OT: NFFC Will Be In EIGHT Cities In 2010

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Fri May 14, 2010 4:46 am

Apologies for the football intrusion but we have some big news to announce with our football event. So here goes:

The NFFC is expanding to eight cities in 2010. They are:

Las Vegas at the Bellagio Resort & Casino

New York at Citi Field

Chicago at Trackside at Arlington Park

Boston at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Boston

Buffalo at Ralph Wilson Stadium in the Kelly Room, 50-yard line

Dallas (site still to be finalized)

Denver (downtown, site still to be finalized)

Minneapolis at the Minneapolis Hilton downtown

We will also offer the NFFC Classic and Primetime online for those who still can't make it to the live events. But we are doing everything in our power to offer the live events at fun, fun locations where drafting against your league opponents face-to-face is still the most exciting part of the game.

Now, all eight events and online will host the main events on Saturday, Sept. 4th simultaneously at 1 pm ET/noon CT/11 am MT/10 am PT. Right now only Las Vegas, New York and Chicago will have Friday Auction Championship Leagues and Draft Champions Championship leagues. However, if there is enough interest in any of the other cities to expand to Friday events, we will do it. We have not officially reserved space for Friday in those locations, but they are available and we will staff them if demand is there. But right now we are pushing our three main locations for the entire weekend of events -- which include 14-team Ultimate and Super Leagues on Sunday, Sept. 5th -- with the other locations hosting just the main events.

We know this is aggressive, but when Liberty Media officials flew to Las Vegas in March to see our NFBC events, they loved the idea of the live events concept. They loved what they saw. And they wanted this to grow more than it has been under previous management. They wondered why we weren't doing baseball in more locations. They pushed us to become more aggressive and to grow our football event beyond what we are projecting. If we could get 300+ for the NFFC Classic in years past in just three cities, why not push for 300+ and beyond in more cities? So we're taking their lead and making this happen.

We have very good connections in each of the cities we chose and Fanball has strong customer bases in each of those cities. We feel like Dallas is a perfect expansion for the NFFC. We have a great, great contact in Buffalo and can draft inside Ralph Wilson Stadium in the Kelly Room up around the 50-yard line seats. We believe downtown Boston and Minneapolis can support audiences, as can Denver, where again we have great contacts. All of the locations are working with us to make this cost effective and we'll promote heavily locally.

Our prizes are based on last year's goals: 322 teams in the Classic and 300 teams in the Primetime. If we expand beyond those numbers we'll increase league and overall prizes, starting with league prizes. The Classic remains at $1,400 per entry, while we raised the Primetime to $850 this year to get the grand prize to $50,000 with slightly increased league prizes. There is a $50 Events Fee for each event because we've agreed to provide more food and beverage this year and we're going to make that special. Stay tuned for more details on each location as we want folks to stick around after the drafts, eat together and analyze the draft boards together.

Look for registration info and early bird signup specials on the new NFFC site (nffc.fanball.com) soon.

whipsaw · Post by **whipsaw** » Fri May 14, 2010 6:00 am

Damn, no event within a zillion miles of D.C. and all its obscene amount of discretionary income.

The Mighty Men · Post by **The Mighty Men** » Fri May 14, 2010 6:04 am

Interesting. 3 places in the Northeast, and not a single one in California or Florida.

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Fri May 14, 2010 6:10 am

Originally posted by The Mighty Men:

Interesting. 3 places in the Northeast, and not a single one in California or Florida. We looked into California and that could be an option in the future. As far as Florida, we tried both Orlando and Tampa in the past with poor results. It didn't make much sense to go back there given how small the turnouts were. Instead, we wanted to try new locations and see if those will be more rewarding.

[ May 14, 2010, 12:14 PM: Message edited by: Tom Kessenich ]

Highlander · Post by **Highlander** » Fri May 14, 2010 6:17 am

Awesome news....maybe some sharks will stay in their hometown or close to it to draft and not go to Las Vegas this year!!!

NorCalAtlFan · Post by **NorCalAtlFan** » Fri May 14, 2010 6:54 am

Originally posted by The Mighty Men:

Interesting. 3 places in the Northeast, and not a single one in California or Florida. i did chuckle at that. minnesota, buffalo, dallas, boston and denver, but no SF, LA, SD? hillarious.

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Fri May 14, 2010 6:56 am

I'm not sure what's hilarious about it. Like I said, we will explore California going forward. But we have found that many of our California residents like going to Vegas. But again, we haven't ruled out a future California location by any means and no one should assume that will be the case.

I also think people lose sight of the fact that while it's easy to pick a city, it's not always easy to find a location that can host our events and do it at a price that not only works with what we plan but doesn't create additional expenses for our participants.

