FanDuel World Fantasy Basketball Championship 2015
FanDuel have announced their premier basketball event, the World Fantasy Basketball Championship. This event sees the finalists flown out to Miami in April, where the eventual winner will profit to the tune of $100,000.
Qualification for the WFBC 2015
There are 50 places available in the main event. Unlike many fantasy contests where you can buy-in directly, the only way you’ll gain a place in the finals is by making it through a qualifying event. These qualifying events start at the beginning of February and run all the way through the rest of the month and throughout March, until all 50 spots are filled. There qualifying events have different buy-ins, the size of the buy-in dictating how many players you’ll need to beat to qualify – the lowest buy-in is just $2 and the most you’ll pay to enter is $535. $300,000 of the million dollar prize pool is set aside for players who just miss out on qualifying, which might soften the blow for players who come close but ultimately fail to gain a place in the main event.
As well as entering these direct qualifiers you’ll also be able to enter satellites to some of the larger buy-in qualifiers.
The Main Event
The main event of the World Fantasy Basketball Championship takes place on Friday 10th April.
Every qualifier to the main event will win a trip package that is worth a total of $4,000. $700 of this is an airfare credit so you’ll be able to travel to and from Miami. You’ll head to Miami on Thursday the 9th April, where you’ll be met at the airport by a chauffeur. You’ll be driven directly to the Ritz Carlton hotel where you’ll spend the next three nights. Thursday evening sees a kick-off mixer event, Friday sees the Championship viewing party and the sendoff reception takes place on Saturday. As a winner you’ll have entry for two to all of the events.
Standard FanDuel scoring will apply to both the main event and all qualifiers.
The Fantasy Basketball Championship Prizes – How Much Can You Win
Every player in the event is guaranteed walking away with at least $6,000, with the top 16 players all taking away $10,000 or more. Here is a breakdown of the top 11 prizes:
1st $100,000
2nd $70,000
3rd $50,000
4th $40,000
5th $30,000
6th $25,000
7th-8th $20,000
9th – 11th $15,000
Finals Day in the NBA
There are 12 games taking place in the NBA on the 10th April, the day starting off in Orlando when the impressive Toronto Raptors visit. Highlight games on the day include the Celtics heading to Cleveland to take on LeBron James and the Cavaliers and the San Antonio Spurs facing off against the Houston Rockets, two teams with solid winning records this season so far. The final game of the day sees the Minnesota Timberwolves travel to Los Angeles to face the Lakers.
WFBC 2015 Qualification Strategy
Although there are prizes for coming close in a qualifier, anyone who enters will be looking for a seat on the plane to Miami. With the majority of qualifiers offering just one seat with a large number of players vying for that seat, your strategy should be based around this. This means that the one thing you don’t want to do is pick the same players as everyone else – pick all of the popular players in the NBA and you’ll join a bunch of other people doing exactly the same, so even if they all perform fantastically, you’ll still be very unlikely to find yourself in Miami in April.
To qualify you’ll have to do something different. As always you should try and pick a roster of players that all offer value, but if you have a straight choice between a name player and a relatively unknown one (maybe one isn’t a regular starter or a player you think will have a big game without any warning) in these kind of winner takes all event, I’d always advise going for the latter.
Take a look at any winning roster for a large entry event, and you’ll always see one or two ‘how did they pick that player?’ names on the roster.
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