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Footballguys Subscription Changes (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter BassNBrew
- Start date
BassNBrew
Footballguy
Curious as to what longtime subscribers thoughts are on this? Looks like the season long only guys will be paying about what they are now unless there's a significant early bird discount. The season long / dfs guys will be getting a huge price increase. Seems like strange timing to me with given the unknown landscape of dfs. I supposed that there will be major additions to the dfs coverage for that type of price increase that we have yet to hear about.
simey
Footballguy
BassNBrew
Footballguy
Ignoratio Elenchi
Footballguy
Will there be a DFS-only subscription as well?
Gottabesweet
Footballguy
I have a few years left on my account already, this will include the DFS next year correct? or will I owe $5.00 or something?
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
Didn't get the email. Probably because I'm locked in until Feb 2018?
Anyway, I do like this part: "...without the DFS specific content."
I'm glad I don't have to decide in six months, because if I was making the choice today I'd probably pass on renewal. Disappointed with the content last year as it seemed like the focus had swung too far to DFS. The MyFBG rollout this year was a disaster (fixed & working now, but the testing and expectations were poorly managed.) The mobile app is...well, like a lot of mobile apps, a dumbed down stripped skeleton when it could have full functionality if they had different objectives. The new DD is another example of wrecking a great product just because you want to push it across handhelds and other mobile devices. I dunno, just don't really feel like I'm getting a good value from FBGs any more.
But maybe I'll feel differently in 18 months.
Anyway, I do like this part: "...without the DFS specific content."
I'm glad I don't have to decide in six months, because if I was making the choice today I'd probably pass on renewal. Disappointed with the content last year as it seemed like the focus had swung too far to DFS. The MyFBG rollout this year was a disaster (fixed & working now, but the testing and expectations were poorly managed.) The mobile app is...well, like a lot of mobile apps, a dumbed down stripped skeleton when it could have full functionality if they had different objectives. The new DD is another example of wrecking a great product just because you want to push it across handhelds and other mobile devices. I dunno, just don't really feel like I'm getting a good value from FBGs any more.
But maybe I'll feel differently in 18 months.
honestly, i thought it was poorly written. unless i am missing something no new content was announced. They are just charging DFS people more money? And as a regular subscriber I am losing DFS content. They should have emphasized what is going to be new or at least given a reason for the increase. it reminded me of a recent email i got from comcast announcing the "Terabyte internet experience" in which all it was is comcast implementing a new 1TB data cap per month.
jabarony
Footballguy
You didn't even mention the worst part - they axed "Wisdom of the Crowd"!Didn't get the email. Probably because I'm locked in until Feb 2018?
Anyway, I do like this part: "...without the DFS specific content."
I'm glad I don't have to decide in six months, because if I was making the choice today I'd probably pass on renewal. Disappointed with the content last year as it seemed like the focus had swung too far to DFS. The MyFBG rollout this year was a disaster (fixed & working now, but the testing and expectations were poorly managed.) The mobile app is...well, like a lot of mobile apps, a dumbed down stripped skeleton when it could have full functionality if they had different objectives. The new DD is another example of wrecking a great product just because you want to push it across handhelds and other mobile devices. I dunno, just don't really feel like I'm getting a good value from FBGs any more.
But maybe I'll feel differently in 18 months.
Agree with most of the above comments.
- Bad news is they are charging a higher subscription fee. That point was clear. So what was the good news in that email? That you can lock in newly increased fee for three years?
- Less quality in the content and way more focus on DFS than any non-DFS player cares for. Seems like the rest is suffering as a result. Finding myself enjoying DLF more these days. And no, I'm not affiliated.
- The elimination of and lack of communication regarding Wisdom of the Crowds no longer being offered is beyond disappointing. Seems another sacrifice to the focus-shift to DFS.
- Bad news is they are charging a higher subscription fee. That point was clear. So what was the good news in that email? That you can lock in newly increased fee for three years?
- Less quality in the content and way more focus on DFS than any non-DFS player cares for. Seems like the rest is suffering as a result. Finding myself enjoying DLF more these days. And no, I'm not affiliated.
- The elimination of and lack of communication regarding Wisdom of the Crowds no longer being offered is beyond disappointing. Seems another sacrifice to the focus-shift to DFS.
Gottabesweet
Footballguy
80% of the DFS content comes out Thursday PM/Friday so you have to punt any Thursday night games anyways. Just been a mess of an offseason. Trying to do too much with what appears to be not enough staff or developers. Yes, technology is changing but you need to slow down a little and communicate better.
