg first year player here,

I started with a double play this year just because I want to get used to the format/faab. I have no experience working with this crew so I do not have the comfort as most people. I am usually not a complainer (I'm sure most people would roll their eyes to this one ha ha). But I have been complaining a few times on here lately and that is a sign to me that there is a reason for concern.

On the flip side though the reactions I have received from Geoff, Tom and yourself have assured me that that everything is going to be ok and I thank you for that.

If all goes well this year I will be joining the Main Event next year...the double play which is a big league for me seems like small potatoes around here.

I was going to tell you March 14th DP not loaded yet but looks like some1 beat me to it.

Thanks

Matt Matt, then make plans for the main event next year. Everything is going to go fine here. Yes, I can almost guarantee that there will be a few hiccups along the way and when they happen the MB crowd will say the sky is falling and Fanball is the worst and everything else that I'm hearing. I even heard that Tom and I were on vacation and Geoff was the only one working hard around here. Does this person even have a clue about my work schedule over the last two months?

But we are going to work through everything and make this the best season you've ever had in the NFBC.

Just win your Double Play league and the overall title and you won't have to worry about the entry fee for the main event next year!!

But I promise you, you'll have a great experience either way this year and will be in the main event next year. I'm sure of that. Good luck.

JAGUAR · Post by **JAGUAR** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 4:32 am

greg could you tell me the draft order for april 1st 2pm double play online. thanks

matt25112 · Post by **matt25112** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 4:48 am

Thanks guys

Hells Satans · Post by **Hells Satans** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 4:49 am

March 21 Super League rosters have not been loaded yet

Likewhat17 · Post by **Likewhat17** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 4:55 am

Chicago 1, and slow draft #1 not loaded yet

Glenneration X · Post by **Glenneration X** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 4:56 am

Greg....

Hanram, ARod, Braun, Kemp, Utley, & Halladay are missing from my NY Main Event team.

Please have them added immediately.

Thank you & regards,

Glenn

RichV · Post by **RichV** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 5:03 am

Originally posted by Glenneration X:

Greg....

Hanram, ARod, Braun, Kemp, Utley, & Halladay are missing from my NY Main Event team.

Please have them added immediately.

Thank you & regards,

Glenn What? Youy didn't draft a 1st baseman early? What were you thinking?

mallorys killers · Post by **mallorys killers** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 5:04 am

MARCH 30 $250 SATELITTE IS NOT LOADED STILL!!!!!!Sorry, your league's rosters haven't been loaded yet.

mallorys killers · Post by **mallorys killers** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 5:08 am

MARCH 14TH NOT LOADED $250,,NOT MARCH 30TH,,LOL

mrhambone · Post by **mrhambone** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 5:29 am

Main Event Week 1 Vegas League 1 and 2 not loaded.

BadBlakes2010 · Post by **BadBlakes2010** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 5:44 am

New York Citi Field League 3 - Rosters are NOT loaded. Also,How in the HELL does one add an Avatar?Not through EDIT PROFILE obviously.Come on boys!!!Not much time to view free agents and set up bids and the HOLLIDAY weekend is fast approaching.I'm betting MOST of us have a busy weekend ahead!!!

Frozen Tundra · Post by **Frozen Tundra** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 5:56 am

Originally posted by BadBlakes2010:

New York Citi Field League 3 - Rosters are NOT loaded. Also,How in the HELL does one add an Avatar?Not through EDIT PROFILE obviously.Come on boys!!!Not much time to view free agents and set up bids and the HOLLIDAY weekend is fast approaching.I'm betting MOST of us have a busy weekend ahead!!! Welcome to the boards. The man in charge said rosters would be reeady by the end of today, so let's give him a chance. The main event is a manual process and I assume a lot of double checking is done before the rosters are posted. I am absolutely positive we will have plenty of time to set rosters and bid on free agents.

Geoffrey Stein · Post by **Geoffrey Stein** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 6:09 am

Las Vegas 1 and 2 from March 20 now have rosters, and the Friday auction mixup has been corrected.

Thanks!