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Topic: GBRFL and CBFL Leagues (Read 1447 times) |
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Philosopher King
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GBRFL and CBFL Leagues
« on: Sep 3rd, 2003, 11:44pm » |
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Even as admin of the site, I wasn't sure exactly where to post this, so I decided to post it "downstream" here on "the Sidelines". Anyway, moving right along,... I just wanted to let you all know that the blue "GBRFL Leagues" button on the upper right-hand side of the screen now links to a "GBRFL portal" page, which links to both the GBRFL and GBRFL2 web sites. 
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| « Last Edit: May 30th, 2005, 5:46pm by Stegfucius » |
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Philosopher King
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Re: GBRFL and CBFL Leagues
« Reply #1 on: May 30th, 2005, 6:04pm » |
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Could running GBRFL-style leagues en masse be just on the horizon? Wifey-poo, with whom I've been recently reunited (as many of you know), is right at this moment beginning her work on (automating) the very complex GBRFL spreadsheet program. She is doing exactly what I want done and it should put us in a position to run GBRFL-style leagues this year! Also, with what bgsgfan a.k.a. Jeremy did with the CBFL spreadsheet program last year, running CBFL-style leagues should also be able to be tackled this year! For various reasons, I probably will only want to dip my toes in the water in '05 and look to run just a few of each. Do start spreading the word, though! When I do announce what I am going to do, it will be first come first serve! Also, I have not yet decided what to charge and/or if monetary winnings are the direction I should go in. Please feel free to share your thoughts on this. Generally speaking, I am thinking that the fee for playing in CBFL leagues should be on the cheap side while the charge for playing in a GBRFL league, given the system's uniqueness and complexity, should be on the spendy side. Those in the know, PLEASE share your thoughts!
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Philosopher King
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Champ - '94, '99, '02, '04
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Re: GBRFL and CBFL Leagues
« Reply #10 on: May 31st, 2005, 7:08pm » |
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on May 31st, 2005, 7:01pm, StegRock wrote:| Guys, am I losing it? Don't CBS Sportsline and ESPN charge for running leagues??? |
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Well, what about the answer to this question? It's pretty straightforward, no?
Bottom line, I have gleaned some useful information and ideas from the responses, thus far. Now I want the answer to this question (if anybody knows and can save me the trip to find out).
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Gridiron Great
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Re: GBRFL and CBFL Leagues
« Reply #12 on: May 31st, 2005, 8:53pm » |
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on May 31st, 2005, 7:08pm, StegRock wrote:
Well, what about the answer to this question? It's pretty straightforward, no?
Bottom line, I have gleaned some useful information and ideas from the responses, thus far. Now I want the answer to this question (if anybody knows and can save me the trip to find out). |
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Yes, CBS Charges. They charge $120 for a league(up to 20 teams). So that is an average of around $12 per team. OR you can buy an individual team for $10 with each additional team for $7.95. OR you can join one of their money leagues. $30 for a team. A little more than half of that is paid out in prize money.....
ESPN charges $100 per league(up to 20 teams) or 3 teams for $40 or 1 team for $25.
So yes, lots of demand and money to be made. There is a VERY nominal prize for first place in NON money leagues.(T-Shirt)
Is Gino making it so pick up and dropping of players is automated? I would foresee the rules of trading picks having to be simplified, but the concept and scoring being a hit.
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| « Last Edit: May 31st, 2005, 8:59pm by DirkDiggler » |
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UFF Primetime Prophet
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Re: GBRFL and CBFL Leagues
« Reply #14 on: May 31st, 2005, 9:48pm » |
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My money league is a SI.com league (which is run by CBS Sportsline). It costs $120 a year (we have 12 teams) and each of us kicks in $60. All of the money (after the league fee) goes back to the top 4 finishers in the league. SI.com/CBS doesn't return any of that money to the players.
If you're suggesting, Steg, that the leagues here run for a fee and do NOT return any money (which is what I think you're getting at since you're being extremely evasive) then you'll need to consider having a live-scoring engine, automated and feature-rich drafting, trading for GBRFL, etc. Those sites don't just run things off a sweet spreadsheet program. They are individualized to the max and offer a lot of bells and whistles that you won't be able to do from Excel.
If, however, your goal is to provide all the extras and the customization, then it would be perfectly appropriate to charge an exorbitant fee and not return anything.
