High Stakes Football Contest (1 Viewer)

sanders_prime_time · Jul 24, 2014

Does anyone know of a high stakes fantasy contest with a big group of people similar to the FBG subscriber contest? My 3 year subscription is up and I'm considering about renewing just for the subscriber contest. But for $30, of which only about $3 goes toward the prize pool it isn't a great expected return and probably isn't worth it.

The main concerns I have about the available high stakes leagues are: the draft based leagues where you're placed in a draft with random entrants and the payout percentage of some of the leagues. To me the draft system is an uneven playing field where if you're in a weak "league" you can have a far better draft on average than if your in a hard one. This is compounded with in-season waivers because if you're in a weaker league with inactive owners you have a leg up in the overall contest again. I think the FBG subscriber contest is a good system because everyone is on a level playing field and you aren't placed in arbitrary leagues. The success your team has isn't dependent on how tough of a league you're in and you have no excuses if your team loses. You can add depth to cover potential injuries and build your team however you want.

The other thing is the payouts seem to be fixed for a lot of high stakes leagues and don't increase with a greater number of entrants. That or they take a high percentage to start with. Coming from a poker background, I automatically compare it to fantasy leagues. When a poker tournament guarantees a prize pool if there are more entrants than needed to pay out the guaranteed prizes the pool grows as the number of entrants grows. Each entry is split up into buy in and fee with the fee (usually under 10%) going to the host site and the buy in going to the prize pool. When the prize pool exceeds the amount of guaranteed prizes, the payouts get bigger than what was guaranteed. Most high stakes leagues just take a higher cut if there are more entrants than needed to pay the guaranteed prize pools.

So does anyone know of a high stakes league where you can create a team independent from the other entrants with no in-season management that has a good payout rate?

nightmare · Jul 24, 2014

$100 entry to win a $1000? MFL does best ball draft only leagues.

Kwai Chang Caine · Jul 24, 2014

nightmare said:
$100 entry to win a $1000? MFL does best ball draft only leagues.

Have you actually done one of those $100 MFL drafts? I'm in the middle of a $25 but not sure I got the stones for a 100. It is a nice payout but only one person out of 12 wins. No second or third place money.

Noah Davis · Jul 24, 2014

sanders_prime_time said:
Does anyone know of a high stakes fantasy contest with a big group of people similar to the FBG subscriber contest? My 3 year subscription is up and I'm considering about renewing just for the subscriber contest. But for $30, of which only about $3 goes toward the prize pool it isn't a great expected return and probably isn't worth it.

The main concerns I have about the available high stakes leagues are: the draft based leagues where you're placed in a draft with random entrants and the payout percentage of some of the leagues. To me the draft system is an uneven playing field where if you're in a weak "league" you can have a far better draft on average than if your in a hard one. This is compounded with in-season waivers because if you're in a weaker league with inactive owners you have a leg up in the overall contest again. I think the FBG subscriber contest is a good system because everyone is on a level playing field and you aren't placed in arbitrary leagues. The success your team has isn't dependent on how tough of a league you're in and you have no excuses if your team loses. You can add depth to cover potential injuries and build your team however you want.

The other thing is the payouts seem to be fixed for a lot of high stakes leagues and don't increase with a greater number of entrants. That or they take a high percentage to start with. Coming from a poker background, I automatically compare it to fantasy leagues. When a poker tournament guarantees a prize pool if there are more entrants than needed to pay out the guaranteed prizes the pool grows as the number of entrants grows. Each entry is split up into buy in and fee with the fee (usually under 10%) going to the host site and the buy in going to the prize pool. When the prize pool exceeds the amount of guaranteed prizes, the payouts get bigger than what was guaranteed. Most high stakes leagues just take a higher cut if there are more entrants than needed to pay the guaranteed prize pools.

So does anyone know of a high stakes league where you can create a team independent from the other entrants with no in-season management that has a good payout rate?

What do you consider high stakes? There are some auction high stakes leagues - which eliminates the snake and impacts of your league composition.

Otherwise I think high stakes Daily fantasy football is more your speed if your looking for an experience similar to online poker.

Kevrunner · Jul 24, 2014

Kwai Chang Caine said:
nightmare said:

$100 entry to win a $1000? MFL does best ball draft only leagues.

Click to expand...

Have you actually done one of those $100 MFL drafts? I'm in the middle of a $25 but not sure I got the stones for a 100. It is a nice payout but only one person out of 12 wins. No second or third place money.

No $$$ for 2nd place, but you do earn a entry into a league next year. For the $100 leagues, the winner gets $1000, 2nd gets a 2015 league entry ($100 value).

[icon] · Jul 24, 2014

sanders_prime_time said:
My 3 year subscription is up and I'm considering about renewing just for the subscriber contest. But for $30, of which only about $3 goes toward the prize pool it isn't a great expected return and probably isn't worth it.

