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FANBALL shutting down? (1 Viewer)

V

vandyt

Footballguy
From Fantasy Sports Business (fsb.com):

It appears that Liberty Media has decided to shut down Fanball, according to various sources.Rumors of such a possibility began to surface early Wednesday morning, and by Thursday morning FSB.com was able to confirm the news via sources with direct knowledge of the situation. Although Fanball has not officially been closed yet, we’ve been told that employees were informed Wednesday of the impending move.It’s a surprising development for a company that had made several high-profile acquisitions over the past couple of years, including the NFFC and NFBC.“I’m very sad for all the dedicated employees and for the loyal customers who supported the games and services for almost 20 years,” Charlie Wiegert, co-founder of CDM, told FSB.com Thursday of the apparent pending closure.Of course, no official announcement has yet come from Fanball or Liberty. That might leave open the possibility of a different resolution here, and we have heard from multiple sources that there will be a meeting with LIberty decision makers next week. Should the news become official, we’ll look more into what might happen to various pieces, such as the NFBC (which is gearing up for the 2011 baseball season).This is not the kind of news to tread lightly with, though, and we certainly would not be putting it out there now without reliable support.
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I've got a few feelings on this.1) They owe me about $3600 for this year's FF winnings...given they are owned by Liberty, I'm sure they'll be good for it, but I'm sure expecting to not get paid for a few months as they figure out what to do with the company.2) Congrats Fanball, and your crappy management (specifically Ryan Houston, Sr. VP of Bus Dev and Mary Fields, Marketing) for running the games your purchased from CDM Sports into the ground in only a few short years.3) Here's hoping someone steps in and purchases their existing "challenge" games. Their league management systems are terrible, but the challenge games are a unique and very entertaining collection of games played by thousands of devoted FFers like myself. Would love to see CDM's former management get re-involved here.Thats all I got. Anyone got any thoughts on this?****************I edited title. Please do not turn this into a "good riddance" type thing.J
 
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Let's wait for an official announcement from Liberty on this. If true however, I have no doubt that all winnings will be paid.

Fanball's been a very capable and tough competitor over the years. It sucks to know that real people are losing jobs. I wish them all the best. For the folks I know there, I've little doubt that they'll land on their feet running as they're hard working and talented guys.

J

 
Used to write for them. Kind of fragmented and I felt it was a little amateur-ish compared to their peers.

 
Joe,

I understand that you've likely worked with them in the past and have relationships with those people, but what they've done to the CDM games and to their customers over the past couple years has been a travesty. I've been with CDM/Fanball for 15 years, and its been a sad ride for the past few.

Sorry for the "good riddance" comment. Didn't mean to offend.

 
vandyt said:
Joe, I understand that you've likely worked with them in the past and have relationships with those people, but what they've done to the CDM games and to their customers over the past couple years has been a travesty. I've been with CDM/Fanball for 15 years, and its been a sad ride for the past few. Sorry for the "good riddance" comment. Didn't mean to offend.
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No worries, vandyt. You're obviously entitled to your opinion. Out of respect for them, I'd just like to keep this as respectful as possible.Thanks.J
 
Joe Bryant said:
Let's wait for an official announcement from Liberty on this. If true however, I have no doubt that all winnings will be paid.Fanball's been a very capable and tough competitor over the years. It sucks to know that real people are losing jobs. I wish them all the best. For the folks I know there, I've little doubt that they'll land on their feet running as they're hard working and talented guys.J
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No question about that. They have some really good writers that I work with on the baseball side.
 
I got my "Internet start" in FF in 1998 from Fanball...only been playing for a year or so at the time, but to have info available like this was revolutionary at the time. They had some very good writers and were just excited about the whole thing. I came across FBG/Cheatsheets and chose to never leave, but also thought they had a lot to offer. I think part of the downfall was moving away from the "info" model towards a "hosting" model. Anytime you choose to change your business model, it can be a recipe for greatness or disaster (with little inbetween), which is my guess as to why Joe and David appear to be "conservative" in how they manage the site/services.

One thing I thought was great about those days, is that they used to throw a staff member to the dogs in an IM setting, where people could just ask WDIS, WW, league set up, etc. questions for an hour a couple of days a week. While the FF and general board mentality was lacking in 1998, would be very cool thing to have as a subscriber.

