NFL Post-Season Game Shows Utility of Pari-mutuel Fantasy Sports Approach

This is a repost of the results discussion of ProContest's NFL Post-season fantasy sports game.  It's being posted here as not everyone is able to become a registered user of ProContest.  The games are interesting with regard to seeing how the innovative pari-mutuel approach employed by ProContest is enabling games that have promise to offer differentiated value to fantasy sports enthusiasts.

As the site matures and gets critical mass, it's quite possible that the odds that develop as people make their entries in and of themselves may become valuable with regard to other prognostication and handicapping efforts.

Here's the post from ProContest's blog:

With last week’s Super Bowl (a very good one, blackout notwithstanding), the NFL post-season game is complete.  Although there were only 11 total games, compared to 35 for the NCAA bowl season game, the game performed very well.  In this game, the field of entries was very inclusive, such that named entries (other than the field entry) did finish in the money in most of the finish positions, but certainly not all.  We’re finding that the ability to select the Other/Field category, and have that category include some good players, may prove to be a very popular feature of ProContest’s games.  This feature is easily incorporated due to ProContest’s patented pari-mutuel fantasy sports approach, unique among the “daily” fantasy sports sites.

The results are shown below.  The odds posted are the final WIN odds.

Category / Race (Win (1^st), Place (2^nd), Show (3^rd) – w/odds) (Raw metric in parenthesis)

Passing Yardage (Favorite – Manning P DEN 4:1)

1. Flacco J BAL 27:1 (1140)
2. Other/Field QB (Kaepernick C SF) 9:1 (798)
3. Brady T NE 5:1 (664)

Flacco came in first as a 27 to 1 shot – huge!  If Denver had pulled out their game against Baltimore, Manning very easily could have finished in the money.  So, those entries that selected players with a good chance of going deep in the playoffs benefited from that extra game.  Kaepernick (Other/Field) and Brady placed and showed while only playing 3 games.

Rushing Yardage (Favorite – Rice R BAL & Other/Field RB 4:1)

1. Gore F SF 5:1 (319)
2. Rice R BAL 4:1 (306)
3. Foster A HOU 14:1 (230)

This was a pretty tight finish for win and place, with the starting Super Bowl running backs finishing 1-2.  Foster showed with a respectable total while only playing 2 games.  Rice was the favorite, didn’t win but finished in the money.

Receiving Yards (Favorite – Welker W NE and Other/Field WR 6:1)

1. Other/Field WR (Boldin A BAL) 6:1 (380)
2. Crabtree M SF 10:1 (285)
3. Welker W NE 6:1 (248)

This race was interesting.  This category going in might have been the category that could have the field entry finish in more than one money position.  As it turned out, top tier receivers like Crabtree and Welker performed when it counted.  However, both the field entry and Welker were the favorites and both finished in the money.  Like Flacco, Boldin benefited from playing 4 games.  Welker just played 2 games and still put up 248 receiving yards.

Opponent Yardage (Favorite – Minnesota & Washington 3:1)

1. Minnesota 3:1 (326)
2. Washington 3:1 (380)
3. Cincinnati 24:1 (420)

This race was looking to find the least opponent yardage, so handicapping who would likely bow out of the playoffs the quickest while not giving up much yardage was key.  Minnesota and Washington were the favorites and finished 1-2.  However, with Minnesota facing Green Bay and only giving up 326 yards might have given folks a clue that Green Bay might be in trouble when facing San Francisco the next week, which did happen as Green Bay was soundly defeated.  For next year, we might consider using average yards per game as the metric, which will make handicapping a bit tougher.

Overall, we continue to learn as we try out various games.  As ProContest moves forward, customers should find enjoyable games that offer high prize to entry fee ratios as well as games that can have as many as 1 in 4 entries winning prizes.  Although not nearly as popular, we may run contests later this spring and summer for the Arena League and the Canadian Football League.  Keep up with what is going on at ProContest by signing up, or just registering for email updates at www.ProContest.com.