Well....yeah... turns out there's a little more to the FBG business model than just the Subscriber contest. It's not really realistic to expect the lions share of dues to go toward that contest.

sanders_prime_time · Jul 24, 2014

nightmare said:
$100 entry to win a $1000? MFL does best ball draft only leagues.

I've seen those, not too bad but you don't have the possibility to win a huge payout from a smallish buy in.

[icon] said:
sanders_prime_time said:

My 3 year subscription is up and I'm considering about renewing just for the subscriber contest. But for $30, of which only about $3 goes toward the prize pool it isn't a great expected return and probably isn't worth it.

Click to expand...

Well....yeah... turns out there's a little more to the FBG business model than just the Subscriber contest. It's not really realistic to expect the lions share of dues to go toward that contest.

Yeah obviously, I'm just saying if I renew just for the contest it isn't worth it.

fridayfrenzy · Jul 24, 2014

It seems like FBG and FFPC could partner up to do a higher stakes FBG Contest style so easily. Majority of the work is done and would be a win-win for everyone.

They obviously have a way of tracking the points, and they do all the work for the contest for FBG anyways, so just move it over to FFPC and charge $50 or more per entry. I am not saying to get rid of the FBG contest on here, but to just copy it and make it a high stakes league at FFPC.

Like the OP says, a majority of the high stakes league with lots of people take into account the strength of the initial 12 person league that someone is placed in.

Kwai Chang Caine · Jul 24, 2014

Kevrunner said:
Kwai Chang Caine said:

nightmare said:

$100 entry to win a $1000? MFL does best ball draft only leagues.

Click to expand...

Have you actually done one of those $100 MFL drafts? I'm in the middle of a $25 but not sure I got the stones for a 100. It is a nice payout but only one person out of 12 wins. No second or third place money.

Click to expand...

No $$$ for 2nd place, but you do earn a entry into a league next year. For the $100 leagues, the winner gets $1000, 2nd gets a 2015 league entry ($100 value).

No kidding? Hmmm. That's not that bad then if runner up is a free one next year. Degenerate that I am I may try that although I think that's a league you wait closer to opening day. It's one thing to spend ten bucks and take Foster or Gronk top of round 2 but for a 100 I'd like more information.

nightmare · Jul 24, 2014

No, I also did a $25 league this year(first year). I like doing them early as the

questionable mid range RB's are still relative bargains and you can stock up on 2 or 3

or draft a teams RB core-Cleveland, 49ers, Oakland, Titans.

Joe Bryant · Jul 24, 2014

Hi Sanders,

Yes, we've been kicking around a mid stakes level (similar to the Footballguys Players Championship $350) contest that is basically a pay version of the 35k Subscriber Contest.

I know it all boils down to payouts and all that but assume they'll be attractive and fair and in line with the Footballguys Players Championship there. If we did this, how well do you think it would be received?

J

sanders_prime_time · Jul 24, 2014

Hi Joe,

Personally I think it would be well received. I can't speak for everyone but I know there are a lot of people who enjoy the format of the subscriber contest and like the strategy that goes into it.

I'm not sure if you would want to modify the format a bit if it were a high stakes league or not. I.e. Some people might feel like they didn't get their money's worth if they were knocked out early. Maybe a system where the top half of scorers for the week get a win or something like that might be better. I'm just throwing ideas out there...

I would definitely be interested in something like that though.

SPT

scifijon · Jul 24, 2014

I think if FBG did a subscriber only contest that was 100% payout and moderate buy in (50-150$) that would be great. The "rake" for them would be the new and retained subscriptions. I think I'd re subscribe for this, but right now I probably won't because I get most of the content I prefer via the free msg boards.

fridayfrenzy · Jul 24, 2014

Joe Bryant said:
Hi Sanders,

Yes, we've been kicking around a mid stakes level (similar to the Footballguys Players Championship $350) contest that is basically a pay version of the 35k Subscriber Contest.

I know it all boils down to payouts and all that but assume they'll be attractive and fair and in line with the Footballguys Players Championship there. If we did this, how well do you think it would be received?

J

It would be hard to have a high entry fee for it.

1. People wouldn't want to pay $250 and be knocked out in Week 4 and twiddle their thumbs for the rest of the season.

2. A factor in what makes the FBG contest fun is the amount of people who enter and a high entry fee would certainly limit the participants.

On the flip side, do you need to limit the # of entries a person can make or is ok if someone pays 4 entry fees to play different strategies?

If you had a $25 or $50 entry fee for the FBG contest style, I think you could gather steam over a few years to have a pretty big following.

Joe Bryant · Jul 24, 2014

scifijon said:
I think if FBG did a subscriber only contest that was 100% payout and moderate buy in (50-150$) that would be great. The "rake" for them would be the new and retained subscriptions. I think I'd re subscribe for this, but right now I probably won't because I get most of the content I prefer via the free msg boards.