 
Sweet Love said:
I got my "Internet start" in FF in 1998 from Fanball...only been playing for a year or so at the time, but to have info available like this was revolutionary at the time. They had some very good writers and were just excited about the whole thing. I came across FBG/Cheatsheets and chose to never leave, but also thought they had a lot to offer. I think part of the downfall was moving away from the "info" model towards a "hosting" model. Anytime you choose to change your business model, it can be a recipe for greatness or disaster (with little inbetween), which is my guess as to why Joe and David appear to be "conservative" in how they manage the site/services.

One thing I thought was great about those days, is that they used to throw a staff member to the dogs in an IM setting, where people could just ask WDIS, WW, league set up, etc. questions for an hour a couple of days a week. While the FF and general board mentality was lacking in 1998, would be very cool thing to have as a subscriber.
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Just an FYI, but Rotoworld does this once a week on Tuesday's with Evan Silva.I agree that FBG has the better staff, knowledge, and capability to do that. Would be a cool feature.

 
vandyt said:
Sweet Love said:
I got my "Internet start" in FF in 1998 from Fanball...only been playing for a year or so at the time, but to have info available like this was revolutionary at the time. They had some very good writers and were just excited about the whole thing. I came across FBG/Cheatsheets and chose to never leave, but also thought they had a lot to offer. I think part of the downfall was moving away from the "info" model towards a "hosting" model. Anytime you choose to change your business model, it can be a recipe for greatness or disaster (with little inbetween), which is my guess as to why Joe and David appear to be "conservative" in how they manage the site/services.

One thing I thought was great about those days, is that they used to throw a staff member to the dogs in an IM setting, where people could just ask WDIS, WW, league set up, etc. questions for an hour a couple of days a week. While the FF and general board mentality was lacking in 1998, would be very cool thing to have as a subscriber.
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Just an FYI, but Rotoworld does this once a week on Tuesday's with Evan Silva.I agree that FBG has the better staff, knowledge, and capability to do that. Would be a cool feature.
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I think Sportsline does this Sunday mornings...
 
I used to go to Fanball every day, just to get their advice on players. They were much more informed than Sportsline or Rotoworld or any of the other sites. But the quality slowly went downhill........they got lazy, started copying-and-pasting from other sites.......then I heard all the horror stories from people who lost money.........

I haven't even visited their website in at least 2 years. Too bad. I don't think they understood the relationship between site content and income.

 
I used to run leagues on fanball, but left a few years back with the numerous crashes of their servers and major delays in live scoring. It's always unfortunate when people lose jobs in this economy. I'm surprised they didn't review their profit lines and close down the areas that were unprofitable for them. Bad management decision there trying to do much with too little.

 
Vision6 said:
Fanball went into the crapper when Charch sold it
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x2. Was a Fanball loyalist until that day. Wasn't the same after Charch, Tuvey, Bo Mitchell, and Christian Peterson left.
 
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so what does this all mean to nffc and nfbc?

does everyone think they will be shut down or sold and stay open?

i would be worried if i was owed money by the nffc right now.

 
Sad. Fanball is a cautionary tale of moving away from your bread-n-butter (info/analysis) for greener pastures (gameplay platform). Joe and David have been STRONGLY urged by many around here to add on a league management system and begin offering games at FBG's. But I think this is a perfect example of why they have made the right choice by sticking to what's worked.

 
I just talked to rtSports and they'll transfer leagues over from Fanball right now (before the doors close and history is lost). All for free, including a free 2011 and 2012 season if we stay with them.

 
fflmonster said:
so what does this all mean to nffc and nfbc?does everyone think they will be shut down or sold and stay open?i would be worried if i was owed money by the nffc right now.
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Ah, Liberty Media would not want the lawsuits. I am sure lawyers have it planned out to settle with folks. At least the cash anyway, who knows about your points. I dont play it, but I would probably cash out of SnapDraft if I had a balance.
 
fflmonster said:
so what does this all mean to nffc and nfbc?does everyone think they will be shut down or sold and stay open?i would be worried if i was owed money by the nffc right now.
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Not sure what'll happen with them for the future. I would have zero worries about them paying out for this season though. Liberty won't let that happen I don't think.J
 
fflmonster said:
so what does this all mean to nffc and nfbc?does everyone think they will be shut down or sold and stay open?i would be worried if i was owed money by the nffc right now.
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I don't think there should be any worries with NFFC monies As for the future, it is possible that some of the employees there who have been involved with this for sometime take it and just run it under new management but I am sure they will continue - just not sure of whom will own it.
 
