STATS Inc To Return As Software Provider

Rainiers · Post by **Rainiers** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 4:54 pm

Greg,

I'm just in my second year here, and, contrary to Walla Walla, my fellow Washingtonian (unless he seceded from the rest of the state which is a distinct possibility), I thought 2010 was a damn fine year for the NFBC. If you think you can make this great game even better with Stats, have at it!

Robert

Chest Rockwell · Post by **Chest Rockwell** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 2:09 am

Originally posted by Rainiers:

Greg,

I'm just in my second year here, and, contrary to Walla Walla, my fellow Washingtonian (unless he seceded from the rest of the state which is a distinct possibility), I thought 2010 was a damn fine year for the NFBC. If you think you can make this great game even better with Stats, have at it!

Robert Robert,

If you thought 2010 was a fine year in the nfbc then I will say this.....

Replace Fanball with Stats and remove Ryan E Houston from the equation...

If you loved 2010 then you might as well learn to walk with permanent wood in 2011 because 2010 sucked and is a complete abberation compared to the first 5-6 years of this event.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 2:43 am

Originally posted by Richie:

Greg, do you know if Mark Moehler still works for them?

This is great news as we were all happy with the stats service (almost all). It was very good.

Richie He sure does Richie!!

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 2:49 am

Originally posted by RoundTrippers:

great news!...are mobile apps for drafting and setting lineups and making faab moves an option?? These are going to be options that will likely start with football rather than baseball as we already have so much to do now in such a short time. But STATS already has some ideas for mobile apps and other unique features that we haven't had before and I'm excited about the possibilities. We just both agree that the timing isn't right to do everything for the start of this baseball season, so give us a little time and you'll see new features down the road.

And I'll ask them what type of smart phone this technology will work best on. It's time you get a new smart phone anyway, right?

I'll lead you in the right direction.

But this is exactly why I wanted to work with STATS. Some of the things they are currently doing with NFL teams for their own drafts can be replicated for fantasy sports owners. It's very, very exciting what they are doing and MLB teams will also be working on with these draft programs. We'll talk further when we can, but I know I've found the right technological partner to move us forward and to make running your drafts and your teams almost a joy, not a pain in the ass.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 2:58 am

Originally posted by Walla Walla:

Greg, When the move was made to Fanball you said Stats was getting out of the baseball website league providers service.. That Fanball had to provide thier own draft site. Was that a lie by fanball?

Next year do we kiss and make up with the pink bird? It really wasn't that bad a place and a hell of alot cheaper! You have an interesting way of asking questions John.

Let's just recall the past: Fanball acquired the NFBC and NFFC and had its own IT team to do all of the back-end features and it certainly made sense to do it that way. STATS was always just contracted by Krause's/F+W and they fulfilled their obligations through six seasons of NFBC and NFFC. And yes, they did not continue doing third-party back-end services for any fantasy contests after we moved to St. Louis.

That being said, our relationship will now be much different than before. I can't discuss that now, but you'll see what I mean shortly and you'll like it. It's set up so that everyone has an incentive to push this product to greater heights both technologically and promotionally. And we'll be able to do that together as you'll soon see.

We'll see about the host sites going forward. Some people like places like the Flamingo and others enjoy the high-class of the Bellagio. We have more options now because something happened last year that limited our Las Vegas options. That shouldn't be a problem going forward. I'll send out a post-event survey and get feedback and act accordingly, but personally I love being at the Bellagio and as we push the envelope with this event I hope our future partners will like it, too.

Thanks for the question and welcome back to the NFBC John.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 3:07 am

Originally posted by Glenneration X:

I honestly can't think of a company better suited to jump in and help the NFBC move on without a hiccup. STATS should be able to pick up right where they left off and only focus on discussed upgrades rather than having to start from scratch as many other backend providers would have had to do.

It's amazing that only a month ago there were fears that the NFBC would be no more. Now it looks like the NFBC is headed for greater heights than ever.

Great news all around.

Glenn You hit the nail on the head Glenn. I needed a company that could pick up the NFBC and NFFC immediately without a hitch and one that would give confidence to all of our great customers that our contests would be as good as before and even better. I think STATS provides that because they've done this before and we know they are reliable and accurate. We also know they've nailed the neat features like Conditional Bids and Live Standings, and trust me, they have other features that will be coming down the road soon.

So I'm extremely confident about the back-end for 2011 and beyond and I think all of you should have your confidence restored as well. They were the first call I made and I was hopeful that they would be as interested in working with us as we were with them. It didn't take long for us to get on the same page and now we're good to go. Again, we're just talking about the back-end for now but hopefully it will lead to more soon.

