Introducing First Round Exchange
by Barking Carnival Staff on Apr 11, 2011 11:54 PM CDT
in Texas Longhorns and Other Football
Email
PrintAbout six months ago, I asked Drew for feedback on a fantasy sports game concept related to professional sports entry drafts. Drew generously shared his feedback, as well as his Silicon Valley wisdom and connections, even though he forthrightly disclaimed, "I’ll be honest…this is not something I would likely play." Nonetheless, as the game has now launched at FRX - FIRST ROUND EXCHANGE, Drew offered to let me share some of the backstory on this venture. Perhaps he is thinking that some of you will be curious enough to check out the game and Play the DraftTM. Never one to walk from a challenge, perhaps Drew will be compelled by Mel to compete on the Mel Kiper, Jr. Global Exchange. BC readers have long felt he’s been high on Jerrod Johnson’s draft stock…perhaps we shall see if he still rates high enough for Drew’s portfolio.
____________________
"How deep can the NFL fetish go?" – Jason Gay, Wall Street Journal, February 28, 2011
"These go to eleven." – Nigel Tufnel, Spinal Tap, 1984
____________________
You see it all the time on SportsCenter, the NFL Network and on your favorite sports blog: the stock market metaphor used in context of the NFL Draft.
Draft analysts naturally reach for the stock market metaphor because it works so well. Athletes are competing in a kind of marketplace: the more they are valued by competing teams, the earlier they will be selected, and the more money they will eventually earn in salary, signing bonus and guaranteed pay. Workout stats move the market. Rumors move the market. The Draft is several weeks away…we want to know who’s up and who’s down today!
Metaphorically inspired, First Round Exchange (FRX) is a virtual stock market game, where draft-eligible athletes are "stocks" that game participants buy and sell for their personal portfolio. The simple objective is to find undervalued draft stocks – buy low, sell high, and build the overall value of your fund.
NFL Rookie Salaries as the Financial Basis for FRX
FRX uses rookie salaries – the cap value, not the signing bonus or guaranteed value – as the financial basis for the game. For example, Matt Stafford’s 2009 contract was publicized as a 6-year, $72 million deal, with $41.7 million guaranteed and incentives that could pay him an extra $6 million over the contract term. What doesn’t make the headlines is that his rookie salary – the amount that counted for against the team’s salary cap – was just $3.1 million.
We analyzed 10 years of NFL rookie salary data, found that the distribution of rookie salaries followed a similar pattern year after year, and used the data and pattern to forecast rookie salaries in 2011 to arrive at the financial basis for the FRX virtual stock market game. Fans Playing the Draft with FRX in 2011 know today that the #1 pick will have a final value of $3.3 million, the #2 pick will settle for $3.05 million, and so on. For the 2011 Draft, the FRX game concludes at the end of the 3rd round (which includes one supplemental draft pick this year), and the projected rookie salaries for each draft selection are shown on the game website.
How to Play the DraftTM
Every "fund" begins with $10 million of virtual cash, and your goal is to maximize the value of your fund at the end of the 3rd round of the Draft. You accomplish this by acquiring athlete stocks with a market price that is lower than what you believe the final "cap value" will be on the night of the Draft.
The "market price" is calculated by FRX from more than 20 "top 100" mock drafts from writers/bloggers that actively cover and write about the Draft. We convert every athlete on each Top 100 to the final value on the price chart and average the values to arrive at the market price. Since no two mock drafts have the same 100 athletes in their top 100, we established a "floor price" of $400k for this year’s game, both for the market price calculations and the stocks of athletes not selected in the first 3 rounds.
With a $10 million fund, you need to budget your picks according to the stocks you believe have the greatest upside value. With the top 8 picks priced between $2.4 and $3.0 million, you can only afford two or three in any single fund. There’s no minimum number of stocks for a fund, but the maximum is 15 if your strategy is to focus on "small-cap" stocks – projected 3rd round or later selections that might get "Tebowed" into the first round and deliver major profits for your fund.
Mel Kiper’s Challenge
For the featured FRX Vintage Year product, we are proud to introduce the Mel Kiper, Jr. Global Exchange.
Download the original here.
For the cost of a cold draft at JerryWorld, avid fans can try a new fantasy sports experience while watching the NFL Draft. They can compete for blogosphere bragging rights, a free copy of Mel Kiper’s Draft Review (top 20%), and potentially an invitation to compete in an "expert’s league" in 2012 (top 10%). Furthermore, the managers of the top 15 funds will be invited to a 15-minute phone interview with Mel, where they can choose to reveal their secrets or simply talk football.
All fans signing up to play in the FRX Vintage Year game will receive exclusive promotional offers with each new product we release. The company has plans for stock exchange games related to entry drafts in other sports and also some "in-season" games for football and basketball.
* * *
As a longtime BC reader, I’m anxious to hear some reader feedback. Drew said if we can make it here, we can make it anywhere. So please check us out at First Round Exchange.
21 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
In point of fact what I said was I’m not smart enough to play this game. But I suspect many of our readers are.
Best of luck!
by Drew Dunlevie on Apr 11, 2011 11:57 PM CDT reply actions
Man, I just don’t see how anyone except people that do this for a living could keep up with all the info/players. Is the point to try and guess which player will actually be picked at a specific slot versus where the draftniks have them ranked?
by dedfischer on Apr 12, 2011 8:23 AM CDT reply actions
didfischer -
With our game, you don’t have to keep up with all the info/players in the Draft – just have an informed opinion about the athletes you follow.
On the stock market, there are 4500 stocks you can buy. Nobody follows all of them. Even the most prolific analysts focus in on a few dozen companies to follow and form educated opinions about the “value” of the current stock price.
