ANNOUNCED: 2014 Footballguys Players Championship (1 Viewer)

Ladies and Gentlemen, the 2014 Footballguys Players Championship (FPC) is officially launched for the 2014 season!

On behalf of Joe Bryant, David Dodds, David Gerczak and myself, we apologize for the slight delay in this year's contest announcement but I think you will be very pleased with what you see here. The 2014 is by far the biggest and baddest contest at the $350-entry level that has ever been offered in the history of high stakes.

First, we brought the total prize pool to an incredible $2,000,000 (league prizes included).

Next, the grand prize is now $300,000, a $50K increase from last year.

The Championship Round prize have been expanded by almost $150K with prizes all the way down to 650th place.

Cash prizes down to 150th place.

Free 250 FPC teams for places 151st to 400th, each valued at $350.

Footballguys Lifetime and three year subscriptions will be awarded from 401st to 650th place.

League prizes are $2,000 total (1st - $1500, 2nd $500) but with the 2015 FFPC Main Event as a prize option, the 1st value is $1700.

With the FFPC's new "hard-cap" on all contests, the 2014 FPC entries are now capped at 7,500 teams and all prizes are guaranteed, regardless of whether final entries reach that amount or not.

This year's drafts will begin right after Independence Day, on Saturday, July 5th at 1 pm ET and run all the way until Thursday, September 4th, right before the opening kickoff.

Entry fee remains the same at $350 per team and three teams for $1,000. The new intelligent FFPC registration software will automatically discount every third team by $50.

And of course, we still have the Early Bird special: Register before Monday, June 30th, 2014 and receive a complimentary subscription to Footballguys.com Insider membership ($29.95 value). Purchase a 3-pack of FPC teams for $1,000 and receive a complimentary 3-year subscription ($64.95 value). If you already have a Footballguys.com Insider membership, the complimentary years will be added to the end of your current subscription. A maximum of 3 year subscription will be awarded per person regardless of FPC teams purchased by early bird deadline.

2014 Guaranteed FPC Prize Structure:

Individual League Prizes

Regular Season Prizes (Weeks 1-11)

1-Seed - Team with the best H2H record -- Automatic berth in the Championship Round

2-Seed - Remaining team with the most points -- Automatic berth in the Championship Round

League Playoffs Prizes (Weeks 12-13)

1st Place (three prize options available)

1) $1,500 Cash

2) Free Entry into 2015 FFPC Main Event ($1,700 Value)

3) 2015 Footballguys Players Championship 3-Pack and $500 Cash

+ Custom award medal for each league champion

2nd Place -- $500

Regular Season Overall Leaderboard Standings Point Leaders (Weeks 1-11)

Place Prize

1st $3,000

2nd $2,000

3rd $1,500

4th $1,000

5th $750

6th $500

7th $500

8th $500

9th $500

10th $500

Championship Round (Weeks 14-16)