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
DFS is a cash cow.
The folks this place was built for are now an afterthought.
Follow the money. Joe's not doing this as a 501(c)3. Good on him.
ConnSKINS26
Footballguy
Is the DFS stuff really such an advantage that it's worth a 50% price increase to those guys? Seems like a lot, but I'm strictly dynasty and have never subscribed to anything so I have no frame of reference.
Seems like the DFS stuff must be nearing the point of over-saturation that regular fantasy hit years ago, where there is so much info everywhere that it becomes more about the value of the tools and apps than the info, for subscribers.
Seems like the DFS stuff must be nearing the point of over-saturation that regular fantasy hit years ago, where there is so much info everywhere that it becomes more about the value of the tools and apps than the info, for subscribers.
ebsteelers
Footballguy
ehh
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Pots
Footballguy
Willie Neslon
Footballguy
Love these guys but of all the years to announce a big price increase.
Buddy Ball 2K3
Footballguy
Isn't DFS for suckers?
Willie Neslon
Footballguy
GreenNGold
Footballguy
This is a great deal and good option for those who only want season long as otherwise the price for everyone would be increasing more. Can we lock in more than 3 years in advance or is 3 the max? The DFS content is among the best I have found as well.
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Raleigh Engineers
Footballguy
Yeah, or upgrade for 3 years now for $72.95 ($24.32/season) for the "Ultimate" since it's cheaper than $29.99 non-DFS price next year. But they may offer a 3-year discount price next year for non-DFS? Or maybe they won't. Who knows?
David Dodds
Administrator
David Dodds
Administrator
Unfortunately no. This is because there a lot of tools / articles on the season-long side also are applicable to DFS.
David Dodds
Administrator
Right now we are leaning towards removing the 3-year option after the end of September (and likely never offering it again). I say that because as we add different options going forward, it gets really messy to cover all of the permutations. ie non-DFS 3 year, DFS three year, Rotopass options, etc.
Gottabesweet
Footballguy
So those that are signed up for many years ahead (4+) will be automatically converted to Ultimate?
David Dodds
Administrator
The option was to tell people now or not. The price increase is next year. We would make a lot more money by not announcing this now.
David Dodds
Administrator
All remaining years are grand-fathered into the Insider Pro Ultimate that includes DFS.
David Dodds
Administrator
Ruffrodys05
IBL Representative
BTW, Joe confirmed to me via email yesterday that all Lifetime Subscriptions convert to Ultimate in 2017 and forward.
jabarony
Footballguy
David, any chance you guys reconsider the dropping of the wisdom of the crowds contest? It is my favorite thing on the website. Especially after I'm knocked out of the 35 k contest come week 6. Not to mention, I convinced a couple friends to join based on the 2 (now 1) fun contests the site offers. It looks like I was blowing smoke.
Joe T
Footballguy
Joe T
Footballguy
I vehemently disagree.Walking Boot said:
I have used the new DD app and it has worked flawlessly. A particular feature YOU like may be missing/different, but I suspect that the vast majority of users are content with the new features that have been added. Fact is, it was barely more than a giant Excel macro in its previous iteration, and it was about 10 years removed from a GUI update. I used the mobile app last season rather than the old POS.
MyFBG is working perfectly for me, and frankly, I'm not sure what you're referring to. I opened it, and it prompted me to sync my teams from a new interface. Automagically, all my teams showed up where they were supposed to be after following instructions. Looks identical to last year.
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Doubledown1313
Footballguy
I'll be happy to not have DFS info shoved down my throat.
Wish they would put more work into dynasty though. Really lacking in content.
Wish they would put more work into dynasty though. Really lacking in content.
Good to see a split for non DFS users. I moved on since so much of the content was DFS focus but until there is more dynasty content, don't see coming back. You can't be all things to all customers so am okay with whatever direction FBG decides to go for paid content, will still have the forum which is awesome.
Adam Harstad
Moderator
Some of "the folks this place were built for" happen to like DFS. And the ones who don't are getting a price reduction. Seems like a clear effort to give everyone what they want.BobbyLayne said:
If you'll permit some random observations from someone who has been a subscriber since the very beginning of Footballguys and who has absolutely no inside knowledge into the workings of the business end whatsoever... Footballguys has always had a broad vision of what it was. Sites like DynastyLeagueFootball-- and I love DynastyLeagueFootball and am good friends with pretty much the entire staff over there-- have things easier because they only have one goal. They do dynasty. That's all they do.