Similarly, you can choose to focus on athletes you’ve watched and scouted. Von Miller, Phil Taylor, Aaron Williams, Danny Watkins, Daniel Thomas, etc. Where are they “priced” by the market, and do you think they will actually be drafted higher than the market projection?
You might be a huge fan of Curtis Brown, but if you think his market price of $609 is a little rich (projects to #58 overall), then you pass. Find 6 to 10 athletes for your portfolio that you think are undervalued, then watch the Draft and see how you do.
by Dan Schmisseur on Apr 12, 2011 8:40 AM CDT reply actions
Dedfischer…trying to edit post after seeing I misspelled your handle…no disrespect intended.:)
by Dan Schmisseur on Apr 12, 2011 8:45 AM CDT reply actions
Ok. I think I get it. So, the ultimate goal would be to pick 15 players that had a 4th round or greater draft value, but all ended up getting taken in the 1st three rounds? And, avoid players who ended up getting drafted way lower than projected?
by dedfischer on Apr 12, 2011 8:50 AM CDT reply actions
Like I take Aaron Williams because he’s cheap and I think he might go in the mid to late first round, but he’s consensusly ranked #36 by the analysts. Or, I pass on Nate Solder because I think he might slip to the 3rd or 4th, if any teams thinking about drafting him actually watched his tape. Right?
by dedfischer on Apr 12, 2011 8:57 AM CDT reply actions
Exactly.
The “value” scale is weighted more heavily for movement at the top of the Draft. The values are actual projections of rookie “cap value” salaries.
Thinking back a year ago, you would have wanted to have Tim Tebow in your portfolio (3rd round projection jumps to round 1) and not Colt McCoy (late 1st, early 2nd projection, actual 3rd round selection). And you would have taken a bath holding Jimmy Clausen stock.
by Dan Schmisseur on Apr 12, 2011 9:03 AM CDT reply actions
I think this draft may teach us that Art Briles is overrated as anything other than a recruiter, which Baylor desperately needs to keep. The Bears have quietly become an under performing program given their talent level. I think, if Art would ditch calling the Stephenville gimmick plays on 3rd and long, and focus on the full time CEO/recruiting role, they could be onto something. There are about 115 FBS programs last year who would have been better off with Baylor’s DTs.
by dedfischer on Apr 12, 2011 9:08 AM CDT reply actions
I see. So, Maurice Clarett would have tremendous value despite me not actually wanting to draft him?
by dedfischer on Apr 12, 2011 9:10 AM CDT reply actions
Yes, you would have profited from Denver’s wasted 3rd round pick in the 2005 NFL Draft. This is a game about predicting Draft Night outcomes.
The Top 10 picks this year have been very fluid. It’s looking like Cam Newton is solidifying as a consensus #1, and he was ranked #13 in our game when we started calculating daily stock prices on March 11. The value difference between #13 and #1 is $1.5 million.
by Dan Schmisseur on Apr 12, 2011 9:26 AM CDT reply actions
Alright. I think I’ve got it. I just dropped $10 to find out.
by dedfischer on Apr 12, 2011 9:27 AM CDT reply actions
Does this thing round by the millions? I’ve only got $10,000 to start with.
by dedfischer on Apr 12, 2011 9:28 AM CDT reply actions
I just bought Sam Acho and I see that it does.
by dedfischer on Apr 12, 2011 9:30 AM CDT reply actions
Did Jason Gay really ask how deep the fetish goes?
by nobis60 on Apr 12, 2011 9:45 AM CDT reply actions
Acho looks like a strong buy, but then I’m biased. His current stock price of $579 projects to the 63rd pick overall (late 2nd). On March 18 his stock peaked at $791, which projects to the 43rd pick overall. There’s more upside to Acho climbing in the 2nd round than downside to him falling into the 3rd (last pick of 3rd round will settle for $503).
by Dan Schmisseur on Apr 12, 2011 9:46 AM CDT reply actions
Nobis60…yes, he did.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703933404576170583436397052.html
by Dan Schmisseur on Apr 12, 2011 9:48 AM CDT reply actions
This is not any weirder than playing video games or reading Harry Potter books.
by dedfischer on Apr 12, 2011 10:38 AM CDT reply actions
I think this is a great idea and I would love to play except I know I don’t follow the draft well enough to do so.
Speaking of good ideas that haven’t been implemented, I think the FanTake network should launch a college football fantasy game. But instead of the only ones I’ve seen so far, even defensive players score individual points. The key difference, though, would be that players are “drafted” onto teams starting right after their junior year of high school. After draft day, the normal free agency fantasy rules apply. So recruits’ value may change during the recruiting process. As an example, Kendal Briles value as a QB at Nebraska would have been different than as a DB at Texas for fantasy scoring purposes. Trades, etc. within the league would be allowed just like NFL fantasy. Players would be added to the active player database as they are added to recruiting sites or, later, to college rosters.
Hell of a big endeavor. I nominate dedfischer. And if something with all these features already exists, good job dudes that created and implemented it.
by Huckleberry on Apr 12, 2011 10:44 AM CDT reply actions
Huck would show up and ask who’s playing for second, ala Larry Bird.
by nordberg on Apr 12, 2011 10:58 AM CDT reply actions
I’ve been surfing on-line more than three hours as of late, but I by no means discovered any attention-grabbing article like yours. It?s lovely value sufficient for me. In my view, if all webmasters and bloggers made just right content material as you did, the net will likely be much more useful than ever before.
by купон дв.ком on Nov 11, 2011 2:41 PM CST reply actions
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