Place Prize

1st - Overall Champion $300,000 + custom Titlecraft trophy

2nd $40,000

3rd $20,000

4th $12,500

5th $11,000

6th $10,000

7th $9,000

8th $8,000

9th $7,000

10th $6,000

11th $5,000

12th $4,000

13th $4,000

14th $3,500

15th $3,500

16th $3,500

17th $3,500

18th $3,500

19th $3,000

20th $3,000

21st $3,000

22nd $3,000

23rd $3,000

24th $3,000

25th $3,000

26th $2,500

27th $2,500

28th $2,500

29th $2,500

30th $2,500

31st $2,000

32nd $2,000

33rd $2,000

34th $2,000

35th $2,000

36th $2,000

37th $2,000

38th $2,000

39th $2,000

40th $2,000

41st $1,500

42nd $1,500

43rd $1,500

44th $1,500

45th $1,500

46th $1,500

47th $1,500

48th $1,500

49th $1,500

50th $1,500

51st $1,500

52nd $1,500

53rd $1,500

54th $1,500

55th $1,500

56th $1,000

57th $1,000

58th $1,000

59th $1,000

60th $1,000

61st $1,000

62nd $1,000

63rd $1,000

64th $1,000

65th $1,000

66th $1,000

67th $1,000

68th $1,000

69th $1,000

70th $1,000

71st $1,000

72nd $1,000

73rd $1,000

74th $1,000

75th $1,000

76th $1,000

77th $1,000

78th $1,000

79th $1,000

80th $1,000

81st $1,000

82nd $1,000

83rd $1,000

84th $1,000

85th $1,000

86th $1,000

87th $1,000

88th $1,000

89th $1,000

90th $1,000

91st $1,000

92nd $1,000

93rd $1,000

94th $1,000

95th $1,000

96th $1,000

97th $1,000

98th $1,000

99th $1,000

100th $1,000

101st $500

102nd $500

103rd $500

104th $500

105th $500

106th $500

107th $500

108th $500

109th $500

110th $500

111th $500

112th $500

113th $500

114th $500

115th $500

116th $500

117th $500

118th $500

119th $500

120th $500

121st $500

122nd $500

123rd $500

124th $500

125th $500

126th $500

127th $500

128th $500

129th $500

130th $500

131st $500

132nd $500

133rd $500

134th $500

135th $500

136th $500

137th $500

138th $500

139th $500

140th $500

141st $500

142nd $500

143rd $500

144th $500

145th $500

146th $500

147th $500

148th $500

149th $500

150th $500

151st to 400th 2015 Footballguys Players Championship Entry ($350 Value)

401st to 500th Footballguys.com LIFETIME Subscription

501st to 650th Footballguys.com 3-Year Subscription

Consolation Round (Weeks 14-16)

Place Prize

1st $3,000

2nd $2,000

3rd $1,750

4th $1,500

5th $1,250

6th $1,000

7th $1,000

8th $750

9th $750

10th $750

11th $500

12th $500

13th $500

14th $500

15th $500

Toilet Bowl (Weeks 12-16)

Place Prize

1st $1,500

2nd $1,000

3rd $750

4th $500

5th $500

Looks great Alex. My only beef is the "Consolation Bowl" prizes. I would have taken 50-free team prizes from the Champ rds, and added them there. At the end of the day, the Consolation Bowl is filled with hundreds of teams who had awesome years and just got unlucky in rd 1 of playoffs. Some of which are the clear cut #2 teams in their own leagues. 15 prizes with probably ~ 1,500 teams in it seems a bit on the light side. But hey im just nit picking. Looking fwd to the season and i like the 'Capping' of teams. You had around 5,800 teams last year, do you guys expect to reach that cap?

Also, how do i go about those 3 free entries this year? Do my team names from last year still exist? Do i start fresh again? Any info you can provide is appreciated

thx!

Da Gildz said:

Looks great Alex. My only beef is the "Consolation Bowl" prizes. I would have taken 50-free team prizes from the Champ rds, and added them there. At the end of the day, the Consolation Bowl is filled with hundreds of teams who had awesome years and just got unlucky in rd 1 of playoffs. Some of which are the clear cut #2 teams in their own leagues. 15 prizes with probably ~ 1,500 teams in it seems a bit on the light side. But hey im just nit picking. Looking fwd to the season and i like the 'Capping' of teams. You had around 5,800 teams last year, do you guys expect to reach that cap?

Also, how do i go about those 3 free entries this year? Do my team names from last year still exist? Do i start fresh again? Any info you can provide is appreciated

thx!

Click to expand...

I'd love to expand the Consolation Round prizes further. We did expand them from last year and will continue to do so in the future at every opportunity.

The free entries from last year will be added to your accounts in form of a "promo code" within a week or so. I do apologize for this delay but we had to priority some of our resources towards the development of the new league management platform. Look out for an email telling you where to login and how to redeem your free entries.

Signed up and ready to take that $300,000. :IBTL:

Does the $2mm include the value of the free 2015 entires and FBG subscriptions or are those in addition to the $2mm?

BassNBrew said:

Does the $2mm include the value of the free 2015 entires and FBG subscriptions or are those in addition to the $2mm?

Click to expand...

Yes, it includes the value of the entire prize structure.

HELLO, Newbie here for Pay to Play leagues...

I have been a member of Footballguys a few years now, and just play private free leagues...

Always thought about getting into a Pay League or Tournament, but my main fears have been

corruption / monopolizing...

And with everything that corrupted games like online poker, what is the safe guard against

inside / backdoor users ?

These open leagues allowing people to play multiple teams, (as many as you can afford),

seems to allow members to have an advantage of stacking the deck against someone

like myself, who may only wish or afford to play one team...

Can I be a Cinderella story, maybe, but the odds don't look good...

I have looked at the smaller satellite leagues as well,

but the risk of stacked users in the same opponents seems to open

to exploit there as well...

I do like the increased odds of getting into the top group to at least get my buy-in back...

In looking at all the previous winners, it would be nice to know how many of them were

single team owners or lower team owners, and not multiple 10+ buy-ins ?

