Fantasy Ethos » Mock Draft Central

Want to Start a Mock Draft Site? FantasyMock.com is Available

Derrick Eckardt — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:10:34 +0000

The idea of running mock drafts for fantasy leagues barely existed. People would what if the first round or two, but never took it much farther than that. Then, Mock Draft Central proved that there was a market for fantasy players wanting to practice their drafting skills. CBSSports.com, ESPN Fantasy, and Yahoo! Fantasy Sports have all since followed suit, and have mock drafts available to their players. Mock drafts are a big deal now; they are such a big deal that RotoWire just acquired Mock Draft Central for at least a few hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Last week, I told you about FantasyNASCAR.com is for sale. Well, I have spoken with Ayse Uras who is the owner of FantasyMock.com and FantasyMock.net, and those domain names are for sale if you are interested. While a domain name is not everything (as I discussed in the NASCAR post), it is a good start and does help focus the development of the site.

If you are interested in the domain name and/or start a domain name around the FantasyMock.com domain name, you can contact Ayse at urasay at gmail.com.

RotoWire Acquires Mock Draft Central

Derrick Eckardt — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:15:59 +0000

Hot off the presses, RotoWire has announced the purchase of Mock Draft Central. We reported earlier that Mock Draft Central was for sale and that Mock Draft Central had received an offer and was negotiating terms. This concludes four months of negotiations by both sides.

The official RotoWire press release did not disclose the terms, but it was definitely more than the $195,000 the original Mock Draft Central online auction would have started. Mock Draft Central’s founder Jason Pliml will stay on with RotoWire for a while to ensure a smooth transition.

These is a great acquistion by RotoWire, as the draft software will perfectly compliment its commissioner product. Even though both sites will be maintained as separate entities, Mock Draft Central’s and RotoWire’s user bases are what you would describe as the heavy fantasy user, which creates a great opportunity to market the two products to both user bases. I would not be shocked if the deal paid for itself just through new subscriptions in the next two to three years.

Congratulations to Peter Schoenke at RotoWire on his new acquistion and to Jason Pliml on the sale of his baby.

Mock Draft Central Receives Offers, Postpones Auction

Derrick Eckardt — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:00:39 +0000

As we mentioned earlier this month, Mock Draft Central is for sale. Originally the board of Mock Draft Central decided to place the company for sale via an auction on eBay, which was scheduled to start today. However, in the wake of the pending sale becoming public, Mock Draft Central has delayed the auction while it is exploring other offers. Mock Draft Central indicated to me that other term sheet offers are welcome. If it does not receive a satisfactory offer, it fully intends to reschedule the auction.

I guess we will all just have to wait while we find out what exactly is going on behind the scenes. Good luck to Mock Draft Central as it continues to negotiation.

Breaking News: Mock Draft Central for Sale

Derrick Eckardt — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:58:40 +0000

I just spoke with Jason Pliml of Mock Draft Central, and he told me that Mock Draft Central is officially on the market. Mock Draft Central has carved out a very strong niche for itself as THE place to go to for fantasy football / baseball / basketball / everything mock drafts. The site has a loyal following of dedicated fantasy players in the tens of thousands of users.

For interested buyers, the sale process is simple – Mock Draft Central will be placed up for auction on October 30, 2009 with a starting bid of $195,000. The auction will held on eBay.com with a tentative end date of November 12, 2009.

Mock Draft Central is a profitable company that sustains itself through subscription, licensing, and advertising revenue.

Pliml started Mock Draft Central in 2001 as a means to improve his own fantasy baseball drafting skills. Mock Draft Central has since grown to be the leader in mock drafts and powers a number of other fantasy sites’ drafts.

While Pliml’s role with the company is to be determined, it is more than likely that Manager of Operations Geoff Stein will stay on after Mock Draft Central is purchased.

Mock Draft Central is willing to provide company details, including financial, traffic, advertising metrics, etc to parties with a bona-fide interest, and you can contact MDC at (616) 363-6306.

Jason, Geoff, and Mock Draft Central provide one of the highest-quality services on the web, and whoever acquires them will definitely be picking up a valuable asset.