Hells Satans · Post by **Hells Satans** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 3:08 am

as long as I don't have to keep the stats myself, I'm happy

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 3:10 am

Originally posted by Bama:

quote:Originally posted by Oaktown:

Fantastic news, this site was soooo much better with Stats than it was last year. I'll agree with that. Should make Sundays a lot better. I guess the bigggest ? with Stats is what draft room we use for Online/Sat and how they handle the input of those drafts. [/QUOTE]We will have our own draft room and that will be unveiled soon. All draft results will flow right into your team pages after the online pages are complete. We are also looking at some ways to input the results from the live drafts right into your team pages, but we haven't solved that one yet. But we will. I think you'll like the online draft room to start with and we have a plan in place to really make that special. Stay tuned for more there.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 3:14 am

Originally posted by Rainiers:

Greg,

I'm just in my second year here, and, contrary to Walla Walla, my fellow Washingtonian (unless he seceded from the rest of the state which is a distinct possibility), I thought 2010 was a damn fine year for the NFBC. If you think you can make this great game even better with Stats, have at it!

Robert I think this is a good post. We certainly had our hiccups to start the season last year with Fanball and there's no doubt we had a hole in the player pool that affected minor-league pitchers that were being added to the pool before they officially were called up, but overall the site got better as the year went on. I think the guys had a real chance to make our back-end for 2011 as good as any in the industry. Unfortunately, we'll never know if that would have been true or not.

We had no choice but to pick up and move forward and we feel we've found the perfect company to do that with. STATS will definitely tighten up everything involved with the in-season tools to run your teams and I think we will have a smoother season than 2010, but I agree with Robert that we still had one helluva 2010 season.

Chest Rockwell · Post by **Chest Rockwell** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 3:36 am

Originally posted by Rainiers:

Greg,

I'm just in my second year here, and, contrary to Walla Walla, my fellow Washingtonian (unless he seceded from the rest of the state which is a distinct possibility), I thought 2010 was a damn fine year for the NFBC. If you think you can make this great game even better with Stats, have at it!

Robert Robert,

I will say it another way. You are the guy coming out of Godfather III saying I loved that movie. Wait until you see the first two it gets even better.

Ando · Post by **Ando** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 3:48 am

I'm in the same boat as Robert, first year was in 2010 and I absolutely fell in love with this place and what it offers. So much so that I've already participated in both of Dan's early drafts and dropped an inordiante amount of coin in KJ's MLBC2 draft.

I navigated just fine through this place last year. I was impressed with how it was run and just figured that the back-end hiccups were to be expected. I deduced that the complaining that many were doing was just part of the program and that not everyone can be pleased.

So, for me, I am leaving the familiarity with how I perceive the NFBC. However, change is good in life, and with so many of the most respected people that toil around here on these boards offering such encouraging words and excitement about the move to STATS...well, I can't wait!

Now, hurry up Greg! If you have to tell Winston's Empire that our 1K Slow Draft won't start next Monday he just may spontaneously combust!

Matt

Sack · Post by **Sack** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 6:33 am

Great News on Stats. Should make everybody want to jump in an pull a "Christie"....draft early and often!

bjoak · Post by **bjoak** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 9:56 am

I really didn't have a problem with the 2010 back-end after, let's say, the first two months, but STATS was even better.

Jim Christie · Post by **Jim Christie** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 11:04 am

Originally posted by Sack:

Great News on Stats. Should make everybody want to jump in an pull a "Christie"....draft early and often! I believe last year was a 1 year anomaly; Greg may not like that

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 6:17 am

One of the things I'd ask for on this thread is suggestions to any future enhancements we can make to the contest or back-end software. Try to remember back to what we had in 2009 with STATS that included a revamped Conditional Bid setup and Live Standings. Now, what enhancements can we add down the road?

Early on I'll admit that we'll be busy getting both the NFBC and NFFC main sites loaded, the draft software running and the game site updated. We are ready for all of this, but the transfer of files for the Message Boards, logins, past history of the NFBC, NFFC and NFBBC, and more will take time. It's a lot of data that will take a lot of work. But we are ready to keep everything intact.

We have suggestions for improvements to the Slow Draft software which can't be done now, but may be done in the future. We really like this area of the market and it's obvious we can take a leadership role in these for baseball and football. We have the right suggestions to make that software better.

But if you have other suggestions for the game-site or contest or live drafts or anything else, feel free to post here. We'll consider everything and prioritize things as the season nears. Thanks all.

lschechter · Post by **lschechter** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 3:07 pm

This obviously isn't a priority, but I'd like to see "live standings" for the overall, as well as leagues.

(If I remember correctly, there has never been "live" for the overall standings in NFBC.)

Glenneration X · Post by **Glenneration X** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 3:45 pm

Since you asked Greg.....

A couple of things that I did like about Fanball's back end that STATS hadn't provided....

1) Fanball was lightning quick in posting the FAAB results each week, often within minutes. If I remember correctly, STATS would often take as long as an hour. It would be great if STATS could mimic Fanball's speed in this regard.

2) I was a big fan of the ability to toggle between teams while remaining on the same page for FAAB, setting lineups, live scoring. It was a big time saver for those of us with multiple teams.

3) When you placed a player on your Watch List in Fanball, it carried over for all your teams. Again, this was a big time savings for those of us with multiple squads. Though I didn't use it, the ability to bid from the Watch List was a nice feature.