MadMan22 said:

HELLO, Newbie here for Pay to Play leagues...

I have been a member of Footballguys a few years now, and just play private free leagues...

Always thought about getting into a Pay League or Tournament, but my main fears have been

corruption / monopolizing...

And with everything that corrupted games like online poker, what is the safe guard against

inside / backdoor users ?

Click to expand...

This question comes up at least one per year and I can tell you that not only has this never happaned, it's never even been attempted in the many years of big money contests, even before the Footballguys Players Championship. There is no way to do this without us cathcing it immediatelty. Keep in mind that we have a live facilitator looking at each and every FPC draft so if he notices anything out of the ordinary in the draft that rasies a red flag, he will stop the draft immediately and contact us (management) for review. But like I said, this has never been attemtped and frankly, investing $350 per team to try and stack a league to do this and subsequently fail just doesn't make much logical sense.

MadMan22 said:

These open leagues allowing people to play multiple teams, (as many as you can afford),

seems to allow members to have an advantage of stacking the deck against someone

like myself, who may only wish or afford to play one team...

Can I be a Cinderella story, maybe, but the odds don't look good...

I have looked at the smaller satellite leagues as well,

but the risk of stacked users in the same opponents seems to open

to exploit there as well...

I do like the increased odds of getting into the top group to at least get my buy-in back...

In looking at all the previous winners, it would be nice to know how many of them were

single team owners or lower team owners, and not multiple 10+ buy-ins ?

Click to expand...

The first 3 FPC overall champions in 2010, 2011 and 2012 all had either 1 or 2 entries into the contest. Last year's winner, Shawn Coots, was the first to have multiple entries. Not sure exactly how many but probably over 10.

There is no "stacking" the deck in this contest. You first enter a 12-team individual league for the first 13 weeks of the season. If you have a great draft, manage your team well and then win in the league playoffs, you win some league prizes and advance into the Championship Round against hundreds of other teams just like yours. At that point it's a 3-week sprint for points. If you team gets hot, you have a shot to place at the top. That's all there is to it.

Thanks for the Reply, Alex, Of all the Football sites / contests, Footballguys has grown the right way...

And is the only one, I feel I could trust as far as online contest go, due to being a member so long,

and seeing how things have progressed...

What I was referring to in Stacking the Deck, is when someone has multiple teams, they have

the advantage of choosing numerous setups, ( RB,RB,RB,RB vs. WR,WR,WR,WR ) to maximize the gains...

I am sure you understand this concept, is out there, and when so much money / Winnings is involved,

people will find a way to exploit it...

Members who buy 10+ or 20+ teams, have the money to burn / gamble, and know they are going to reap

a lot more gains in the end, vs. busting out with fewer teams...

Knowing that the 2010,2011, and 2012 winners had fewer buy-ins, helps newcomers know the high rollers

aren't just buying in a win...

Can my one team setup win each week, sure it can, but it dang well better be spot on... lol...

Now for the more important question, WILL my wifey allow me to buy-in,,,?... lol....

OH Honey Dear,,, lets talk for a min,,,

MadMan22 said:

Thanks for the Reply, Alex, Of all the Football sites / contests, Footballguys has grown the right way...

And is the only one, I feel I could trust as far as online contest go, due to being a member so long,

and seeing how things have progressed...

What I was referring to in Stacking the Deck, is when someone has multiple teams, they have

the advantage of choosing numerous setups, ( RB,RB,RB,RB vs. WR,WR,WR,WR ) to maximize the gains...

I am sure you understand this concept, is out there, and when so much money / Winnings is involved,

people will find a way to exploit it...

Members who buy 10+ or 20+ teams, have the money to burn / gamble, and know they are going to reap

a lot more gains in the end, vs. busting out with fewer teams...

Knowing that the 2010,2011, and 2012 winners had fewer buy-ins, helps newcomers know the high rollers

aren't just buying in a win...

Can my one team setup win each week, sure it can, but it dang well better be spot on... lol...

Now for the more important question, WILL my wifey allow me to buy-in,,,?... lol....

OH Honey Dear,,, lets talk for a min,,,

Click to expand...

I don't agree at all that multiple entries have any advantage beyond just giving themselves additional chanced to win (and maybe getting better at drafting with each of those teams, if that's even considered an advantage). And certainly do not agree that buying more teams is "buying a win". I'm not just saying that to defend my contest. I'm saying it because I've run this event and understand the various strategy theories in attempting to win it and see no advantages you speak of. We had an owner draft 200 teams last year, significantly more than the next highest amount of teams. He actually was very successful at the league level and ended up qualifying something like 70 of these 200 teams into the Championship Round. But in the Championship Round his teams all got collectively cold and he ended up only placing in the money with just a handful of them, none very high on the leaderboard. He had no stacking advantage - he simply had more chances to win. But in the end his teams just didn't score.

