Today's Fantasy Rx

Unfortunately, I appear to have upset some readers with yesterday's review. So for those of you still with us, we're going to adopt a slightly different format today.

Today's Fantasy Rx: Last fall, I asked our readers to send my mom a short note wishing her a Happy Birthday, and a few of you were kind enough to respond. I'd like to take this opportunity to make another small request.

My dad, Peter Polko, turns 60 today. Without his support, this website would not exist (and neither would I incidentally), so if you like any of our work, you can take this opportunity to wish him well.

Jess and I would both certainly appreciate it if you could drop him a brief "Happy 60th" at p2@rotohelp.com. Thank you once again.

We'll likely revert back to the traditional format tomorrow, but for today we'll continue with the small announcement that

I apparently can't read.

I apparently "slandered" Ultimate Fantasy Sports with my comments in yesterday's article because I misreported two items when conducting my research on their fantasy game.

As we certainly don't want to lose any more readers, I thought I'd take a few minutes to elaborate on my errors as well as some of our general fantasy philosophies. Aside from what we've posted on our philosophy page, I briefly mentioned yesterday that we generally prefer either NL or AL-only rotisserie leagues. Our reason for quoting from Rotisserie League Baseball was only to inform our readership of these beliefs, especially since we feel we've been intensely critical of sites offering only a Major League option. As UFS only operates ML-only leagues, we decided that yesterday was a good time to announce our bias ahead of time.

Now in the actual review, I accidentally made two factual errors. First, under style, I noted "All leagues are ML 5x5 H2H with 16 teams and use a points system for scoring". Obviously since they're a points-based game, they're not 5x5 in any way. I apologize for this error, although I suspect most of you realized my mistake if you finished the review, especially as the section immediately following the above quote discussed how you score points.

Since there's also been some confusion as to what sections I quoted from the UFS website, I wanted to state that the only quoted sections are those within quotation marks. The "All leagues are..." line was not taken directly from their website.

Second, I mistakenly stated that "The only way to make trades is to call them in via voice mail; apparently the UFS computers can't process secure trade transactions like every other fantasy game operator that we've visited."

Here's the exact line from the site to which I was referring:

"Once a trade is agreed upon, BOTH OWNERS MUST CALL IN THE TRADE EXACTLY THE SAME on the UFS voice mail or Internet system. E-mails of lineups and trades are not accepted."

Apparently what confused me is the REPEATED AND UNNECESSARY BOLD AND CAPITALIZED TEXT in their rules. Ultimate Fantasy Sports is actually reportedly the only game that accepts both voice mail and internet submission of moves.

We also still seem to be stuck in the twentieth century (or earlier). My parents still have a rotary phone in their house that I occasionally use, and I dial both that phone and every other. I also doubt that many of you have "licked a stamp" for your envelopes in a few years, despite the continued existence of such a phrase.

So when I read "owners must call in the trade", I automatically thought you had to physically use a phone to "call" in the trade. I complete discounted the possibility of "calling in the trade" on the UFS Internet system. Perhaps I'm the only one who can't escape from an anachronistic existence, but I somehow suspect that at least a few other people might be confused by the chosen wording. A simple change to "owners must report the trade exactly the same" should help to avoid future such misunderstandings.

I also wrote that, "I can't remember a private league that ever proffered this degree of scrutiny as a feature of their operation." In case you were confused by this phrase, I did not state that UFS was a "private league" in any way. My comment was directed towards our belief that UFS has seemingly as many unnecessary rules and regulations as the United States Tax Code.

Ultimate Fantasy Sports certainly protects their owners, but this level of micromanagement does not interest us. We consider their detailed rules to be nothing more than structured hand-holding for owners that prefer a hassle-free fantasy experience, something often lacking from more intense private leagues that can dissolve over one uneven trade. While we find it commendable that UFS has never discontinued a single lifetime league and embrace the theory of league stability, we don't approve of the methods employed to achieve this goal.

We began this series of game reviews because our readers asked us to compare a few different sites and offer our opinions. We're quite comfortable with recommending services like the CDM Challenges and the Yahoo! fantasy games. However, despite their extensive and loyal customer base, we find little appealing about the games offered at Ultimate Fantasy Sports.

Might our opinions differ from yours?

Of course they might. We've been informed that UFS has annual sales of $500,000, a 93% renewal rate, they've been in existence since 1986, and as they proudly state on the home page, "Ultimate Fantasy Sports is a Founding Board Member" of the Fantasy Sports Players Association. So obviously they've been able to hold an enviable position in the market for a long time. We hope to someday join the FSPA after we're more established, so we have nothing to gain and potentially much to lose by unnecessarily provoking founding board members.

If anybody who has played a UFS game in the past is still reading, we'd certainly appreciate your opinions on their contests. Why did you choose them instead of a private league or other service? If you left UFS, what was your rationale for departing? Do you feel I unfairly "slandered" UFS yesterday, or do you think I presented a valid rationale for choosing an alternative fantasy provider. As always, please let me know if you don't want your comment published as I may return to this subject in a future article depending on reader response.