Captain Hook said:
Jed said:
I've been playing CDM for 15 years, and I will miss it tremendously. Not many, if any, salary cap games out there.

Joe - any chance FBG could pick up the pieces of a game like http://ptsfootball.fanball.com/ ?
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Joe/David - Charlie Weigert whom Houston fired some time ago might well be available/interested in this if you guys were
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As a 13-year customer of CDM/Fanball that has long wanted to get his foot in the door of the fantasy sports industry, I'd gladly take on this challenge with your backing. I'll drive to Knoxville to interview. PM me! :unsure:
 
Good Bye! We were with them for 3 years after leaving CBS. Was ok for a year, had a bunch of problems the second. Then they went with a new system with more "eye candy", but rolled it out 3 weeks before the season instead of the off season when they should have. So Buggy. The blind bid system didn't even work. I was doing all the commish duties, minus scoring every week. It was horrible. The customer support, if you want to call it that, went away. When we joined Fanball you could IM with tech support. I ended up IM'ing during our first draft with them (which saved the draft btw), it was great! We left for MFL, as did a lot of others.

They screwed the pooch. I don't feel bad for them.

 
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Sorry, but I have nothing respectful to say about that website. I started with them back in 1997 when the fantasy football section was called Exit42. The site got better every year until about 5 years ago. It started going downhill fast, never kept up with the competition and eventually became one of the worst sites to use. I stuck with them as long as I could but the incompetence at that site got to be too much to handle. I play fantasy football for fun and when it becomes frustrating to deal with a website...well, that takes a lot of the fun out of it. I sent them an email and told them my complaints and that I would move all 4 of my leagues to a different site if they didnt fix some stuff. They did nothing. So, I moved all of my leagues to MFL and stopped playing in the leagues that I didnt run that were still on fanball.

I do feel bad for the actual people that work there but unfortunately, they brought this collapse on themselves. They are the Dodge/GMC of fantasy football but without the possibility of a government bail out.

 
fflmonster said:
so what does this all mean to nffc and nfbc?does everyone think they will be shut down or sold and stay open?i would be worried if i was owed money by the nffc right now.
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My partner and I are owed $50,000 via NFFC. Yes, I am worried right now. It is easy to say not to be, but until a check is in hand and it clears, well.....
 
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Joe Bryant said:
vandyt said:
Joe,

I understand that you've likely worked with them in the past and have relationships with those people, but what they've done to the CDM games and to their customers over the past couple years has been a travesty. I've been with CDM/Fanball for 15 years, and its been a sad ride for the past few.

Sorry for the "good riddance" comment. Didn't mean to offend.
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No worries, vandyt. You're obviously entitled to your opinion. Out of respect for them, I'd just like to keep this as respectful as possible.

Thanks.

J
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Well, they were a terrible outfit. So, if you believe in survival of the fittest, evolution took the inevitable turn here. I'll take your word for it that there were good people fragmented around that group. But, I never saw it...not in the 2-3 years I had my league hosted over there.
 
back when fanball was having all sorts of issues back in 2009, my league switched to mfl, who had a tool that allowed our entire 3 year fanball league history to be loaded into their system. we used that and never looked back.

i would highly suggest anyone who cares about their history do the same asap if the news is true.

 
WolverineMan said:
I just talked to rtSports and they'll transfer leagues over from Fanball right now (before the doors close and history is lost). All for free, including a free 2011 and 2012 season if we stay with them.
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Anybody give a recommendation of RTSports? Sounds like a great offer. We had owners that had problems accessing Fanball during the season and don't want to repeat those problems.
 