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Philosopher King
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Re: GBRFL and CBFL Leagues
« Reply #16 on: May 31st, 2005, 10:43pm » |
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on May 31st, 2005, 7:17pm, Callie wrote:| I was just concerned that some guys might drop out if the charge didn't work for them at the moment. |
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Let me first allay this concern. I will NOT charge any of the current members of the current feature leagues. It would, however, be nice if (as a group as I have suggested numerous times) people hit up that donation link a little more often... or at least get off the shnide and hit it once. Anyway, the bottom line is that the bottom line for those leagues will remain 0, everybody's favorite number when it comes to the keeping-it-real ma-and-pa shops of fantasy football vis-a-vis the Walmarts of fantasy football, which brings me to the next point...
on May 31st, 2005, 9:48pm, Philly wrote:| If you're suggesting, Steg, that the leagues here run for a fee and do NOT return any money (which is what I think you're getting at since you're being extremely evasive) then you'll need to consider having a live-scoring engine, automated and feature-rich drafting, trading for GBRFL, etc. Those sites don't just run things off a sweet spreadsheet program. They are individualized to the max and offer a lot of bells and whistles that you won't be able to do from Excel. |
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Jeff, you know as well as anyone else that I am NOT going to be able to provide anything technologically comparable to what the Walmarts do, as you thoroughly detail above, this year, not even close. That's going to require the hiring of real computer programmers, which requires profit (over and above that which I would like to share with guys like you who have been so instrumental in the success of this site), which I have yet to even come close to making (by way of donations, t-shirt sales or "the Gridiron Store") while site costs (WHICH, MIND YOU, ARE BEARING DOWN ON ME, i.e. STRESSING ME OUT, PRETTY HARDCORE RIGHT NOW AS PER THE THREADS ON "the Sidelines") continue to increase. As such, I take a bit of an exception with the (matter-of-fact tendentious) tone of your post (hell, I'm trying to see what I can do to cut you a check a.s.a.p.).
Walmart-level of technology aside, WHAT I CAN DO, however, is offer fun, unique leagues AT A FRACTION of those fees, including the provision of phat league web sites and a cool (featured) league message board here on "the Gridiron". I'm talking more like $25 (CBFL end) to $60 (GBRFL end) PER LEAGUE with site t-shirts and such as prizes (now, granted, I did not make this explicit; but, on the other hand, why would there be apparent assumptions/intimations that I want to charge the exorbitant fees that the big boys do and then the logically consequent comparisons to what the big boys provide (I know my limitations (all too well))? ... I was merely conducting "market research", with a home crowd no less, which requires not showing your hand if you want unadulterated feedback). Also, and this aspect cannot just be tacitly dismissed, part of what's being sold here, especially with the GBRFL-style leagues, is the unique system itself and the creativity with which I am somewhat known to go about things.
In short, I mean... Is what I have done for you guys with the GBRFL2 not worth anything?
on May 31st, 2005, 8:53pm, DirkDiggler wrote:| Is Gino making it so pick up and dropping of players is automated? |
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No, DD, that's probably not going to happen this year. That's going to require a ton of web work as well, which I will not have time for this summer (who'd a thunk?). The main thing she is doing is picking up where Jeremy left off and getting the inputting of the stats in the sheets automated. Getting away from the cutting and pasting of stats is the biggest hurdle when it comes to running the leagues. In accordance with what I said above about how many GBRFL-style leagues I would be looking at running this year, manually doing the transactions for five or so leagues would not be that big of a burden (especially with having Gino helping me with that).
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| « Last Edit: Jun 1st, 2005, 12:34am by Stegfucius » |
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UFF Primetime Prophet
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Re: GBRFL and CBFL Leagues
« Reply #17 on: Jun 1st, 2005, 9:55am » |
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Quote:| As such, I take a bit of an exception with the (matter-of-fact tendentious) tone of your post (hell, I'm trying to see what I can do to cut you a check a.s.a.p.). |
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I think maybe you're misinterpreting the tone of my post, Steg. You were very vague in your questioning and seemed irked when the suggestions didn't fit your preconceived ideas.
I'm trying to be a realist here and maybe soften the blow a bit when your ideas don't mesh with reality. I don't think people will pay $25 for a CBFL team. At least that's my opinion. I don't want to pay $25 for a team which, once drafted, could see the studs get hurt and leave me with nothing to do to recover. For $25 I'd hope there would be the opportunity to be more involved during the season. We have a CBFL board and website here already and you see how much (or how little) discussion it brings during the season. Sure, there's some lively banter immediately following the draft, but that's about it.
Was I being matter-of-fact? Yes. Tendentious? Only in your interpretation. I appreciate the fact that you are working hard to give something back to the people who have helped you along the way. I know I am one of those people. But I'm not asking for a check. I'm not even holding out until I get one. Heck, I even click the donate button when I can - which, admittedly, isn't often.
Quote:| In short, I mean... Is what I have done for you guys with the GBRFL2 not worth anything? |
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Sure it is. Do you feel that I am devaluing the work you do with the GBRFL2?
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Philosopher King
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Champ - '94, '99, '02, '04
I love ''the Gridiron''!
