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Amateur
Group: Premium Members
Last Login: 6/2/2008 9:32:21 PM
Posts: 74,
Visits: 1,545
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| Agree with Heretic to a t - especially the article vs. tv part. I'm sure it will be addressed soon, but the elephant in the room right now is what do current premium members get out of this deal? Saying "I don't care about the past" is pretty cold right now to someone who's paid up through August. Flame me if necessary but some sort of bone should have been thrown in the original announcement - my apologies if I missed it.
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AL-only 4x4 roto non-keeper - C Shoppach, Burke 1B Hafner 2B Izturis SS Betancourt 3B Teahan MI German CI Garko OF Sizemore, Crawford, Cust, Gomes, Kubel Util Stairs P Matsuzaka, Bedard, Carmona, DiNardo, Braden, R Perez, Vizcaino, Accardo, Nathan DL Otsuka, Kendrick, Zumaya
Howard Johnson: Y'know, Nietzsche says: "Out of chaos comes order."
Olson Johnson: Oh, blow it out your ass, Howard.
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Rookie
Group: Premium Members
Last Login: 4/11/2007 6:45:26 AM
Posts: 386,
Visits: 181
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| Congrats to Matt and Team TMR. Truly a watershed day in the fantasy sports industry. I, like many, many other fantasy addicts, will take the whole ESPN thing with a grain of salt. ESPN has lost my loyalty twice, so I'm not going to jump in a third time until I hear an overwhelming wave of attaboys from other fantasy addicts. Last year, after a ten year hiatus, one of my dynasty football leagues decided to give ESPN another chance. Their servers were buried for a couple weeks with the free fantasy angle and overall it was a huge mess. I'm fairly certain they figured it out for this launch, but I'll hang on the sidelines until I hear that it is smooth sailing. I also would echo C-Dub re: the forums. There is a sense of community here that you don't feel on the Worldwide Leader...bring that sense of community with you and you will have already proven their investment in you many times over. Attaboy Matt....damn fine news
Nominated for three Fantasy Sports Writer Association awards-2005, 2006, Fantasy Football
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Administrator / Columnist / Assistant Message Board Manager/News Editor
Group: Administrators
Last Login: 6/17/2008 5:48:31 PM
Posts: 31,403,
Visits: 4,338
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Designated Poster
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 3/12/2008 5:15:55 PM
Posts: 2,738,
Visits: 968
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My first reaction was.. "There goes the best thing in fantasy sports." Your site is infintessimaly better than ESPN's could ever be. The message board is awesomely moderated, your columnists are seriously top shelf and dedicated to boot, and you have a very loyal community.
I remember when this site went premium and all the controversy it created, so I am going to be one to give the benefit of the doubt to you Matthew Berry, as I think you created something that literally and obviously killed every other fantasy site out there and migrated through the hardships better than any huge conglomerate could.
Some suggestions.
1) You have to keep the TRUM (with guest trummers), I go to work and lose productivity by the hour because of this, therefore it is great.
2) Don't let ESPN tell you what you or your columnists can write about. If you want to write about Grease: You're the one that I want, I want that written, because the minute you put restraints on writing it gets less funny and people will lose interest.
3) Keep the message boards heavily moderated, most boards out there suck because of the juveniles that run around cussing people out.
4) Keep all of your writers. ESPN didn't hire them, you did and if they have to cut content for "budget" reasons, I think it defeats the purpose (I know I am speculating).
5) Keep support heavy, I remember when I have had problems, I email one person and I have a response in like 2 hours. The problem is typically resolved by Janet Becker or Dave Hunter. That is golden to me, customer service is very important to me.
6) If something isn't funny, don't publish it. Keep your quality and don't give in to some talentless hacks if they think they could do what you have done.
Finally, is it going to be public knowledge how much you got paid for the site? Just curious, I have always tried to think about how much TMR was worth.
Anyways, I am rambling now.
EDIT: So in my post I was pretty selfish sounding. Then I thought, if ESPN offered me this deal, what would I do.. It sounds like a chance of a lifetime, and I think you deserve it Mr. Berry, congratulations!