Mankind · Post by **Mankind** » Fri May 14, 2010 7:18 am

Tom,

You are absolutely correct, living in SoCal all my life being an hour away from L.A. or hour and a half from Diego.....nothing comes close to Vegas and a short 3 1/2 hour drive..NoCal Sacramento or San Francisco don't see that being a good turnout....just my two cents.. Duke

NorCalAtlFan · Post by **NorCalAtlFan** » Fri May 14, 2010 7:19 am

what hillarious is i would assume half of the new sites will be like st louis in baseball this year. they'll draw 1 league. which is great for the folks in those cities.

i would venture a guess that just about any location in california would draw more though. if it's cost prohibitive, so be it. you know that more than me.

and like you said, nothing has been ruled out so this all may be moot.

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Fri May 14, 2010 7:30 am

Originally posted by Mankind:

Tom,

You are absolutely correct, living in SoCal all my life being an hour away from L.A. or hour and a half from Diego.....nothing comes close to Vegas and a short 3 1/2 hour drive..NoCal Sacramento or San Francisco don't see that being a good turnout....just my two cents.. Duke That's what we're thinking as well. It's certainly possible our California participants would prefer a Cal location but our gut feeling at this time is most of them would prefer to go to Vegas.

As far as how many leagues we'll have in each city that remains to be seen. This is the first time we've branched out beyond four cities so there is uncertainty involved. But we were the industry's first regionalized event and we hope to become even more regionalized if possible going forward. This is our first step toward achieving that goal.

The key is finding the right cities. Florida didn't work out in the past and it's possible one or more of our 2010 locations won't work out either. But we want to give people as many options as possible to take part in our events. That's critical if we're going to continue growing.

Sebadiah23 · Post by **Sebadiah23** » Fri May 14, 2010 7:38 am

Very odd locations but still cool. More is better.

Dirt Dogs · Post by **Dirt Dogs** » Fri May 14, 2010 7:53 am

WOW Boston! I might have to enter my first NFFC league. I dont like football enough to drive all the way to NY and stay overnight etc but since it's in my backyard. Maybe i'll give it a shot.

Something to think about...

Lets get baseball to boston in 2010 too

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Fri May 14, 2010 7:55 am

Originally posted by Dirt Dogs:

WOW Boston! I might have to enter my first NFFC league. I dont like football enough to drive all the way to NY and stay overnight etc but since it's in my backyard. Maybe i'll give it a shot.

Something to think about...

Lets get baseball to boston in 2010 too This is what we like to hear. And if Boston proves successful for football I think it's safe to say we'll explore that city for baseball as well.

Red Sox Nation · Post by **Red Sox Nation** » Fri May 14, 2010 9:38 am

Originally posted by Tom Kessenich:

quote:Originally posted by Dirt Dogs:

WOW Boston! I might have to enter my first NFFC league. I dont like football enough to drive all the way to NY and stay overnight etc but since it's in my backyard. Maybe i'll give it a shot.

Something to think about...

Lets get baseball to boston in 2010 too This is what we like to hear. And if Boston proves successful for football I think it's safe to say we'll explore that city for baseball as well. [/QUOTE]Right on. I've never tried the NFFC but I may have to now. Nice job.

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Fri May 14, 2010 10:02 am

Two signups for Boston. I like it.

eddiejag · Post by **eddiejag** » Fri May 14, 2010 10:35 am

I also will consider Boston which is only an hour away where NY is 3.5 hours.But i enjoy the NY guys.We will see.

Glenneration X · Post by **Glenneration X** » Fri May 14, 2010 12:12 pm

Does Boston even qualify as a real city?

I can understand Minny or Buffalo, but why go to a small hick town like Beantown?

Glenn

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Sat May 15, 2010 3:47 am

For those interested, the new NFFC web site is live. You can check it out at nffc.fanball.com. Registration will be live on Monday.

Rainiers · Post by **Rainiers** » Sat May 15, 2010 3:57 am

Tom, have you all ever considered Seattle for NFBC? A great venue would be Safeco Field. See http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com/sea/bal ... /index.jsp for all the space options, some really cool ones. A very nice hotel across the street from Safeco is the Silvercloud, check it out at www.silvercloud.com

There are lots of guys like me up here in the northwest that love baseball, stats, and fantasy leagues and who have disposable income; who just don't want to fly 3 hours to Vegas or 4 hours to St. Louis... flying is getting to be such a pain in the rear. Driving that far is completely out of the question.

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Sat May 15, 2010 6:27 am

We can certainly look into Seattle going forward. We're getting plenty of requests for future cities so if expansion proves successful this year I think we'll have quite a few other options to consider going forward.

sandckaye · Post by **sandckaye** » Sat May 15, 2010 9:50 am

Tom

I know its early but do you think Dallas will be a BB location for next year? If it is I may have to start saving my money

Stan

Tom Kessenich · Post by **Tom Kessenich** » Sat May 15, 2010 10:31 am

Originally posted by sandckaye:

Tom

I know its early but do you think Dallas will be a BB location for next year? If it is I may have to start saving my money

Stan Too soon to say about baseball Stan. We'll see how we do with football in Dallas and that could factor into whether we decide to pursue a Texas location for baseball.