Sorry, but it'll never be a 100% payout. The Footballguys Players Championship is run with our partners at the FFPC. That's how we'd run this contest too. It would be a stand alone contest and have normal payouts so the contest made money. If we did this, it would be run very much like the Footballguys Players Championship.

J

Modog814 · Jul 24, 2014

Joe Bryant said:
scifijon said:

I think if FBG did a subscriber only contest that was 100% payout and moderate buy in (50-150$) that would be great. The "rake" for them would be the new and retained subscriptions. I think I'd re subscribe for this, but right now I probably won't because I get most of the content I prefer via the free msg boards.

Click to expand...

Sorry, but it'll never be a 100% payout. The Footballguys Players Championship is run with our partners at the FFPC. That's how we'd run this contest too. It would be a stand alone contest and have normal payouts so the contest made money. If we did this, it would be run very much like the Footballguys Players Championship.

J

Joe,

I think this is a great idea and would generate a lot of interest. However, I would think you would need to keep the entry fee in the $25 to $50 range so players a) don't feel too bad when they get eliminated early in the season, and b) can put multiple entries into it. Personally I'd rather put 4 entries into a $25 version of this contest, opposed to 1 $100 entry.

fridayfrenzy · Jul 24, 2014

Joe Bryant said:
scifijon said:

I think if FBG did a subscriber only contest that was 100% payout and moderate buy in (50-150$) that would be great. The "rake" for them would be the new and retained subscriptions. I think I'd re subscribe for this, but right now I probably won't because I get most of the content I prefer via the free msg boards.

Click to expand...

Sorry, but it'll never be a 100% payout. The Footballguys Players Championship is run with our partners at the FFPC. That's how we'd run this contest too. It would be a stand alone contest and have normal payouts so the contest made money. If we did this, it would be run very much like the Footballguys Players Championship.

J

It may not need to be 100%, but the payout %s at FFPC are pretty low and know that has turned off some people.

sanders_prime_time · Jul 24, 2014

You probably want to optimize the price point to make the prize pool as big as possible which will then draw more people in. Too low of a buy in will attract a lot of people but won't build the biggest prize pool. Too high of a buy won't attract enough people to make the pool as big as it could be. You need to find the sweet spot which optimizes it. In online poker tournaments the magic number seems to be a $200 buy in plus the fee ($15-$20) which goes to the host site. This seems to build the biggest payouts as it's affordable enough to attract a lot of people but big enough to build the prize pool. That said, this is a bit of a different market but there are definitely some parallels between them. The $350 entry seems to be working well for the FFPC.

If the buy in is around $25 and people are allowed multiple entries it becomes more of a crapshoot instead of a skill game as people end up throwing a ton of darts and hoping one hits. Just my opinion.

Drunken Cowboy · Jul 24, 2014

I am in. I also think $25 is a reasonable price point. I would probably be in for more if the payout and structure looked good. I would certainly expect you to make money for running a context like this, but the costs of running it would be pretty low. I would think you could do this contest and keep a pretty high payout.

pizzatyme · Jul 25, 2014

Joe

avid,

I'm a long time subscriber and I love the subscriber contest. I'm also a charter member with the FFPC.

I love the subscriber contest for what it is, a free contest. However, if I were going to pay any amount of money, I'd want something in the rules that tracks cumulative scoring on the season. Do your weekly cuts like you do, but if someone has a dominant team for 6 weeks (for example) and has a bad week in week 7, I'd want them to be saved (lucky dog) for that week instead of being cut.

So many teams in your subscriber contest get cut for one bad week and then they keep track of how far they would have made it and many would have gone very far.

I think this gives more perceived value to the guy paying for a team and keeps the interest level up for a longer period of time for many.

You could decide the "lucky dog" cumulative % to save yourself, but I'm thinking like top 25% in cumulative scoring gets you a "lucky dog" save until week 12, let's say.

HTH

Jersey Jammer · Jul 25, 2014

Joe Bryant said:
Hi Sanders,

Yes, we've been kicking around a mid stakes level (similar to the Footballguys Players Championship $350) contest that is basically a pay version of the 35k Subscriber Contest.

I know it all boils down to payouts and all that but assume they'll be attractive and fair and in line with the Footballguys Players Championship there. If we did this, how well do you think it would be received?

J

I've thought all along this would be a good opportunity for FBG due to the polularity of the Subscriber Contest. That is, leave that just the way it is, but ADD to it the option for your subscribers the opportunity to buy more teams. You'd probably want to keep it relatively inexpensive (so as not to compete with your FFPC contest) but I'm sure many subscribers would like the opportunity to try a few more teams in addition to the one free one.

High Stakes Football Contest (1 Viewer)

Footballguy

Footballguy

Footballguy

Footballguy

Footballguy

Insoxicated

Footballguy

Footballguy

Footballguy

Footballguy

Guide

Footballguy

Footballguy

Footballguy

Guide

Footballguy

Footballguy

Footballguy

Footballguy

Footballguy

Footballguy

Similar threads

Users who are viewing this thread