More Tournaments

Action has really been heating up lately on Draftmix. We now have three nightly tournaments, Monday through Friday, that are filling regularly. So based on your feedback, we’ve decided to add more.

First we’ve created a couple weekend tournaments, one on Saturday at 4 p.m eastern and one Sunday at 5 p.m. Both are $10 to enter, last a week, and pay out $75 guaranteed.

And for those who requested more instant drafts, we’ve added a weekly one starting Friday. To join simply go to your profile page, fill in your custom rankings, and enter the tournament any time before midnight on Friday. All players will automatically draft teams then for the following week, so you don’t have to be at your computer. It’s only $5 to join, and we’re giving away $100 in prizes.

Extra Cash

To cap it all off, we’re even going to give you a bonus* on your next deposit. Add up to $25 to your account before Friday, May 23rd and we’ll match your deposit. Just use the code “baseball” in the bonus code section when depositing.

*All bonuses subject to bonus Terms and Conditions*

Nightly Freerolls Starting Today

Our freerolls were immensely popular during football season, and now we’re bringing them back. Every weekday night at 9 p.m. Eastern, we’ll be hosting a free tournament with no buy-in and a cash prize. All you have to do to win is show up and play. The format will be one day baseball leagues, so print out your MLB schedule and jump in.

Extra Tournaments

Action is starting to heat up in the nightly tournaments as well. The $10 buy-in one week events are becoming popular. So we’re going to add another guaranteed real money tournament to the mix. Now each night at 9:30 p.m. we’ll be hosting a $5 buy-in single day tournament with a mininum prize pool of $35.

So stop by and take your chances at winning over $100 every day on Draftmix.

Good luck,
Team Draftmix

Custom Rankings

We’re announcing a special new feature today. You now have the ability to customize your athlete rankings using our new drag and drop interface. To do so simply log in, visit your profile, and then click the link in the right hand column. You’ll be able to change them around at will and save up to 200 of your favorite athletes in any order you see fit. Once you’ve done that your custom rankings will show up in our draft gui.

Fun New Way To Play

Once you’ve set up your rankings, you’ll be able to play in our new Instant Draft format. Unlike our live drafts, instant drafts don’t require you to be online at any specific time. You simply join a league, and when the start time comes, our computer will automatically draft for you based on your custom rankings.

This means you can join an instant draft 24/7, regardless of when the league begins. In fact, once your custom rankings are set, you can join any number of leagues all at once with just a couple clicks.

Special Kickoff Tournament

To kick off the new league type, we’re throwing what promises to be our biggest tournament. It’s $10 to buy in, and we’re offering up a $500 prize pool. The draft takes place Monday, April 14th, but you can join in the action immediately. It’s in the lobby now so sign up at any time, customize your rankings, and win.

And as usual, our nightly live drafts will run at 9 p.m. eastern. Hope to see you there.

Good luck,
Team Draftmix

There will be no scheduled tournament tonight as we are upgrading the site. In the meantime for your draftmix fix, we’ve recently been mentioned a couple places.

First, last Wednesday our CEO, Matt, talked a little bit about the site on the Fantasy Baseball Guy Show. Find that at Blog Talk Radio.

Also, we spotted a great little mention on Yardbarker. If you’re a customer there, please go bark it up for us.

It’s that time again.

The birds are chirping, the bees are buzzing. Spring is in the air. And you know what that means: baseball is back.

The 2008 MLB season hits full stride on Monday, and we have been hard at work here at Draftmix.com preparing for it. We’ve got a whole slew of new features for you. Head over to the site, and you’ll see we’ve integrated a new design that we hope will make it easier to find what you want.

In our lobby you’ll now find leagues that last 1 week, and for those who just can’t wait, ones that last 1 day. We’ve also added some logic to skip injured players when auto-drafting, and to show you who they are when drafting manually.

Big Prizes

We’re starting off the season with a bang. All week long we’ll be offering cash tournaments with generous guaranteed prizes. We’ll be giving away hundreds of dollars every day, starting with tonight’s $200 guaranteed tournament. The buy-in is only $10, and the action starts at 9 p.m. Eastern. For more information, see the scheduled tab in our lobby or check the leagues forming table on our homepage.

Coming Up

We have even more exciting stuff planned for the near future as well. We’re currently working on a custom rankings system which will enable players to rank athletes themselves, rather than using our default rankings. You’ll see your custom rankings in the live drafts, and will also be able to participate in our brand new instant drafts with them as well. Then you can join leagues 24/7 with no waiting, even if nobody else is in them yet, and with just a couple clicks.

So we hope you’re as excited about the baseball season as we are. And as always we are interested in your continued feedback. Please let us know if there are any improvements or features you would like to see on Draftmix.com.