But let me also say this, if anyone thinks they have found a way to gain an edge by drafting more teams, by all means, go right ahead. I am certainly not discouraging anyone from that.

And thank you for your kind words about our event MadMan22.

Awesome Response Mr. Alex,... And that kind of honesty and open info, is what helps first time buy-ins like myself, make the move to PLAY...

I agree it is a challenge no matter how many setups you arrange...

Thanks for your time and reply,,, Time to find a Draft Date...

Alex - FFPC said:

MadMan22 said:

Thanks for the Reply, Alex, Of all the Football sites / contests, Footballguys has grown the right way...

And is the only one, I feel I could trust as far as online contest go, due to being a member so long,

and seeing how things have progressed...

What I was referring to in Stacking the Deck, is when someone has multiple teams, they have

the advantage of choosing numerous setups, ( RB,RB,RB,RB vs. WR,WR,WR,WR ) to maximize the gains...

I am sure you understand this concept, is out there, and when so much money / Winnings is involved,

people will find a way to exploit it...

Members who buy 10+ or 20+ teams, have the money to burn / gamble, and know they are going to reap

a lot more gains in the end, vs. busting out with fewer teams...

Knowing that the 2010,2011, and 2012 winners had fewer buy-ins, helps newcomers know the high rollers

aren't just buying in a win...

Can my one team setup win each week, sure it can, but it dang well better be spot on... lol...

Now for the more important question, WILL my wifey allow me to buy-in,,,?... lol....

OH Honey Dear,,, lets talk for a min,,,

Click to expand...

I don't agree at all that multiple entries have any advantage beyond just giving themselves additional chanced to win (and maybe getting better at drafting with each of those teams, if that's even considered an advantage). And certainly do not agree that buying more teams is "buying a win". I'm not just saying that to defend my contest. I'm saying it because I've run this event and understand the various strategy theories in attempting to win it and see no advantages you speak of. We had an owner draft 200 teams last year, significantly more than the next highest amount of teams. He actually was very successful at the league level and ended up qualifying something like 70 of these 200 teams into the Championship Round. But in the Championship Round his teams all got collectively cold and he ended up only placing in the money with just a handful of them, none very high on the leaderboard. He had no stacking advantage - he simply had more chances to win. But in the end his teams just didn't score.

But let me also say this, if anyone thinks they have found a way to gain an edge by drafting more teams, by all means, go right ahead. I am certainly not discouraging anyone from that.

And thank you for your kind words about our event MadMan22.

Click to expand...

I will back Alex on this. I had that owner in my league....and I knew he had 200+ teams given that his team name was XXXX213..... but the reality is that guy did not win anything great and I doubt he even broke even. I even had Shwan Coots in one of my leagues last year. Also, from my personal experience, I played with 3 teams 2 years back (my first year doing this) and all 3 of my teams made the bigger playoff and I won money in every league....however, my best team (which had Jason Witten; Tony Gonzalez and Gronk starting every week) bombed in the 3 week playoff because Gronk got hurt.....I think I would have have ended top 50 at least if only Gronk had not got hurt given Witten and Gonzo were having career years. But my point is I was only a owner of 3 teams and I made good $$ out of every one of them. In your 12 team league, you have as good a chance as any to come first or 2nd ....which in itself puts you in the money. The main playoff from week 14-16 is extra gravy in my opinion.

Alex

is the draft not happening at rtsports this year?

Sweetness_34 said:

Alex

is the draft not happening at rtsports this year?

Click to expand...

No. We moved on to build our own league management platform.

Alex - FFPC said:

Sweetness_34 said:

Alex

is the draft not happening at rtsports this year?

Click to expand...

No. We moved on to build our own league management platform.

Click to expand...

Gotta be honest, I am not a fan of this new platform. RTSports was just perfect in my eyes. This whole new format just feels off. Was this to save some $ overall? Because the look/feel is definitely down some.

Da Gildz said:

Alex - FFPC said:

Sweetness_34 said:

Alex

is the draft not happening at rtsports this year?

Click to expand...

No. We moved on to build our own league management platform.

Click to expand...