Footballguys has always strived to be a site that does fantasy football. All of it, in whatever form it takes. If you like fantasy football, Footballguys has something for you. Dynasty? Footballguys has something for you. IDP? Footballguys has something for you. DFS? Yeah, Footballguys has something for you, too. Hell, I'm not aware of any other site on the internet that does full punt and kickoff return projections for every player in the NFL, but Footballguys does. Why? Because some people play in leagues that reward return yards, and for them that's important.
How many people play in return leagues? What percentage of the hobby is that? 5%? 1%? Less? It's a vanishingly small niche, but Footballguys does its best to serve that niche anyway, because FBGs strives to serve all corners of the fantasy football community.
The thing is that each of these features costs something. To this point, Footballguys has always addressed that by just bundling everything together. You may not care a whit about returner projections, but by adding an extra $.50 to your subscription, Footballguys can pay for them for the people who do. And in turn, you may be big into dynasty, while your neighbor doesn't care a fig, but your neighbor still pays $2 of his subscription fee subsidizing the dynasty coverage for you. I used to subscribe to FBGs just for the Data Dominator and Historical Data Dominator. Most people don't use them. My $25 or $29 subscription might have been $59 if only the people who used the Data Dominator paid for the cost of maintaining the Data Dominator. But then, I was paying for Jene Bramel and John Norton to write IDP pieces, and I've never played an IDP league in my life.
When DFS burst onto the scene, this was the established model, and FBGs stuck with it. FBGs is the "big tent" site-- if you play fantasy football in any form, FBGs is going to have something for you, and it's going to include that in its all-in-one price. Yes, this means that the season-long subscribers were subsidizing DFS content they didn't use. But what many ignore is that this also means that the DFS subscribers were also subsidizing season-long content they didn't use. Just like the dynasty guys were subsidizing IDP, and the IDP guys were subsidizing the data dominators, and the stats guys were subsidizing Random Shots, and so on down the line. Everyone paid the same price and everyone had access to all the content, including a large percentage of which the subscriber had absolutely no interest in whatsoever.
It looks to me like this shift is a move to step away from that "everyone subsidizes everyone else / we're a big tent / we're all in this together" standpoint. Which is a little bit sad to me, even as someone who has never played or been interested in DFS. It's kind of the end of an era. I know Joe and David and so I'm not at all worried about any further shifts towards "a la carte" subscriptions-- e.g. reducing the seasonal price even further and start charging extra for access to the statistical databases, and then reducing it even further and charging extra for access to the IDP stuff, etc.
DFS is in many ways a special, unique case in the fantasy industry. And I think that's reflected in the widespread hatred. People who have never played it and will never play it absolutely *LOATHE* it, which is bizarre. Nobody hates IDP like that. Some people don't like PPR, but nobody is going on these kinds of crusades against PPR. Most people will never play dynasty, but there are no campaigns against it, and nobody is taking up arms when new dynasty content is added.
I get why DFS is hated. It's the first fantasy product that didn't seem to grow organically. It got supercharged by a massive influx of investor capital and a huge flood of aggressive and misleading advertisements. To many long-time fantasy players, (including me!), it's the first fantasy football product that doesn't feel like it's "ours". NFL.com hires a fantasy division and I feel like we did that. ESPN has its broadcasters talking about fantasy football in the booth and I feel like that is a direct result of our passion and our dedication over the last two decades. Those are skins on our walls. We did that.
There are a lot of people who love DFS and who play DFS, despite what many think-- we aren't writing the content to cater to the DFS companies. The DFS advertisers aren't the ones paying the bills and keeping the lights on here. But at the same time, its exploding popularity doesn't feel like "our" victory in the same way. Outside investors came in and overnight FanDuel and DraftKings were billion-dollar entities with more commercials than McDonalds. To people who don't play, it can feel like corporate interests are coming in and trying to appropriate our hobby. We suffered scorn and ridicule decades ago when nobody else was playing, we were called nerds and dorks and outcasts, and now that it's cool everyone wants to elbow up and pretend they were all about fantasy football all along.
But it's important to me to really draw a distinction and say that regardless of what corporate or advertising or legal or political stuff is going on, some "fantasy people" like DFS. I've done a redraft league with the same group of guys for fifteen years. For two of those guys, it's the only redraft league they even play anymore because they just like DFS better. And if we didn't have such a history, they wouldn't even play that one. They're fantasy people, and they like DFS. And FBGs exists to serve them just like it exists to serve "32-team 53-man-roster Contract IDP Dynasty with return bonuses guy". And they helped pay for "32-team 53-man-roster Contract IDP Dynasty with return bonuses guy"s content just like "32-team 53-man-roster Contract IDP Dynasty with return bonuses guy" helped pay for their content.
