After a week or two where the page for the official Dream Team competition on NRL.com carried a little message blaming lawyers for the product not being launched, they have now announced that they will be launching on March 20… AFTER round 1 has finished. This comes at a time when VirtualSports is still waiting on sponsors to sign on the dotted line for the AFL Dream Team competition, eight days before the season starts.
I am not surprised that sponsors are a little harder to find this year given the general economic climate, though one would have thought that Coke’s pockets would have been deep enough (suggesting that perhaps they’re not in the race this year). VirtualSports put the word out a month ago that this year’s AFL Dream Team prize pool was going to top $150,000, which means they would have to be asking a sponsor to fork out somewhere up to half a million smackeroos. I’m not blaming VS in any way, but they’re up against it this year to unearth that sort of coin.
Meanwhile, Herald-Sun Super Coach beat the official competition in raw growth terms and smashed it in percentage growth last year. Given that SC launched more than three weeks ago you’d have to think that it would get the jump in 2008. Could we see SC pass Dream Team in registrations? Every hour that DT is delayed, the likelihood of that happening grows.
Starting an official fantasy competition after the regular season has begun is a complete disaster. I know that NRL fantasy lags behind AFL in every metric, but that’s just pitiful. Let us hope that the AFL Dream Team competition does not suffer the same fate.
fucking oath. pathetic. i dont care about prizemoney!
Frankly I’d be shocked if SC doesn’t overtake DT this year. It’s easier to research one comp than two, and they’ve missed the boat on the ‘early-adopter, office, no-other-life footy junkies‘ that are the guys that set up the leagues and email all their mates/co-workers/vague aquaintances to join. 99% of the others can’t be bothered arguing which comp they enter.
Those guys have been bugging out months waiting for footy and they aint waiting for the ‘official comp’.
Although this is ridiculous, some credit has to go to Herald Sun. They have been extremely well organised, unlike the AFL, and they deserve to have more entrants at this rate.
I personally like SuperCoach better, but really hope DT comes out before Round 1.
Sweating on DT. Got a league ready to go; $250 entry.
Could be fun dealing with the 4pm mad scramble on Thursday afternoon when everyone is trying to enter their teams… Anyone want to take a bet on what time the AFL site will go down?
ahhh thats guy. SC is a silly chance here! reshes better sort it out.
considering as how big of a competition this is in Australia i thought they would have planned everything before hand instead of leaving it to the last moment pretty pathetic
I would have thought they could have opened it with “prizes pending”, i entered the F1 Dreamteam knowing of this last year..
Then if there are money hungers out there waiting to see what the prizemoney is and if it is worth it, they can wait or JUST MISS OUT..
But i cant see why we all need to wait…
BUTT PAIN !!!!
dt has been my number one fantasy league for years and this is a really poor effort on their behalf.
neck up dt
DT is far and above the best fantasy footy goin round, it would be criminal not to give us at least 3 days snaffling time….. no1 cares about prizes anyway the afl should jst release and offer afl merchandise or some $%&^
Im with Dang Dang….. neck up dt
The AFL places the upmost importance in entering teams into Sydney and the gold coast so they don’t allow rival codes the head start, then they allow a simple sponsorship issue to give SC a 3 week head start. Seriously anyone see the irony here?
Seriously considering a swap.
come on dt we dont care about the prize money it is more about bragging rihts clearly. the prophecy of the one never said anything about financial rewards.
neck up dt
I reckon the AFL should supply the prizemoney or better still Demetriou.
They are a bunch of dictators & think they are above everybody else.
I hate those pricks, I’d love to see Roos publicly tell Demetriou where to go.
The AFL is a rabble & their website is even worse.
very disapointing. like Dazzler said, introduce the prizes later, just get the DT wheels rolling
It may not be about sponsorship but I’m sure that VirtualSports don’t want to release a competition that they aren’t getting compensated for with respect to their work. Sure we don’t care about prizemoney and if they can scrap enough in $$$ they can cover their costs and let the baby roll.
I’m not sure if the blame lies with VS or the AFL but to not have it organised by now is poor form. Personally I didn’t think it would be that hard a sell. 150,000 individuals hitting the one site with your advertising at least twice a week for the course of the season. Sounds pretty cheap to me.
I think you’ll find most of the blame always lies with the AFL… Ive never seen a governing body pay such little attention what it’s “constituents” (the clubs) actually want and at the same time show a complete lack of knowledge as to where it’s viewers/fans/patrons would like the game to head… You just dont see that arrogance with other codes…
Someone over at DT Talk is now suggesting that there’s a fight going on between Coke and CUB…
I stll blame the afl…
Big business just doesnt care about the little guy…
For fucks sake i just want to play DT
The most annoying this is they wont even tell us whats happening!! There’s no apology notice up - just that same old stuping “pre-register for dream team” sign thats been up for months!! The least they could do is keep us informed so that we’re not just left in the dark!!
Aughhhh!!!!
Dream Team is now open!!!
Toyota you bloody legends!!!
the prize is just an Toyota Aurion, not quite 150k i dont think. Nevermind, at least it’s up.
Also, there is a new feature called ‘the eliminator’ in which the top 65000 entrants after round 6 will play head-to-head in a knockout comp each week. Looks like a nice addition.
Lol, only just realised Cale Morton is not listed as a FWD… really screws up my plans.
Only the first 131,072 complete teams entered in the overall Aurion V6 AFL Dream Team will compete in the League of Champions Eliminator competition, matched up based on previous week rankings and playing head to head for survival. Each winner proceeds to the next Round, until there is one standing at the completion of Round 22!
not quite…
most people get in then.