DraftKings Announces $500k Fantasy Baseball Bracket Challenge
DFS players often clamor for new, innovative contest types in addition to the more traditional, tried-and-true 50/50s, tournaments, multipliers, and head-to-head formats.
DraftKings is stepping up by introducing its first ever $500,000 Fantasy Baseball Bracket Challenge, a 64-team, qualifier-only event to take place in late August (official date yet to be announced) in which winners of each of the 64 seats will square off in a series of March Madness-style head-to-head contests to determine a Bracket Challenge winner.
Here’s a quick guide to the contest:
When do I enter?
In the words of Michael Scott, ASAP as possible. DraftKings is already running satellites with entry fees ranging from $0.25 to $100.00 and qualifiers with entry fees between $33 and $1,000. And the bracket is filling up fast – as of writing, nine of the 64 seats have already been filled (with the first seat going to RotoGrinders’ third-ranked player, ehafner – no surprise there). If you want a piece of this new style of DFS contest, get in there now and start entering qualifiers and satellites.
What if there’s a tie?
If two or more players tie for the win in a qualifying contest, the Qualifier Winner will be decided in a tiebreaker playoff contest between the players at a date solely determined by DraftKings. If two players tie during a head-to-head contest in the Bracket Challenge itself, the DraftKings player with the higher single-player fantasy points result for each drafted player in the lineup will win. For example, let’s say you and your opponent (we’ll call him “dhafner”) tie. Your highest-scoring player is Jose Fernandez with 30 fantasy points, while “dhafner” went contrarian and rostered Mike Pelfrey, who defied the odds and scored 32 fantasy points. In this scenario, “dhafner” advances. In the event (unlikely, but you never know) that both teams have the same highest fantasy point scoring player, the same process will proceed down to the next-highest fantasy point scoring player from each roster. In the event that two teams have identical rosters (unlikelier, but you never know), the player with the most cumulative points up to that point in the Fantasy Bracket Challenge will be deemed the winner.
What is the payout structure?
The winner of the Fantasy Baseball Bracket Challenge will take home a cool $100,000, with incrementally smaller prizes to follow. Here’s the good news: with places 33-64 taking home $2,500, if you qualify for the contest, you’re taking home some cash. Unfortunately, you’ll have to sweat it out from the comfort of your own home, as there is no live final component to the DraftKings Fantasy Bracket Challenge.
How are head-to-head opponents assigned?
Players are allowed a maximum of two seats in the Bracket Challenge. Qualifier Winner 1 (ehafner) is placed in the top left of the bracket. Qualifier Winner 2 (dandydon) is placed in the bottom left of the bracket. Qualifier Winner 3 (cohenspicks) is placed in the bottom right of the bracket. Qualifier Winner 4 (dandydon) is placed in the top right of the bracket. Qualifier 5 (DeathInvoker) will be placed in the second position in the top left of the bracket, meaning that DeathInvoker has the unenviable task of facing ehafner in Round 1. Qualifiers will continue to move in this counterclockwise direction until all 64 slots are filled. Players who win multiple entries into the Bracket Challenge cannot have more than one entry on the same side of the bracket, so if a player wins multiple entries and is slated to be positioned in the same bracket, their second entry will be added to the next region that is on the opposite side of the bracket.
Once I qualify, how does the contest work?
For the first four rounds (round of 64, round of 32, round of 16, and round of 8), Qualifier Winners will compete in single-elimination head-to-head contests, with the higher score advancing. In the Semifinals Round (round of 4), contests shift to a best-of-3 format, with the two winners facing off in the Championship Round, also best-of-3 (see below).
That about covers it. The DraftKings Fantasy Baseball Bracket Challenge looks to be a really cool, really different way of enjoying daily fantasy, and of course, the best way of ensuring that sites like DraftKings continue to push the envelope and offer a variety of game types is to show them you’re interested.
With satellites and qualifiers available at price points any bankroll can support (that is, unless your bankroll is 24 cents or below, and if it is – hey, I’ve been there), go out and give it a shot! Just don’t roster Mike Pelfrey.