It's time fantasy football started paying out

I guess it’s valid to wait a few weeks and see if his price goes down and you can get him cheaper. Prices don’t change until round 3 though. There’s also two or three fewer trades this season than previously and I’d rather use them elsewhere. The last few seasons have shown that you’re basically sacrificing 15 points every week not having Smith in your team.

You don’t need any of that. You can enter a side, enter a league and just play based on what you watch and read. I did that for years. I’m at a stage now where I get value from SC gold, but you can certainly play without it and I wouldn’t be getting a Foxtel subscription just to play SC. I enter every year to do my best, but I don’t have any expectation of winning. Anyone paying a fortune for all the gear expecting to get a return is a fool.

Yeah...but as he said himself, he had a fair bit of time on his hands

You don’t have to put money in...

I can think of a number of ways to lose my money and fantasy league is one of them. It's bad enough trying to pick a winner at the gee gees. Not for me I'm afraid.?

Which means a cost. Even 2 people per game x $100 x 201 games = $40,000. In truth allowing for overheads you won't get much change from $200,000 minimum.

That's the idea Scott ! But easier said than done. I jumped into SC three years ago, and I am still trying to learn the best strategies to play the game well. Whilst I have improved each year, I have a long way to go to get near some of the top scorers. I love the concept and as such it means you watch every game every round very closely, and to give yourself every chance you need to spend plenty of time mid week keeping your ear to the ground about possible injuries or sneaky ins or outs of advertised teams. You can easily get caught out if you don't check the actual teams to take the field that are only finalised one hour before kick off. And you need to forecast ahead for likely player changes around Origin times. And as Baz mentions you need a fair bit of luck throughout the year especially if you nominate some likely types at good prices early on who might not even get a run or get limited game time. And you need to be aware of the player point scoring mechanism to balance your team within the pricing constraints of the cap. There's a lot to it, but for the footy lover that can afford the time, I highly recommend giving it a go. Just on the captain & vice captain selections, you can change these weekly, but most will anchor a consistent high point scoring type in general, where guys like Cam Smith & Simon Mannering fit the bill , being 80 minute players with plenty of ball touches & tackles. But as they are consistently high scorers they are also then priced accordingly. My regulars here would likely be Cam Smith , Jake Friend , & Nathan Cleary.

The daily Telegraph,as well as being controllers of super coach NRL are now also putting out dozens of headlines each week related to NRL which have almost no editorial content or substance. Fans get attracted to the headlines and must then pay for the privilege of reading rubbish.

Thanks for giving me permission to post multiple paragraphs Scott. Much appreciated. “I do think the prize pool is paltry – yes! But I did not call for an increase and it is not an incentive for me.” “Sam’s cheque should have been multiplied by 10 or even 20.” Scott Woodward “The NRL and News Corp are at risk of losing their monopoly if they continue to squeeze the lemon too hard and offer embarrassingly low prize money” Scott Woodward I’ll let the title slide, as I don’t know what you submitted to the roar, but those two statements suggest you’re being a little free and loose with the truth there. “What I would like is for everyone, especially the battlers, to have equal chance of winning and while ever participants need to fork out for stats, tools, podcasts and subscriptions either newspapers in hard copy or digital as well as a Foxtel licence it will not be a level playing field. The game should be encouraging these fringe players to sign up and stay interested each and every week.” Great do we want to tackle peace in the Middle East tomorrow if we’ve got spare time? To achieve what you are asking we would need to ban any communication on rugby league that requires payment. So for starters we need to renege on the pay TV deal. Then you’d also need to somehow limit how much time every individual could spend watching or reading about rugby league. Not sure how we do this with out some kind of 1980’s soviet style intrusion but hey. If I look around society am I really struck with the epiphany of hey you know what the government should intrusively regulate rugby league media like no other industry to ensure free access with no advantage for friendly online fantasy sports. I'd think the gambling industry would be better first port of call if you genuinely cared about the battler Also this “battler” rtehtoric is at complete odds with a strategy focused on the 1 winner in 130,000 participants. You can’t logically run a what about the fringe participant line and focus your engagement strategy on the winner. But the big question is… why People are enjoying fantasy sports all around the globe under this model. The vast majority are actually more competing against mates or in groups, winning for the vast majority of individuals is tied to that small competition . There would be tens of millions of teams in leagues around the world with 0 prize money offered by the web site. Are all those people doing it wrong? Most are competing in leagues that match their level of investment in time and information, which are incredibly easy to find. There are a litany of paid access sites that will provide analysis on every major fantasy sport. If people are finding value in SC gold, which obviously they are, why deny the producer the basic rights available in our society to monetise that value creation.

Scott - Smiths value has increased because the salary cap has increased and players have gone up accordingly. Smith averaged 75 last season which puts him in the elite category and does it regularly. More importantly he’s regularly 15 points better than the next best in his position. He gets defensive stats, he gets attacking stats, he kicks goals and he plays 80 minutes. He’s the set and forget king and only needs to be traded if he gets injured. Which historically he doesn’t. I get that you need to find players to make money. But more importantly you need to score points.

To be fair US fantasy kind of went through this cycle as well. I think the most popular competitions on ESPN around the turn of the millennium were the big group salary cap ones (with no prize money but that's probably why ESPN has no one playing fantasy now.. oh wait). People had always done the draft ones (mainly manually) but it seemed the "value" based cap leagues were the gate way to what we have now on line.

Plus 1 to all of this. Like Mushi, I have played Fantasy Sports in the US for well over a decade playing in multiple leagues in both the NFL and MLB every season - many of those leagues I have played in for multiple years - with my Dynasty League team (3 time champion :) ) i have had for 9 years. I have never paid a cent or won a cent - I play because it is fun - fun way to make friends, fun way to play against friends, and a fun angle for enjoying the games. People who want money will (in the majority) play the daily leagues (or weekly I guess in the case of the NRL) - Win your money there and now - not have to wait six months to collect.

Yep the way the money works in traditional fantasy in the US is competition specific so basically a group agrees to an entry fee (like your scotch) and it gets divided up. I’m in three annual money leagues (one NFL, two NBA) and they are pretty standard. It actually already happens here with the Australian versions I think there are a few sites set up to manage it for you that back to back into the super coach system. As we will see an expansion of the drafting method like the US, which is way more social as the draft is a group event rather everyone setting up teams discretely and it also less time consuming as the season goes on, the “overall winner” stuff will be even more ignored than it is now.