My basic philosophy has not changed in the 15 years we have been in business, however I have found how time consuming and demanding this business can be. Our fantasy drafts are designed for all sports fans, not just fantasy sports fans! We want our drafts to provide the participants a chance to enjoy sports even more with the added incentive of winning prizes. We feel that these drafts promote a better understanding of sports, better knowledge of who the actual athletes are, as well as a greater understanding of the rules of each sport.
Our goal is to run well organized fantasy drafts that are easy to understand, with earlier mailed updates and a personal touch. We mail out our monthly prizes by the 3rd of the next month and our end of season prizes within five days of the conclusion of the season. This is unlike most or all other drafts which don't pay out any of their monthly, weekly, or end of season prizes until after the season has ended, and in some cases several months later. Other drafts also require the winners to fill out lengthy reports, or what they call a qualifying statement, and, or release form. This we do not do. If you are a winner, your prize money will be sent to you with no further action on your part.
We also have a strong feeling about trades. Most other contests offer a certain number of trades, but then allow contestants to purchase additional trades at a price. This type of fantasy draft, with extra trades that cost a fee, encourage contestants to spend money on additional trades, which could become several hundred dollars. Some contestants will buy these extra trades and if you are not willing to spend this extra money you will have virtually no chance of winning any of the prizes.
Our drafts do not allow additional purchased trades, as we do not want to make it a buying war, we allow for a set number of trades at set prices and do not sell addtional trades. This then will not allow anyone to buy additional trades and have an advantage over other contestants in winning prizes. Our intent is to keep everyone on a level playing field, so to speak, by not selling additional trades. Our football fantasy draft the entry fee includes 16 FREE trades as a maximum for the season and no addtional trades are sold. Almost all other drafts sell unlimited trades but at costs from $1.50 each trade to $20.00 for each trade
Another opportunity we offer our current contestants are discounted fees in several of our drafts. For example, once you have played in one of our drafts, your entry fee for any seasonal draft thereafter has a discounted price to thank you for being a participant with us up to 35% off the new contestant entry fee. We also have discount programs such as our discounted gift certificates up to 35% off the beggining of the year, and our random drawings each month where contestants receive 50% off that month's fantasy draft entry fees. Cash rewards referral program which awards our contestants 50% of their personally referred new contestants intitial entry fees with a $3,000 award going to the contestant that send us the most new contestants during the year.
We also provide monthly updates in our seasonal drafts at no extra charge, as some of the
others do charge an additional fee. So be aware of some of the fantasy drafts that charge extra fees for trades or
updates, as those fees can well exceed the original entry fee. We NOW also provide at no extra cost contestant
standings and player points via our web site every two weeks in our football fantasy draft, and weekly updates
on all our monthly or specialty drafts.
We also offer an All Drafts Annual Championship with no
additional entry fee with $20,000 in prizes
as a way to say thank you to you the contestants.
Click here for more information on the All Drafts Annual Championship.
We would like to make you aware that there are several fantasy drafts that declare an amount of prizes that they are giving away. Then in small print, or in a disclosure, they state that the prize money to be given out is based on a certain number of entries. What these drafts have done is quarantee themselves a minimal loss with a big window for profit. They are now asking you, the contestants, to take the risk while lowering their risk. For example; a fantasy draft might say that the prizes are $50,000, then state that is based on a total number of entries reaching 6,000, and if they do not receive the 6,000 entries the prize money then will be a percentage of the total entry fees received. Now you, the contestant, have the dilemma of believing you are playing for $50,000 in prizes and find out the next month, or perhaps the end of the season, your entry fee is going towards perhaps only $25,000 or even much less than that in prizes!
None of us in this business know in advance how many entries we will receive on any given fantasy draft; however most providers have some sort of idea based on past history. A fantasy draft provider could intentionally advertise prize money based on a higher number of entries than they really expect, and then, with the aforementioned disclaimer, protect themselves from having to pay the advertised prizes when they get near the expected number of entries.
We at Sports Fanatics Player Drafts feel that the number of entries should be our risk and not the contestant's. We have in the past lost several thousands of dollars on a draft, but would remind you, our prizes are GUARANTEED and we have paid out all of our prize money as advertised.
We have found, by entering several contests, that they range in Prize money from $500 to $100,000 with entry fees ranging from $9.95 to over $1,500. We have also found that most fantasy drafts simular to ours, with an entry fee of $39.95 to $250 and prizes from $25,000 to $50,000, have entry numbers ranging from 5,000 up to 65,000. We have seen since we started in 1993 over 223 competitors come and go, due to the high level of competition. Most fantasy drafts are now corporate owned, by television or magazine companies and very few independants left. We have found that the few independants that are left will probably thrive and grow, but not at the pace of the corporate providers, due to extrodinarily high advertising expenses.
I think the greatest asset we have is that we do and greatly enjoy the personal contact by phone, letters, email or fax that we receive and always respond to, and notice that most the corporate owned businesses have no way of contacting an individual by phone, so they do not offer the personal touch we do and greatly enjoy. We are in the business for the duration and look forward to growing slowly but steadily. Providing fantasy drafts with integrity and fairness and the assurance that we enforce, the rules as written equally to everyone with no exceptions. We feel that the integrity and fairness of our drafts, and our personal touch is what you the customer demands, as that is what every customer wants, is to know that the fantasy drafts they choose is fair to all that participate, even when it is requires returning thousands of entries that were sent in even one day late or faxed minutes late even if it happens to be yours (which as of December 1st, 2006 exceeds $598,000).
Our 2006 football fantasy draft had 2,179 entries from 989 contestants, and with 261 total prizes better and 1 of 4 conetants will win a prize. Of course the fewer number of contestants vying for the prize money improves the odds of winning. In 2005 better than 1 in 4 contestants Won a prize in our Baseball fantasy draft. We are now seeing internet only fantasy sports contests that are being sponsored by several sponors and offering a free entry, however in their contests they have 100's of thousands of entries to millions of entries and only offer about 10 to 20 cash prizes, so about only 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 100,000 contestants win a prize compared to our average of 1 in 4 contestants.
The fantasy sports drafts we now offer are; monthly baseball fantasy drafts April thru September, two playoff and World Series, regular season NFL Football fantasy draft, football team fantasy draft selecting a weekly winner, monthly football fantasy drafts October thru December, two playoffs and Super Bowl fantasy drafts, college football bowls fantasy draft, monthly PGA golf February thru August, NCAA Men's basketball Tournament, monthly NBA player fantasy drafts November thru April and the NBA playoffs, and the 5 Annual Championships listed above. We may also be adding new fantasy drafts in the future.
We hope that we have given you some ideas, information, and a good understanding about our business as well as what others offer. We look forward to hearing from you and wish you well in any contest you might choose to enter.
Thank You, Mike and Michelle Tayler
Sports Fanatics Player Drafts P O Box 7671 Loveland, CO 80537-0671 Phone: 1-800-800-8202 pin 03 Phone: 970-593-9991 Fax: 970-593-9908 Email: mike@sportsdrafts.com