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Bill Hall vs. Alex Rios ESPN player rater (Lloydy, BStone, Random33 $20 a piece) I got Hall.
AJ Burnett will get over 180IP and under 3.9ERA and 1.3 WHIP... I take Burnett doing it, Adam doesn't ($20)
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Designated Poster
Group: Premium Members
Last Login: 4/17/2008 8:40:18 PM
Posts: 746,
Visits: 5,590
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First, congratulation Matt and company on a great job taking this site to the pinnacle of sports and fantasy sports at ESPN. While this is great news for everyone I can't help but get an overwhelming feeling that there's a 'catch.' No specific thing but just a feeling. But I want to first and foremost say congrats to you guys. Second, on to the suggestions:
1) To summarize, change as little as possible from TMR to ESPN. Communication, community, constant flow of articles and various other trinkets define what this site is and making it that way at ESPN will make it a marketable success.
2) Please, PLEASE expand the current fantasy hockey system at ESPN. I know Cockcroft is a good fantasy hockey writer (from the free content that I am able to read and the awards he got) but just having one fantasy writer there severely diminishes the information flow and opinions that Hockey comes with. Not sure what you have to do but articles like 'Around the Eastern/Western Conference' are great to summarize happening around the NHL team by team in their respective conference without being overwhelming with content. I know that Hockey isn't played everyday but it seems that Hockey is put on the back burner and doesn't get much attention but please make an effort to improve it there since you guys have done such an outstanding job getting articles and writing everyday which is alot more than ESPN's done to fantasy hockey to be sure.
3) I suggested this in the 'Suggestions' part of the forum but having an RSS or XML feed for player news in each sport would give immediate news to people about a certain player. Maybe even expanding it to where it's limited to players that's in your lineup and those in FA and that sort of thing.
4) Keep the variety of opinions. People always fall to a school of thought but keeping only one voice tends to diminish the variety of ways that fantasy sports can be approached like handling a draft or certain players.
This is ones that I can think off the top of my head right now but it's the best so far. Kudos and good luck with transition.
Matt T.
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Rookie
Group: Premium Members
Last Login: 8/23/2007 3:09:38 PM
Posts: 277,
Visits: 1,095
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| Hmmm....not sure what to think. I have lurked here for over a year without becoming a premium member. Then when I say..."Self, its about time you do something for yourself...splurge a little and jump into the best fantasy site ever developed!" So, I became a premium member a couple of weeks ago. And then this happens. I used to visit ESPN's site last year but stopped when they tied their magazine and membership drive to ANY free content. ESPN has become like all other large conglomerates, that is having to think short sighted due to the necessity of answering to stock holders on a quaterly basis. This short sightedness, no matter the content providers opinions about long vs short term, permeates any company answerable to Wall Street. Being that as fantasy players we are all prognasticators at heart, this is my prediction for the state of our little area of cyberspace: - The content will surely improve at ESPN with Matt's contributions and leadership
- Matt will fight for the continued existance of some facsimile of this site at ESPN and will even win a few battles but will ultimately lose the war...that war will be lost when ESPN fantasy sports overtakes both Yahoo and CBS
- A Grassroots mantra, which this site lives and breathes daily, will be replaced with a quantity of subscribers mantra. The measuring stick for success will always be..."How many subscribers do we have to date?"
- ESPN is all about mass appeal. Appeal to the common denominator. TMR is not geared that way.
- The over-whelming response in the posts above all reference the forums. What makes the forums so good here as opposed to other sites? It's real simple...I feel the average TMR subscriber is better informed than the avg Joe. With the transfer to ESPN, the forums will be TOO MUCH of everything (dumb questions, flippant responses, homer opinions) and likely idiotic on top of that. There is just no way to have good content in a forum when there are so many members. The bigger the forum, the more cumbersome it is for the average user that does not have the time to sort through all the crap. Looks like the Baseball Cafe may be the place to be for my daily forum visit.
Don't really want to sound too negative here but it is hard not to when I am disappointed...very disappointed. Matt, I am happy for you and the Beckers, but what made your site so appealing is likely to be kicked to the curb by way of mass market appeal.
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