Good Luck,

Team Draftmix

There is no question that tonight will offer somewhat of a playoff atmosphere after the Suns disappointing and controversial Western Conference Semi-Finals loss to the Spurs last season. San Antonio suffered their first home loss to the Suns, so expect a similar atmosphere and the same type of emotion and intensity that a playoff game would offer.

Under normal circumstances I would easily choose the Dallas/Boston match-up as the NBA game of the night, however, due to the uncertainty of Kevin Garnett (abdominal) and Ray Allen (flu), even without Tony Parker the San Antonio at Phoenix match-up has much more fantasy appeal. For those of you who play in weekly fantasy basketball competitions, hopefully you were able to fill you roster with players from this game.

Fantasy Impact:
Tim Duncan: How do I explain the importance of Tim Duncan to the Spurs and this match-up in particular? I don’t, the numbers speak for themselves and in the Spurs/Suns previous meeting Tim went off for 36 points and 18 rebounds.

Manu Ginobili: In only 29 minutes per game Ginobili averaged 19 points, five rebounds, and four assists with season highs of 37 points twice. With Parker sidelined and Ginobili’s role expected to increase look for his totals to increase.

Michael Finley: As a swing-man Finley’s defensive ability and his versatility allows the Spurs to play different combinations at any given time. From a fantasy perspective, Finley should have a big night considering he’s now the Spurs third option offensively against a Suns team that plays minimal defense.

Steve Nash: The two time MVP doesn’t need an introduction and definitely doesn’t need for me to mention his importance to this game. Not that Parker would have made a difference defensively, but in his absence Nash will easily find open looks and open teammates.

Amare Stoudamire: It would be fun to watch Tim and Amare go toe to toe, but unfortunately we won’t and with the Spurs having multiple “Bigs” Amare may be in for a long night. In their first meeting this season Amare only had 17 points, eight rebounds, and three blocks. He also finished the game with five personal fouls in 32 minutes of play.

Leandro Barbosa: Barbosa may be the biggest mismatch in this game. Ginobili can’t guard him because of his offensive responsibility and the Spurs simply aren’t deep enough to keep the explosive Barbosa from creating his own shots and knocking down his open looks. If he gets hot the Spurs could walk away 20+ point losers.

Shawn Marion: Marion was shut down in their first meeting. He only attempted seven field-goals and never found his way to the charity stripe. In 34 minutes of play Marion managed a miserable nine points and three rebounds under his season average of nine.

As we all know, on any given night any one of these players from either team has the ability to post 30+ points. It’s the NBA, to a certain extent any player in the league has that ability. San Antonio will try to make it a slow-paced game, but the horses from the desert will be certain to force the tempo.  Enjoy this fantasy match-up of the night.

It’s not very often where rising stars or sleepers emerge in the NBA after multiple seasons in the league. However, for some reason there are multiple players playing above and beyond their expectations and finally coming into their own as NBA “ballers”. Normally players either come into the NBA as stars or they don’t and there is rarely any room to leap into the stardom category. Below is a list of players to watch and a group of players that continue to prove their fantasy value and NBA worthiness.

Jose Calderon: In only his second season in the NBA Calderon is quickly becoming a quality player in a league where top notch point guards are a rarity. He has struggled off and on in the scoring category, but his assist to turnover ratio is a stellar seven to one. Calderon is emerging as a star in this league and a definite every week fantasy starter.

Gerald Wallace: You can always tell who worked on their game in the off-season and who kinda just sat around thinking they would get better by osmosis. Wallace’s career scoring average is a mere 11 points and through 41 games this season he’s averaging 21 points, six rebounds, and three assists. Playing alongside Jason Richardson, Wallace is in an ideal situation in Charlotte and is slowly headed into stardom.

Kevin Martin: Martin continues to play well by averaging 24 points, five rebounds, and shooting 49% from the field. Playing in Sacremento and the Western Conference where defense is treated like the plague Martin should consistently find easy baskets and make the most of his opportunities. In most fantasy formats Martin should remain or become a starter.

David West: With the exception of only a few the NBA has never been known for producing great power forwards. West is currently averaging 19 points, nine rebounds, and 2.5 assists per game in only his fourth season as a professional. West’s numbers have consistently improved throughout his career and as a result the Hornets have improved as well. West remains a top notch fantasy power forward.

Rudy Gay: In only his second season Gay has almost doubled his point average from last year. He has also improved his field goal percentage (+.44) and free throw percentage (+.55) in only his second season. Gay is emerging as a rising star and a leader on a team that desperately needs one. Gay has started in all 41 games this season and should have gained trust as a high-end fantasy starter week in and week out.

Tyson Chandler: Let’s all remember that Chandler is in his sixth season and is still a baby at 25 years old. With the Hornets leading the Western conference, Chandler averaging a double-double, and the NBA lacking quality “Bigs” Chandler should remain a high end center in all fantasy formats.

