This is about 15 years old at this point but nothing really new or different.
Fantasy sports is a huge industry but still has a place for the small person running a bunch of creative games. While it's possible to turn that into a large website with all the bells and whistles and hope to make a real living out of it, most end up just doing it in spare time with whatever degree of energy and creativity they have to offer.
There are some people that say “well, you take a free entry – isn’t that enough”. Two issues – I actually never take a free entry nor give any out, all of mine are paid and I am just a “normal player” in my pools (and a pretty poor one at that). Second, $60 of free entries for running a 3000 entry pool is a bit laughable. Also, there has been some confusion in the past few years, along the lines of “you already took money to cover costs”. This isn’t true – I don't take a penny out of the purse prior to paying the winners, and my costs are out of pocket. The main two costs I have to cover are postage and software (for the large NFL survivor pool, the software runs 3.5% or so of the pot and for some others it's as much as 7%). Whether I pay for software or self develop is pretty irrelevant – it’s all part of the overall experience and shouldn’t factor into any gift offered. And of course, there is the vast amount of time that goes into running these...
In general, my thought is simply that running of these pools brings a lot of enjoyment and to continue, a gift is in order for the manager, at a general 10% level. I always do at least that when I win a pool (well, the one time I won a pool) and feel the valuation of the pool managers efforts via the gift is important to ensure the best experience can be rendered. I take pride in the manner in which I run my pools – I keep very consistent rules, do not allow any hint of impropriety regarding either the money or the play of the game, try to add some personality to all my pools, send out timely and consistent updates to keep everyone informed, and generally treat my role as any other role I care about and put my efforts into. I’ve been in pools where you get an invitation, send a check, and other than maybe following a website don’t hear another word till the end. There is still a service being provided and the website work needs to be acknowledged, but there’s definitely a difference in the level of enjoyment. I do believe this should be factored in when deciding the gift amount.
So some reasons people may have for not viewing 10% as a fair gift:
- “a couple grand for collecting some checks seems ridiculous” – this one has come up in the larger pools just over the amount. Two main issues - the workload goes up on a variable level with the size of the pool. More important, if that’s all I’m offering, I’d go back to my above statement that there are pools that are nothing more than “send check, find out who wins at end”, but that’s not mine. I put a lot more effort into mine to make it a very enjoyable experience - and the fact it's gotten to that size seems to point out I'm doing something right. I’ve consistently stated that anyone that wants to start their own pool as they feel they can do as good a job and possibly receive some large gifts should do so and feel free to invite me to enter. However, that’s no reason to not give a gift at the time especially when it’s a small fraction of the check going out.
- “why do I have to pick up for everyone” – although this sounds bad when someone just won thousands, I understand the basis as when you win $10,000, giving away a $1000 at that point is an impact to your bank account, not everyone else's. However, it’s just not how it really is working – being fortunate enough to profit greatly on a small investment has allowed you to be the approval rating engine of the pool populace. In theory, we could have the entire pool vote on a gift, but it is the winner’s money and with it comes the responsibility. End of the day, think of it off the top and it works out the same.
- “it’s been a bad year – I really need the money” – believe me when I tell you I can understand that very well, but in this case, if you are entering and then are able to win, you need to divorce your situation from the gift amount – it’s all a win regardless.
In closing, I’m fully happy with someone disagreeing with my thoughts and feeling that a hundred bucks is just reward for running a $50k pool. However, as I’ve spelled it out pretty clearly what my expectations would be, I’d ask that person to not enter the pool and potentially cause an ugly situation at the end.
Happy to respond to any thoughts – just email me (xmrogers@yahoo.com). Could be I’m missing an important point here and would like to add anything relevant.