The GRAND PRIX Champion is crowned

What an exciting year fantasy footballers!!! We expanded to 3 divisions of 10 as opposed to 2 of 12 jumping from 24 total players to 30. That translated to a much bigger pot and according to my observations a much healthier dose of shit talk as managers often crossed paths while out to watch the games on Sunday!! One person who never crossed paths with anyone because he doesn't live around us anymore is this year's Grand Prix Champion: RICK GREENWOOD Confetti rains from the rafters as Rick struts across the stage to the admiration and jealousy of all!!!! Rick was a power house all year long holding the top spot in his Pnts Division for the entire year, and finally over taking your esteemed commission (ME) in his H2H division over the waning 3 weeks of the season. He also captured many bonus points in H2H along the way resulting in a resounding 6 point win over Steve who also finished strong to overtake me for 2nd place over all in the last three weeks. Which left me with the table scraps of a 3rd place win. But hey I'm still on the pedestal!

Last year we paid all the way down to 4th place, which WOULD have resulted in Lance (who zipped past long-time Dane's Fantasy Football participant, Dave McKinley, in the final week) winning some money. But all you win this year since we dropped the 4th place payout is the 4th place title of ... FIRST LOSER, you win no money sucka!!!! That isn't entirely true, Lance did get SOME money. In getting rid of the 4th place payout, and having a larger prize pool with the added buy-ins, we added some payouts this year. DFF added the Golden Turkey which is awarded to the highest score during Thanksgiving week (congratulations to Steve, the inaugural winner). Additionally, we added payouts for winners of individual divisions. Grand Prix is all about doing well across multiple divisions not just one, but managers should get some sort of reward for being the best in at least ONE division. The Division winners are as follows:

H2H1-Rick Greenwood PNTS1-Rick Greenwood H2H2-Steve McKay PNTS2-Michael Hughes

H2H3-Justin Bee PNTS3-Lance Loeffler

We also nixed the most improved players payout in favor of rewarding division winners. While I enjoy rewarding those that up their game over a season, the ultimate reward is upping your game enough to win the big pots or at least start with a single division. If you take a look at the top three places, you'll see that you don't HAVE to do well in all your leagues to get top three. Sure, Rick won both of his divisions, and Lance won 1, but I didn't win any of my divisions and still took 3rd (and was in 2nd right till the end). This proves the concept of Grand Prix being about more than just one division. Conversely, Justin Bee actually won a division but still ended up down at 10th. Additionally, this season demonstrated the need to keep on managing your teams and never give up. Both Lance and myself were dredging the bottom of the rankings to start the year. It took me half the year to get off the bottom slot in my PNTS division, and, ultimately, I only ended up in 4th: just above middle of the pack. With 2 divisions to help you make up ground you are rarely out of the fight. Keeping that in mind, please remember to keep managing your team throughout the season. Sure, you may be so far down that it isn't even possible to get back in the money, but consider this: when you stop managing your team you may throw off the rest of the managers still competing and give some of them an unfair advantage. I know for some of you there is a net zero of fucks to give about that, but imagine next year you are in the running for money and someone passes you because they got a blowout win in H2H against someone that didn't bother setting their roster or someone rockets up the PNTS standings because 3 people stopped managing their teams. The Golden Rule applies. If you don't want it done TO you then don't do it yourself. That being said, Grand Prix is DESIGNED to have a boat load of people. It's a truly unique league and, as the manager pool continues to increase, we will inevitably have players that don't finish out the season due to piss poor performance (or bad luck). It's a fact of fantasy and nobody should be getting too butthurt over it. With all that out of the way, I'd really like to thank you all for participating. We got off to rocky start trying to plus our numbers up to 30 while losing some participants from last year, and then having some issues with Yahoo fantasy not letting me and my pops participate in the number of leagues we needed...and then it seems half the league is named Sam....and then some people just couldn't comprehend the idea of making the names the same in both leagues....Ah well you all get the point. As Grand Prix grows, there will occasionally be some hiccups. We appreciate your grace in dealing with them, not to mention your alacrity in helping us get back on track when we need action from you!!! I think Grand Prix provides a fun and new format, and gives us a way to have some of those larger prize pools, but without having to pay those ridiculous buy ins. Indeed, the DFF HardCorps league is a 125 dollar buy-in, but had prize pool similar to the Grand Prix. When there is a larger pot available to win, that increases the motivation to do well, and for the most part Grand Prix continues to attract good fantasy managers which makes it more fun for all. I truly hope to see all of you next year, and that you'll spread the word and bring a friend or three next year. As pops alluded to earlier, we hope to expand to 3 leagues of 12 next year for a total of 36 managers. We'll continue expansion to 4 of 10, 4 of 12, 5 of 10, etc. until we just can't grow anymore. Thank you again for your participation. I can't wait till next year!!!! Remember, for final payouts and placement, you can see the final spreadsheet: here (there are scroll bars in the spreadsheet window). And don't forget to check the forums. There will be a couple more posts for discussion of rule changes, money, and general league upkeep. Plus it's a good place to talk football during the offseason!