Black said:
Vision6 said:
Fanball went into the crapper when Charch sold it
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x2. Was a Fanball loyalist until that day. Wasn't the same after Charch, Tuvey, Bo Mitchell, and Christian Peterson left.
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I was one of Fanball's bigger supporters back when we used to use them to host our league. When Charch left was when things started going downhill. There was some attempts to revive customer service, but it generally failed miserably among all the technical issues they had. If things hadn't gone so far downhill I would say I was a little bit sad, but they really did it to themselves by not understanding their customer base and not putting the emphasis on the correct things.
 
MrTwo94 said:
bearsguy54 said:
back when fanball was having all sorts of issues back in 2009, my league switched to mfl, who had a tool that allowed our entire 3 year fanball league history to be loaded into their system. we used that and never looked back.i would highly suggest anyone who cares about their history do the same asap if the news is true.
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Does anyone know if MFL still has such a tool? We've got 7 years worth of data that we'd sure hate to lose. That is the sole reason we've stuck around the last 4 years or so. The site is pretty bad, but workable so we've just sucked it up. The historical data is fun to look back on. H2H records, most points in a week, old drafts, playoff records, etc.If anyone know of another site (I think rtsports was mentioned) that can transfer historical data, that would be great information.
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They had it just last year for our league. They even gave us a 50% discount for leaving Fanball. The switching of the history was easy but it's a bit tedious to create a league for every year you were doing FFB so it sticks.
 
Fanball's interface was the absolute worst ever. Even Yahoo and ESPN had much better implementations. Frankly, I'm surprised they lasted this long.

 
KingPrawn said:
WolverineMan said:
I just talked to rtSports and they'll transfer leagues over from Fanball right now (before the doors close and history is lost). All for free, including a free 2011 and 2012 season if we stay with them.
Click to expand...
Anybody give a recommendation of RTSports? Sounds like a great offer. We had owners that had problems accessing Fanball during the season and don't want to repeat those problems.
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i like the interface. the only issue i have is the terrible iphone app
 
I posted a link to the original article and a short summary on Rotojunkie.com (owned by Fanball) and the thread was deleted without comment . . . I'm assuming I'm not alone as there has been nary a peep about this over there.

 
This would suck if true. Fanball was my site of choice for a number of years until I discovered Rotoworld but it was Fanball where I initially cut my teeth as a FFL player. I still get their magazines, I enjoy the content even if I don't agree with much of it, they still make for an appealing read and I got the 5-pack combo last season for the first time and was planning on doing so again this year. Hopefully a solution that allows them to stay afloat happens even though they've definitely gone hill in recent seasons any long-standing site that offers fantasy info going down is a sad day.

 
Bigboy10182000 said:
Black said:
Vision6 said:
Fanball went into the crapper when Charch sold it
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x2. Was a Fanball loyalist until that day. Wasn't the same after Charch, Tuvey, Bo Mitchell, and Christian Peterson left.
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I think this is what ultimately did it for anyone who used them.
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Yep - they were one of my go to sites with those guys. Site became insignifcant in a hurry after they left. Their model sucked. Practically zero free content to even entice new users to join..
 
KingPrawn said:
WolverineMan said:
I just talked to rtSports and they'll transfer leagues over from Fanball right now (before the doors close and history is lost). All for free, including a free 2011 and 2012 season if we stay with them.
Click to expand...
Anybody give a recommendation of RTSports? Sounds like a great offer. We had owners that had problems accessing Fanball during the season and don't want to repeat those problems.
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RTSports is awesome. All of my leagues use it. Very professional looking site that offers tons of league features from head coaches, decimal point scoring, blind bidding, salary caps etc. I recommend it.
 
Dear Kay Adams, :confused:

If you need employment, I'm sure we can work something out.

BTW, wonder what will happen to the Sirius/XM Fantasy show with Kay, Ray Flowers and Kyle Elfrink. I assume that's finished too?

 
Jason Wood said:
Google is not like Yahoo! They have no interest in owning and creating their own content. They're not getting into the fantasy business.
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It's probably not their highest priority, but I wouldn't dismiss them completely. They don't create any of the articles or data in Google Finance/News, but they're still significant products for them. Obviously fantasy is only growing on the web each year, so if it's big enough they may get involved but with a different approach - content aggregation, a Google Finance-style research system, or an alerting service perhaps.
 
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