4) Free Agent Quick was a cool and useful page.

A couple things neither Fanball nor STATS had that we could definately use......

1) Live Real-Time Scoring for the Overall Standings.

2) Resolve the doubleheader glitch in Live Scoring that always erases the results from the first game of a doubleheader once the second game starts.

3) Input picks into team rosters as they are made at the Live Drafts so that the leagues are loaded immediately and we can avoid the annual delay in getting leagues set up.

Richie · Post by **Richie** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 6:31 pm

Thats alot that was liked with fanball software. Amazing, based upon some posts I have read

team z · Post by **team z** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 2:26 pm

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Glenneration X:

Since you asked Greg.....

A couple of things that I did like about Fanball's back end that STATS hadn't provided....

1) Fanball was lightning quick in posting the FAAB results each week, often within minutes. If I remember correctly, STATS would often take as long as an hour. It would be great if STATS could mimic Fanball's speed in this regard.

2) I was a big fan of the ability to toggle between teams while remaining on the same page for FAAB, setting lineups, live scoring. It was a big time saver for those of us with multiple teams.

3) When you placed a player on your Watch List in Fanball, it carried over for all your teams. Again, this was a big time savings for those of us with multiple squads. Though I didn't use it, the ability to bid from the Watch List was a nice feature.

4) Free Agent Quick was a cool and useful page.

Here's a better idea. Expand rosters and dump Faab altogether.

[ February 03, 2011, 08:31 PM: Message edited by: the untouchables ]

mrhambone · Post by **mrhambone** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 3:16 pm

It was talked about last year and I think it almost happened but I would love to see you be able to put a higher FA dollar amount on Conditional Players than the primary FA.

This seems like a no brainer to me.

So you could do this

FA Wade Boggs $50

conditional bid A Rock Raines $128

conditional bid B Jeff Kent $60

This flexability would be very helpful. Sometimes I want to pick up a FA first who may have less hype. I think I could get him for a buck but I got to drop 55 because my conditional is someone who will demand more FAAB.

Money · Post by **Money** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 3:41 pm

Originally posted by mrhambone:

It was talked about last year and I think it almost happened but I would love to see you be able to put a higher FA dollar amount on Conditional Players than the primary FA.

This seems like a no brainer to me.

So you could do this

FA Wade Boggs $50

conditional bid A Rock Raines $128

conditional bid B Jeff Kent $60

This flexability would be very helpful. Sometimes I want to pick up a FA first who may have less hype. I think I could get him for a buck but I got to drop 55 because my conditional is someone who will demand more FAAB. This is a Great point. I agree 100%

team z · Post by **team z** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:30 am

Originally posted by mrhambone:

It was talked about last year and I think it almost happened but I would love to see you be able to put a higher FA dollar amount on Conditional Players than the primary FA.

This seems like a no brainer to me.

So you could do this

FA Wade Boggs $50

conditional bid A Rock Raines $128

conditional bid B Jeff Kent $60

This flexability would be very helpful. Sometimes I want to pick up a FA first who may have less hype. I think I could get him for a buck but I got to drop 55 because my conditional is someone who will demand more FAAB. Here's a better idea. Expand rosters and dump Faab altogether. This seems like a no brainer to me.

Happenstance · Post by **Happenstance** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 2:48 am

Originally posted by Fast Money:

quote:Originally posted by mrhambone:

It was talked about last year and I think it almost happened but I would love to see you be able to put a higher FA dollar amount on Conditional Players than the primary FA.

This seems like a no brainer to me.

So you could do this

FA Wade Boggs $50

conditional bid A Rock Raines $128

conditional bid B Jeff Kent $60

This flexability would be very helpful. Sometimes I want to pick up a FA first who may have less hype. I think I could get him for a buck but I got to drop 55 because my conditional is someone who will demand more FAAB. This is a Great point. I agree 100% [/QUOTE]I just wanted to chime in to agree - this is a fantastic idea if it can be implemented.

Glenneration X · Post by **Glenneration X** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 3:00 am

Originally posted by Fast Money:

quote:Originally posted by mrhambone:

It was talked about last year and I think it almost happened but I would love to see you be able to put a higher FA dollar amount on Conditional Players than the primary FA.

This seems like a no brainer to me.

So you could do this

FA Wade Boggs $50

conditional bid A Rock Raines $128

conditional bid B Jeff Kent $60

This flexability would be very helpful. Sometimes I want to pick up a FA first who may have less hype. I think I could get him for a buck but I got to drop 55 because my conditional is someone who will demand more FAAB. This is a Great point. I agree 100% [/QUOTE]Fanball had this programming last year and it was offered initially. After some debate on the message board, it was determined it would create more headaches than it was worth and was scrapped.

Glenn

Glenneration X · Post by **Glenneration X** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 3:04 am

Originally posted by the untouchables:

[QUOTE]Here's a better idea. Expand rosters and dump Faab altogether. This seems like a no brainer to me. I've seen you ask for this twice now. It already exists. It's called a Slow Draft DC. Try one if that's what you like.

Glenn