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Re: GBRFL and CBFL Leagues
« Reply #18 on: Jun 1st, 2005, 12:19pm » |
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The spirit of your post is more than fair enough, Phil.  BUT, you missed one detail ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL to your point...
on Jun 1st, 2005, 9:55am, Philly wrote:
I said PER LEAGUE, bro! We're talkin' like $2 a guy...
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Anyway, the point about the "cuttin' the check" stuff is really more about my not wanting to lose you. While I NEVER want to hold you back from other opportunities that may come your way (with your work here functioning as a portfolio of sorts), I will never get to the fantasy-football employment paradise I envision if I am/"the Gridiron @FantasyFootballer.com" is just a stepping stone for dudes.
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Tony_O
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Re: GBRFL and CBFL Leagues
« Reply #19 on: Jun 1st, 2005, 5:38pm » |
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on May 31st, 2005, 10:43pm, StegRock wrote:
which I have yet to even come close to making (by way of donations, t-shirt sales or "the Gridiron Store") while site costs (WHICH, MIND YOU, ARE BEARING DOWN ON ME, i.e. STRESSING ME OUT, PRETTY HARDCORE RIGHT NOW AS PER THE THREADS ON "the Sidelines") continue to increase. |
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I tried to donate $50 on 5/17/05 and have yet to see a deduction from my account or any acknowledgement here on the site. Let me know if there was a problem with my account number!
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Philosopher King
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Champ - '94, '99, '02, '04
I love ''the Gridiron''!
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Re: GBRFL and CBFL Leagues
« Reply #21 on: Jun 1st, 2005, 6:57pm » |
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on Jun 1st, 2005, 5:38pm, Tony_O wrote:| I tried to donate $50 on 5/17/05 and have yet to see a deduction from my account or any acknowledgement here on the site. Let me know if there was a problem with my account number! |
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Tony, thanks for notifying me of this. I looked into it immediately and the "sendmail" part for the credit card form (as well as for most of the forms over at theEnglishMaster.com) was not working. You may have noticed, Tony, that you did not receive a confirmation e-mail for your donation form submission. That's a clue that things were going awry. Even though things looked like they were working right on the front end to the user immediately after clicking the submit button, I was not receiving the e-mail notification of the donation (and neither was the submitter). ... God, I hope I did not miss any other donations or, moreover, orders over at theEnglishMaster.com. 
Guys, if you ever pick something like this off, let me know. If you do something where it says that you should be receiving a confirmation e-mail and don't within like 10 minutes, something is probably wrong. Let me know!
Tony, thanks for stepping up, bro. The system is up and running fine now, so if you want to give it another try, (subliminal message... )  please, by all means, do so, bro.
on Jun 1st, 2005, 5:49pm, Callie wrote:| Do you have a post office box you could post to help us out? |
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Continue to use the New Jersey e-mail address for mail-in donations at this point. If you need that address, do what it says to do on the donations page (http://www.fantasyfootballer.com/donate.htm), i.e. e-mail me at "thegridiron@fantasyfootballer.com", or send me a private message here on "the Gridiron". Thank you!
...
Now, any other thoughts on what I proposed above regarding the leagues, e.g. 2 bucks per guy for a CBFL-style league?
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| « Last Edit: Jul 28th, 2005, 4:25pm by Stegfucius » |
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GM
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Re: GBRFL and CBFL Leagues
« Reply #22 on: Jun 3rd, 2005, 5:23pm » |
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Quote:| Now, any other thoughts on what I proposed above regarding the leagues, e.g. 2 bucks per guy for a CBFL-style league? |
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I think you should definitely do that. Of course, I am sure you are fully aware that there is competition up the yippy-yang, but it sounds like you would appeal to the casual fantasy participant, and that generally seems like a market that is ignored, at least in a $2 price range (or $5-$6 range for the crazy GBRFL thing, which I guess would appeal to the casual fantasy participant who is smart enough to figure it out).
It seems most of the leagues/contests that pop up around the internet every year attempt to appeal to the 'Win $50,000 by guessing which mouthpiece Duante Culpepper wears this week' crowd. Maybe your niche would be the Yahoo/Sporstline/Fanball market, but at a significantly lower price.
Some suggestions:
1) I would eventually try to stop paying for those NewsKnowledge clowns. For one thing, you have no idea when they will decide to disappear into obvilion. Secondly, they truly don't do anything you can't do yourself. For example, I noticed that many of the stories on there are originated from SI.com. SI.com actually provides their news stories free of charge via XML file, here is that file:
http://rss.cnn.com/rss/si_nfl.rss
There are newsreaders that allow you to read that file and convert it into your particular format, which is all that NewsKnucklehead is actually doing.