Since entering the Fantasy Sports Industry I’ve done a lot of research. One of the more interesting facts I’ve turned up is that football is far and away the most played fantasy sport. I wasn’t surprised that it is the most popular, judging by the fantasy players I knew, but I never would have guessed that it accounts for 85% of the industry. That means that of the 7 or so sports commonly offered, 6 reside in the long tail.

Why it is that way was one of the first questions we asked. The first and most obvious answer is that football is the most popular sport in America. The average NFL game is attended by almost 68,000 people, which is over twice as large as the second most popular sport, baseball, which in turn is about double the size of basketball. The NFL has television revenues of over $3.2 billion per year, whereas the MLB is in the middle of a 7 year deal for $3 billion in total. That is despite the fact that the MLB has about 10x the number of games (baseball teams play 162 per season, compared to 16 for football) that the NFL does. The NBA has a number of games in between the NLF and the MLB (82 per team) and television revenues of about $766 million, placing it well above baseballs roughly $430 million.

So if all else were equal, and you ignored the other sports (which you more or less can in terms of current market share) you still wouldn’t expect football to have that big of a slice. By television revenue (it’s best metric) it’s about 75% of the industry. By any other metric you’d expect it to be, at best, about half of the market, and by some (total ticket sales, for instance) not even in first place. There must be something more at play.

I think the answer lies in the format of the games. With most team sports, the rules are similar. Leagues start with a draft, and then run throughout the course of the sport’s season. Throughout that season, fantasy team owners continually manage their roster, dropping and picking up athletes, benching and starting them, and even trading them with other owners in the league. Each time an athlete plays in a real live game, the owner gets points based on their performance. Sometimes the points are based on an athlete’s stats times a multiplier, sometimes they’re based on leading the league in given categories, but the basic principle is the same: the owner whose athletes perform the best wins.

There’s one key difference, though, between football and the rest of the team sports (we’ll cover individual sports in a later post) which is that games aren’t played every day. In many weeks, games exist only on Sunday and Monday. Games can be played on other days as well (Thursday games happen a few weeks a year) but it’s generally all over the course of two or three days.

This means a few things to a fantasy owner. For one, almost all athletes play every week. Each has one bye per year, and other than that typically plays every game while healthy. Injuries and other events that might cause a player to have to change his roster almost all happen by Monday night (though their effect may not be known until later).

This means that fantasy football owners do most of their work on Tuesday. You can be a competitor while logging into your account only once a week. There is definitely some benefit to remaining active all throughout the week (injury reports progress, teams announce which QB will start, etc.) but not much. If a player needs to take a week’s vacation, as long as he can log in on Tuesday he’ll pretty much be fine.

So fantasy football revolves around the week. Baseball and basketball, on the other hand, are daily games. Teams play multiple games per week, and they can be scheduled on any day. Players get injured every day of the week. An owner is typically allowed a certain amount of starts, for instance in baseball, one can start each position 162 games per year, a concern a fantasy football owner never has.

The management of a baseball or basketball team can be overwhelming, especially should the player draft a few teams. In that case it’s not uncommon to have one player from each MLB team, meaning a player has to track and adjust for around 100 games each week. In an NFL week, players have 16 or fewer games they must pay attention to.

It would seem that the amount of effort involved is probably responsible for fantasy football being more popular than it should be. That’s why we’ve made an attempt at simplifying the other fantasy sports. On our site, players simply draft when they want to and have no ongoing commitment. You take a look at the week’s matchups in advance, use them to draft your team, and then you’re done. If you want something to do tomorrow, you come back and do it again, and if you’d rather spend a relaxing day at the beach, you can do so without worrying how far behind you’ll fall.

We expect that fantasy football will still be our most popular sport. It is the new American pastime. But we’re going to do our best to increase the amount of participation in the others as well. And from what we’ve been seeing in our basketball freerolls of late, it seems people are responding. \

We at Draftmix are as sad to see the football season drawing to a close as you are. But we’re not going to just sit back and wait for baseball to come around. That’s why, starting this week, we’ll be hosting basketball freerolls daily.

Just as with football, these nightly tournaments will be free to enter and will give cash prizes to the winners. Prizes and times will vary. See the schedule below and our lobby for details.

Schedule

Jan 21st - 27th. All times eastern.

Last week’s results are in. Despite poor performances across the board by the name brand NFL superstars, the Draftmix ones seem to have held up well. In fact, the top four performers for the week are the same ones you’ll see at the top of the All Time Leader Board, proving that skill is still the defining factor even in weeks where everyone’s first pick or two ends up useless.

Lucky57 was our clear winner for the week, winning over $100 in prizes and racking up 212.73 Leader Board Points. FanProphet had another great week as will, digging up 187.81 LBP and landing himself back on top of both the Monthly and All Time Leader list.

Janice88823 and Apple rounded out the top four, and all of them will be competing in our Leaderboard Challenge $100 Freeroll on Thursday. Good luck to everyone in that, and to everyone else, we hope to see you in the winner’s circle next week.