As you become a more involved fantasy baseball participant, you are always looking for new challenges. A lot of owners take on extra leagues (at one point I had joined 15 different leagues), but some owners seek out high stakes games where top-notch participants enter in hopes of gaining fortune and glory.
If you want a shot at being recognized as a top fantasy baseball owner, then the National Fantasy Baseball Championship is the only major event that guarantees national recognition and large cash prizes.
The NFBC is sponsored by Krause Publications, one of the foremost leaders in hobby publications in the United States. I first learned of Krause Publications as a fledgling baseball card collector in the late 1980’s. As Fantasy Baseball has become ever so popular, Krause Publications leveraged their niche in the sports collectibles arena to support their entry into fantasy sports publications.
In 2004, Greg Ambrosius decided to further immerse Krause Publications in the Fantasy Baseball Industry by founding the National Fantasy Baseball Championship. Some people were skeptical of the event, but Greg Ambrosius and Tom Kessenich personally managed to get over 190 high stakes players into the premiere fantasy baseball competition by offering a guaranteed top prize of $100,000.00; even though Krause Publications stood to loose money on the event.
What makes the NFBC so interesting is that they actually established the drafting events in three major cities, in order to make the game accessible to anyone who wanted to participate. The variety of draft cities (Chicago, Las Vegas, New York City) allowed each major time zone of the continental United States to host an event. The events in 2004 went off with very few glitches, and proved to be a successful model for the following events. This year, The NFBC has decided to add Tampa, Florida as a fourth location for drafting in the largest fantasy sports event in 2006. I’m sure they are hoping to reel in some of the baseball enthusiasts who will be in Florida for Spring Training games during the middle of March.
As an original participant of the NFBC, I will be attending my third National Fantasy Baseball Championship draft event in Chicago on March 18, 2006. Last year, I had a phenomenal draft and thought I’d be in a position to win my league, but with injuries to 5 of my top 10 picks (Thome, Halladay, Prior, Dotel, Bagwell), I was not able to keep up with the other top competitors! The competition is relentless, and even the bottom dwellers were doing all they could to improve their overall rankings up until the final weeks of the season. In a competitive league like the NFBC, no one wants to finish last…
I really enjoy participating in the NFBC, because it is hard to find an ultra competitive 15-team rotisserie league in the local area. And the chance to play for fortune and glory is also appealing to me. I will be in quite a few other big stakes games, but none of them compare to the NFBC in total prize payout, which is about 83% of all entry fee money collected, nor do they guarantee payout by contracting Wells Fargo to oversee all prize monies.
Since I am preparing my 2006 projections with the goal of winning the NFBC in 2006, you can rest assured that my research will be passed along to the RotoRank membership so that they can be better prepared for their local leagues. If you are looking for a new challenge in Fantasy Baseball, I highly recommend you consider joining the NFBC before they sell out the remaining 180 of 375 slots available for the 2006 National Fantasy Baseball Championship.
If you do decide to join, the use this link when registering for NFBC, and I will give you a complimentary membership to RotoRank, as well as include you in strategy discussions with several other NFBC participants that use RotoRank.