I had intended to spend today discussing Reggie Jackson's Fantasy Baseball Challenge. Last year, they didn't launch the Reggie Challenge until a few weeks into the season, and they offered a $100,000 grand prize. Naturally we submitted a team, and although we didn't finish in the top 10, we did win our league and $100, earning over a fifty dollar profit on our investment.

A Brief Internet Fantasy Baseball Contest Review of:

Reggie Jackson's Fantasy Baseball Challenge 2002

Fox Sports administers the Reggie Challenge. We know most people play fantasy games for fun, but we can't stand the thought of these companies taking advantage of the average baseball fans that we believe comprise the majority of the current fantasy market and the entirety of the potential fantasy market.

So we're rather irritated when we look at the 2002 Reggie rules, and find that they cut all the overall prizes in half. 1st prize wins $10,000 instead of $100,000, second prize wins $2,500 instead of, I believe, $25,000, third prize wins $1,000 instead of, I believe, $10,000, and fourth prize wins $250 instead of $2,500. Instead of 4th through 10th place winning $1,000 each, these six owners only win $100. League winners still earn $100 each, and second place in each league wins a baseball autographed by Reggie Jackson.

While they offer weekly cash prizes of up to $500 to the teams with the most total points in a week, they only give out 10 of these awards each week, and 6th through 10th place only earn $10/week.

We're a little disappointed with the reduced totals, now only in the neighborhood of the CDM Internet Challenge. Fox Sports offers only a $19.95 entry fee by March 15th, and additional teams cost only $10 each.

As we're thinking about purchasing at least four teams since we're rather confident that we can at least win four autographed baseballs, we begin reading the fine print.

They now charge $2/trade.

Reggie limits you to 6 trades a week, and as this is a salary cap game, a "trade" means any transaction. While you can buy 6 trades for $10, this still costs you $10/week to run the most competitive team.

As you'll need at least 5 or 6 moves every week, mostly to rotate your pitchers as they removed the "maximum games played or pitched limit" from the game, you'll be spending $10 every week.

So in addition to the $20 entry fee, Reggie costs approximately an additional $250, $10 for each of the 25 weeks of the baseball season.

You probably need to finish at least fourth overall to break even.

We're not going to offer a more thorough Reggie review this year as we don't believe you find anything here not offered by a different site. If you really want an autographed Reggie Jackson baseball, please head on over to ebay.

Our problem with Reggie is the same problem we have with Ultimate Fantasy Sports, STATS, and ESPN as of this year:

With the multitude of fantasy options available, there's no reason to play any contest in which you don't have a reasonable chance to recoup your investment.

In private leagues, aside from the deduction of $100 or so for a stat service, 100% of the remaining fees go directly back to the owners in the form of prize money. Current "book" rules reward the first place finisher with half of the pot, 20% for second place, 15% for third, 10% for fourth, and 5% for fifth. Traditional rules preserve the 50% share for 1st place, but then limit the distribution to 25/15/10, excluding the 5th place finisher. Many leagues offer the first minor league pick of the following season to the 5th place finisher as a minor consolation.

Therefore in most private leagues, you have no worse than a 1 in 3 chance of recouping your investment and even making a small profit. Winning the league even one year will provide you with enough money to cover your expenses in that league for two to four years.

Now compare this to Ultimate Fantasy Sports. Lifetime leagues cost $225/team for the conference call draft option. While UFS provides between $25 and $150 to the top 10 finishers overall, the vast majority of their owners will obviously only win league awards. Here's the breakdown for each Ultimate league:

$500 for 1st place in a Lifetime league
$100 for 2nd place in a league
$50 for each of the two Division winners in each league
$20 for the best team each week in every league

The regular season lasts 20 weeks; playoffs take another 5 weeks. So the weekly prize adds another $500 to the prize pool ($20 * 25).

UFS pays out $1200 in league prizes ($500 + $100 + ($50*2) + ($20*25).

They charge $3600 per 16-team league.

Before deducting operating expenses, Ultimate Fantasy Sports makes $2400 from each of their 108 continuous leagues.

A 16-team private league with the same entry fee will distribute their prizes in roughly the following fashion, including the subtraction of $100 for a stat service:

$1750 for 1st place
$700 for 2nd place
$525 for 3rd place
$350 for 4th place
$175 for 5th place

In the UFS games, you need to finish 1st in your league to make a profit on your investment. In a private league using the identical format, albeit without the unique UFS features like the ability to make transactions via voice mail, you only need to finish in the top 4 to see any return.

Now, private leagues only function well when run by an efficient commissioner, and UFS fills this role for their leagues. Therefore, let's suppose you had to pay a commissioner to run your league. As this league entry is only $225, let's assume you're willing to pay a completely independent commissioner to administer your league. Most of the work is strictly data entry, so let's assume that this commissioner works an average of four hours a week for the 26 weeks of the baseball season at $15/hour, a reasonable salary for data entry. $15 * 4 * 26 = $1560.

Let's redistribute this prize pool, while subtracting both $100 for the stat service and $1560 to pay the commissioner, leaving us with $1940 in prize money.