And now for the first time FBGs is creating a separate category of fantasy people. It used to be all fantasy people under one tent. Now it's all fantasy people under one tent, except those DFS guys who can share this tent but also have their own tent, too. And that's why I say it's kind of sad even as someone who doesn't play and has no interest in playing.
At the same time, I totally get why FBGs is making the move. And anyone who says that FBGs is beholden to DFS interests and doesn't care about its "base" or whatever should take note of this, because this pretty definitively proves otherwise. The people who hate DFS, hate seeing DFS, hate being associated with DFS complained, and FBGs listened, because FBGs cares about its base and responds to its base. I get why so many hate DFS, even if I think it's kind of sad. I get why FBGs is spinning off the DFS coverage even as I regret that it came to this. But this seems like it's clearly a case of FBGs trying to give the people what they wanted.
If DFS had just grown organically like everything else has, like my beloved dynasty leagues are in the process of doing, then things would probably be different. But FanDuel and DraftKings poisoned that well pretty thoroughly, and there's no going back. And now the people who couldn't tolerate the idea of subsidizing DFS coverage the same way they subsidized IDP coverage, (and had the stuff they cared about in return subsidized), don't have to anymore. Non-DFS is its own entity, and DFS has to pay its own way.
And instead of dropping this as a surprise next offseason and making more money in subscription fees as a result, Footballguys is offering to subsidize that DFS coverage itself by announcing the pricing change today and offering a substantial early-bird discount for those who are interested. Which is one of the reasons I've always been proud to work here, because this is one of the few companies I've ever been involved with where I've never for a moment doubted that the bottom line was all about how best to serve the customer. They make some mistakes in pursuit of that goal sometimes, but they're always aiming in the right direction.
Amused to Death
Footballguy
I'm generally not one to complain but I agree with this. I get very discouraged when I see only 3 staff members have updated dynasty rankings in the last month and only 5 in the last 3 months. I also wish the player notes weren't the same for dynasty as they are for re-draft. Re-draft notes don't always apply to the dynasty outlook. Perhaps some rookie mock drafts. There were some rookies that were flying up draft boards over the last 2 weeks that weren't reflected here.
BassNBrew
Footballguy
Hopefully they won't shove any more stupid dynasty info down my throat or devote any more resources to it. Re-draft is where it's at. I'd really like for them to break off dynasty and charge those dynasty players an extra $10 a year and reduce the yearly rate for the re-draft guys by $5.
I think for many this isn't really about organic growth and personal investment, but about the fact that DFS seems to have more in common with the sports gambling community than the fantasy football community, but they co-opted FF language in an end-around on gambling laws, the backlash of which is now doubling back on our long-standing niche hobby.
Picking players who will do well this week from the entire roster of the NFL feels a lot more like betting against the spread than it does managing a sports franchise, which is where the fantasy game has been for decades.
ConstruxBoy
Kate's Daddy
David Dodds said:
This seems like a reasonable viewpoint if you haven't spent a few hundred hours becoming an expert in DFS. You see that the huge majority of small-stakes players lose money, while the people making impressive percentage returns are often people with very large bankrolls; and you figure that having a large bankroll must therefore be helpful in increasing your percentage return. It makes sense. Any true expert, though, will tell you -- honestly -- that the opposite is true. Holding everything else constant (skill, effort, access to information, percentage of bankroll wagered...) the person with the larger bankroll will earn a smaller percentage return, on average, than the person with the smaller bankroll.Walking Boot said:
If you can break even paying a thousand bucks a week in entry fees, you will almost certainly earn a profit (in the long run) if you play only a hundred bucks a week instead. This is for a lot of reasons. For one, freerolls make a bigger difference (percentage-wise) to your bottom line when you bet a smaller amount. Also, you can get a higher percentage of your wagers into contests with overlay if you wager less. Additionally, you'll generally be playing smaller stakes if you bet less, which usually means playing against a weaker field.
It takes some effort to win at DFS. The huge majority of players lose. But it takes a lot less effort to win if you play $100 a week than it does if you play $10,000 a week. Ask anyone who's done a lot of both. (The correlation between bankrolls and profits is real. But it's not because having a large bankroll causes people to earn profits. It's because earning profits causes people to have large bankrolls.)
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