Gotta be honest, I am not a fan of this new platform. RTSports was just perfect in my eyes. This whole new format just feels off. Was this to save some $ overall? Because the look/feel is definitely down some.

Click to expand...

Not sue if you were playing with us back then or not but when we first signed with RTSports in 2010, the fantasy owners absolutely hated that platform. I mean REALLY hated it. We worked long and hard with the RTSports tech team on making improvements and it wasn't easy in the beginning as they were not very welcoming to change. But then after a year or two, they realized that the improvements they are making are truly needed and would serve them even more than it would serve us (FFPC) so they worked pretty hard on improvemens.

We are now in a similar position except we had to start with a much less of a finished product this year with our software. We've already come a very long way with improvements, both on the user and admin side of things. But we have extensive plans on improving the platform, for this season and especially in the next offseason for 2015.

We also are fully aware that people don't like change, especially when they may not realize why change was even needed. In this case, there was no option of staying with RTSports. Both our companies wanted to move on and we did. Now we have our own league management platform which we will continue to perfect just like we did with RTSports. And believe me that we will perfect it. It just doesn't happen overnight, just like it didn't happen overnight with RTSports. We only ask for some patience and trust from our players. I think you will be pleased with the final product over the course of the next season or two.

Very fair, im sure in due time I will grow to like it. 1 thing off the bat that seems really odd, where is the 'Set lineup' feature? I realize u can do this by clicking on your team name but that just seems weird to not have that quick link. Also, when u adjust your lineup, there is no 'Save Lineup' control? It just saves it automatically?? hmm.

i've been noticing a lot of teams not being close to full come a few hours from their drafts, like tomorrow at noon has 8 open spots still, is there any real worry about leagues not filling up in time if so what happens then.

Peeps Inc. said:

i've been noticing a lot of teams not being close to full come a few hours from their drafts, like tomorrow at noon has 8 open spots still, is there any real worry about leagues not filling up in time if so what happens then.

Click to expand...

Since we launched on Fourth of July weekend, we only had a handful or so drafts that didn't fill so this isn't a concern. Especially going forward, you will see the amount of drafts start to really pick up with drafts filling in just a couple of hours. We actually filled a late draft just last night (Saturday) that had 9 teams open with an hour before the draft, and we filled it with time to spare.

Does the FFPC have a mobile app for setting line-ups etc. that I'm not aware of? Sorry if I've missed this before.

tonydead said:

Does the FFPC have a mobile app for setting line-ups etc. that I'm not aware of? Sorry if I've missed this before.

Click to expand...

Not for this year. This is in the works for 2015. The league management website you will be using should be responsive enough to use on a smartphone for most functions, including lineup submissions.

Alex, with the explosion of the daily games, and their ability to offer huge payouts (FanDuel: Up to $500K for a $25 entry), have you given any thoughts to doing the same thing for a season-long contest? Maybe not replacing the existing FPC, but in addition to it. If FanDuel can attract over 100K entries at $25 a pop for a one week contest, might Football Guys be able to offer a traditional season long contest for big bucks with a small buy-in?

Crash and Walk Away said:

Alex, with the explosion of the daily games, and their ability to offer huge payouts (FanDuel: Up to $500K for a $25 entry), have you given any thoughts to doing the same thing for a season-long contest? Maybe not replacing the existing FPC, but in addition to it. If FanDuel can attract over 100K entries at $25 a pop for a one week contest, might Football Guys be able to offer a traditional season long contest for big bucks with a small buy-in?

Click to expand...

Getting 100K entries for a season long game is very different than 100K users for a one week contest on every level. Never mind the fact that Fanduel has and continues to spend 10's of millions on dollars on marketing and user acquisition. A season long contest of that size and entry fee is probably a few years away, at least from our perspective.

Agreed, Alex, that is very hard to predict what this ceiling it. I think the hardest part of the prediction is the multiplicative factor with a lower price point. For example, a player who may not want to commit $350, might be willing to put out for 4 $25s. And if players are now willing to put up $1k (for 3 teams), might those same people be willing to pony up $1k for 40 teams. It'll be a big jump into the deep in for the first to try, but on the flip side might be able to corner the market by doing so. Perhaps dipping a toe in the water is the way to go, as you did with the first year of the FPC. Aim low, then increase the prize pool as the entries come in, ... then have bigger guarantees as the years go on.

Of course, a bigger problem is trying to manage 8000+ leagues, from their drafts to weekly waiver wire acquisitions, to the fantasy playoffs in those leagues, and onto a ginormous post-season. Wow, what a software and manpower task to take on...