2) It will probably be difficult to sell 12 person leagues (12 people can't agree on anything, look what happened in the OJ trial), but you have the perfect medium to allow for the creation of leagues out of a group of single participants. IMO, your focus might be selling single league entries, and then grouping them randomly into leagues.
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Philosopher King
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Re: GBRFL and CBFL Leagues
« Reply #23 on: Jun 4th, 2005, 10:17am » |
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I am with you, JYJ, on just about all you wrote. Thanks for the thought you put into this and the according thoughtful (i.e. thought-filled) advise! I deviate only when it comes to the following...
on Jun 3rd, 2005, 5:23pm, junkyardjake wrote:1) I would eventually try to stop paying for those NewsKnowledge clowns. For one thing, you have no idea when they will decide to disappear into obvilion. Secondly, they truly don't do anything you can't do yourself. For example, I noticed that many of the stories on there are originated from SI.com. SI.com actually provides their news stories free of charge via XML file, here is that file:
http://rss.cnn.com/rss/si_nfl.rss
There are newsreaders that allow you to read that file and convert it into your particular format, which is all that NewsKnucklehead is actually doing. |
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Firstly, right at this very moment on "The REAL Feed" there are nine sources. There are actually many, many more with whom I am linked through them that don't happen to be up there at this very moment. Now, I do agree with you that this is something I can (opt to) do myself... eventually. Yes, CNN/SI and ESPN (and perhaps others) offer their feeds for free as you describe, but I don't feel all too comfortable using them (even though people do). They are supposed to only be for personal web sites that don't generate revenue, no less full-fledged businesses which is where I want FantasyFootballer.com to go (and don't want the hassle of building something I took hours, perhaps days or weeks, building only to have to inevitably tear it down and have to go back to a provider like NewsKnowledge, with whom I currently have a great permanent deal, which, right now, isn't that great because I don't make squat, but you can't go forsaking the bigger picture for the smaller one). Also, it's one thing to configure a news feed just for CNN/SI or ESPN, but I am sure a whole nother creating a combination feed combining various sources, and to be totally frank, I think having a "big-boy" single-source feed, whether it is just CNN/SI or ESPN, is cheese. If all I were to provide is that, I would think I am better off not bothering people with that BS which can be gotten more thoroughly and in context by just providing a link to, e.g., CNN/SI's NFL page. I just got to be honest, I think sites which are biggish or endeavor to "grow big" and use such personal web site features are being cheesy... and thinking small. Seeing that kind of thing just gives off a personal home page type of feel (to me at least). Lastly, NewsKnowledge is growing, not at all receding: they have recently updated their site with new features and a new look and, more importantly, have added MANY sources over the two-plus years I have been with them. Also, I have established a good working relationship with them and if we ever get to the point where we provide significant original content, they are very open to adding US to their news source-base. That's something that only comes with establishing good, friendly business relations over time and I think it is for my long-term benefit to maintain this relationship. Now, on the other hand, in the long, long run, when I can hire real computer programmers to create extensive combination feeds, that's another bridge I will be willing to cross at that time.
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Re: GBRFL and CBFL Leagues
« Reply #24 on: Jun 4th, 2005, 1:09pm » |
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I agree that a combination feed is cool, but I can't imagine that it would be all that difficult to program. Of course, that's easy for me to say, we both know this website shit is very time-consuming, and there are some things that just aren't worth trying to do yourself. I guess it would involve reading in multiple XML files and filtering out duplicate stuff in some fashion. I can tell you it took me many hours to figure out the news aggregator stuff, but once you have it running (on your own server, third-party involvement seems to cause more headaches), it's pretty maintenance-free.
But that's really my point about Newsknowledge, I can't imagine how viable they will be in the future as more website operators figure this stuff out. To the extent that even small websites can develop sophisticated end-user formats of raw news feeds, it will make a service like theirs more and more obsolete. 
I personally don't mind the single-source format myself, I guess because I get all my news off Yahoo and it's always been arranged that way. Obviously, a good single-source, or maybe two good sources will cover almost everything you need to know (as everyone kind of reports on the same big stories with only minor variations). Actually, there is even a simple way to convert a Yahoo search into a news item list, that seems to be the simplest way to create a multiple source news list.
http://news.yahoo.com/rss
(Scroll down to 'Create your own RSS news feeds', where you can type in a any search term to create a custom XML file)
As far as the issue of conflict with the personal/business context, I wouldn't worry about that. CNN/SI, Yahoo, Sportsline and ESPN want you to use their stories, because it generates traffic back to their respective sites. If there was strict syndication, I guess you could somehow economically misappropriate public news stories, but obviously they give it away free for a reason; it's in their interest to do so. (And anyone stupid enough to pay for free news stories probably deserves to be parted from their money). 
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