Post
by Greg Ambrosius » Thu Oct 06, 2011 4:33 am
Originally posted by Likewhat17:
Maybe I'm wrong and in the small minority here, but do we really care where we draft? I know that with the buy-ins that we are playing, and the prestige of these events, that you want to have them at the best venues possible. But if the costs are so high, I don't see the benefit.
Personally, I would be just as happy drafting at some random hotel's conference room, at someone's house, a random hole in the wall bar, etc. The draft is the event, regardless of where its held.
I'm curious as to just what portion of our event fees go towards these grand venues, and if there is any way to downsize the locations and instead add more money to the league and overall prizes.
Again, I know that I'm in the minority and that most probably enjoy the best venues. It just doesn't do anything for me. I appreciate the comments, but I think people have to realize that hosting live drafts is not as simple as hosting them in a garage, buying 12-packs and taking the percentage of money left over and calling it a day. There is a LOT involved in making sure that everything runs smoothly, that each draft is run fairly and that everyone leaves feeling they are playing in a first class event.
In order to do that, you have to get good facilitators (that you pay for), you have to find locations that are easy for folks to fly and drive to, you have to have worthy venues (that charge you for using their facilities), you have to have draft boards so everyone can see the picks, and you have to have something there via food and drink. Baseball drafts are 4 1/2 hours long and providing nothing doesn't seem right.
That being said, for many years we were considered "cheap" because we didn't provide much food and only provided a couple of drinks. Other contests did more and we stepped up a few years ago. Remember, we didn't have Events Fees for many years when other contests did, but the costs continued to rise to the point where we couldn't take on every single live event cost anymore. We just couldn't do it. I will discuss the Events Fees for 2012 soon and explain our reasoning behind them.
Our live event costs for the NFBC exceed six figures. Events Fees cover a minority of our costs; and that's fine because we don't expect the Events Fees to cover everything. But we need help offsetting some of the costs and they do that. The cost per customer per venue (no matter what city) is $125+, plain and simple. And again, I'll discuss this in the Events Fees discussion later.
And whether we serve food or drinks or nothing is between us and the venues. You have to realize that for many years to reserve space you pay rent for that space. We've been able to work with our contacts now to exchange rental fees for food and beverage. So at least now we're getting something for that space. So while some folks think we're going overboard with some things at the live drafts, it's actually in return for other things we used to pay more for. The space is never free, no matter where you host an event...unless of course it's in someone's garage.
We are looking at ways to reduce our expenses and through 8+ years we've learned some tricks. But the bottom line is that none of this is easy and none of it is cheap. It costs money to travel to live events for you and to host live events for me. Still, the experience is FANTASTIC and worth it. And I like the formats we have now and we'll continue to make them first class because the whole experience needs to be that way.
Thanks for the feedback all.
Greg Ambrosius
Founder, National Fantasy Baseball Championship
General Manager, Consumer Fantasy Games at SportsHub Technologies
Twitter - @GregAmbrosius