$970 for 1st place
$388 for 2nd place
$291 for 3rd place
$194 for 4th place
$97 for 5th place

You still have a 3/16 chance of turning a profit, a 200% improvement on what UFS offers.

While we've heard nothing but good reviews of the actual services provided by Ultimate Fantasy Sports in the past, now that we've examined their league structure and rules for these reviews, we don't believe that their features outweigh the loss in potential prize money.

If you're either a long-term or brand new customer of Ultimate Fantasy Sports, we certainly expect that you'll still have an enjoyable experience, although we don't believe you've made a prudent economic decision. Many fantasy participants aren't concerned about money, but we just don't want to waste that extra cash.

Between parking, gas, and tickets, it costs us at least $65 to visit Wrigley Field before we even find our seats or purchased the required refreshments. Rather than pay our cash to UFS for their exclusive features, we'd much rather either reserve our funds to go watch a baseball game in person or have a good chance to see a return on our invested time and money in a private league.

We offered John Zaleski, the owner of Ultimate Fantasy Sports, a chance to respond to yesterday's review in "print". I apologize for the extended length of today's article, but we felt he deserved the opportunity to defend his site considering the comments we received from several readers. If anyone from one of the previously-reviewed sites has similar comments, I'll be happy to include them in tomorrow's column.

"There are dozens and dozens of reasons as to why UFS has cornered a niche market in the industry. Among the most important are customer service (UFS answers 80% of its e-mail within a minute of receiving it. Low/No cost games rarely respond), off-season transactions that average at least 20 players traded per league, per transaction period, and much, much more. You have to go back to the roots of the industry to fully understand why UFS has worked, mainly because before CDM came around stat services and UFS-type services dominated the landscape."

"To set the record straight, UFS puts SINGLE people into leagues that don't have access to make up their own PRIVATE league. We were a thriving business BEFORE the Internet, and for that matter, before Voice Mail was popular and we're not going to kick out the last few (5 of 2500) owners that made us what we are today. Our traveling salesmen and owners on vacation love the fact that we'll still take lineups/trans over the phone."

"Your comparison of prize amounts is irrelevant as UFS customers don't have access, the time, or the desire to form private leagues and you also didn't factor in expenses like advertising, employees, taxes, programming, internet fees and more. One of our best sources of new owners is the private league commish that is very tired of playing in a private league where he does all the work, 2-3 owners don't pay, 2-3 owners quit after a few weeks and like low/no pay services, when he's won the league, did he really earn something? Did he beat the best competition possible? In UFS that answer is yes. In every lifetime league UFS runs, the last place owner busts his butt because he knows that the hard work will pay off. The winner of each league KNOWS that he's exhausted every ounce of his ability to win. There's an elite level of player out there that is very bored by beating owners that don't try or give up during the season and they've reached a level where they want to compete against the best. We many leagues where some incredibly good owners that would beat the pants off any private league barely make the playoffs because there are so many A+ owners in that league."

"But we can forget all of that, the #1 thing that makes UFS work is the sense of community that is built up around the enormous interaction of all the owners. Not only are they in Lifetime leagues, but many have become lifetime friends, and that certainly is the thing I'm most proud of. Before the strike of '94, UFS took owners to MLB games in different cities each year. Last year, we invited owners to 13 MLB games and the HOF on a 45-day tour of the country."

"Now you're obviously a roto based site and you feverishly defend roto as the only style to play, which is great, but studies by many major stat services and companies like ESPN and SPLN a few years ago appeared in BBW and about 35% of all roto players play in mixed leagues, and about 30% of all fantasy baseball leagues are "point style" like UFS."

"It's perfectly normal for someone like you that is offering advice to so many private leaguers (I estimate that they are 99.95% of the fantasy baseball population (4,950,000 of 5,000,000) to not like what we do, that I have no problem whatsoever with your opinion because you're catering to the niche you'd like to deliver to."

"Two last things, thanks for the space to set the record straight. Very noble of you. And you're more than welcome to join the FSPA. There's no vote to get you in, just have to pay your dues and we always welcome legitimate fantasy companies."

Good Luck with your site,
John Zaleski, UFS owner

As I've spent most of the last two days offering my opinions on most of what he discussed, there's no need to continue this column much further now that you've seen a more balanced review. Our only comment is that we haven't intended to "feverishly defend roto as the only style of play". While our background is primarily traditional roto, we've also participated in our share of points' games and will continue to do so in the future. I attempted to review the different sites' games with only limited consideration of the type of fantasy baseball contest offered, and I apologize if anyone felt otherwise. However, most of our fantasy discussion will be based around traditional roto since, as John pointed out above, traditional rotisserie participants comprise the majority of our potential readership.

We'd like to thank John for taking the time to write the above response. Please know that we respect and admire his and UFS' place in the industry, and while we don't personally have much interest in their games and therefore can't recommend their services to our readers, we in no way meant to disparage their impressive history.

As soon as I can find the complete reserve rosters from this year's LABR draft, I'll begin reviews of the leagues and teams. Please let me know if anyone has that information readily available as we couldn't find it on the Baseball Weekly website.