Patent Application
20200222815
The described invention relates to online fantasy sports and specifically to fantasy American football in which contestants select actual live players of the sport to populate their respective virtual (fantasy) teams and where the performance of the fantasy teams against each other within the fantasy football contests depends upon the selected players' performance while playing their sport on-field.
Online fantasy sports are known in the art. In general, the underlying sport is a team sport for which there are actual teams competing against one another in live on-field play. Fantasy sports contestants operate from the position of a team manager and populate their fantasy team by ‘drafting’ virtual representations of the live players that currently play on the actual teams that compete in the underlying team sport. Performance of the fantasy team is directly related to the actual on-field performance of the actual players who are represented virtually on a given fantasy team and selected for play by the fantasy sports contestant managing the fantasy team. For example, if actual running back player AB scores a 6-point touchdown in live on-field play of American football in a current week, any fantasy football team that drafted a virtual representation of player AB onto that team and selected player AB for its line-up to play for the current week would receive a certain number of fantasy points to reflect that touchdown which the actual player AB scored in live on-field play. These basics closely follow the earliest fantasy sports contests which date to about 1962, which at that time appear to have been restricted to in-person fantasy sports leagues.
Fantasy sports have experienced explosive growth after adopting online play, and a more complex scoring system accounts for the much larger number of teams competing against one another in current internet-based fantasy sports platforms. The largest and most successful fantasy football leagues have tens or even hundreds of thousands of fantasy teams in a pool where the highest total fantasy team score across the entire season determines the overall winning team. Even so-called daily fantasy sports contests have each fantasy team competing against a field of hundreds or thousands of other fantasy teams. While these adaptations may accommodate a huge number of fantasy teams, much of the excitement of head-to-head/one-on-one competition is lost when the prevailing team is the one that out-scores hundreds or thousands of other fantasy teams that no single fantasy team contestant can track let alone plot his/her starting line-up to account for opponent's strengths and weaknesses. Embodiments of these teachings overcome these shortfalls by strictly limiting the number of teams any given fantasy team will compete against in any given contest without sacrificing the scaling advantages that online fantasy gaming offers.
In a first embodiment of these teachings there is a method comprising, for each yth round of a total Y rounds of fantasy play corresponding to Y playoff rounds in fantasy American football: determining exactly one winning fantasy team per group in the respective yth round, each group comprising no more than N fantasy teams selected from either an immediately preceding (y−1)th round or from an initial upload of no more than NY fantasy teams for an initial (y=1)st round, where N and Y are each integers greater than two and y indexes as {1, 2, . . . Y}; and advancing to a next subsequent round only the winning fantasy teams. The method further comprises tangibly awarding a valuable (grand) prize to a contestant associated with the fantasy team determined to be the winner of the group in a final (y=Y)th round.
In a second embodiment of these teachings there is a method of operating a fantasy football bracket comprising:
In certain non-limiting embodiments, a monetary prize is tangibly awarded to each and every contestant associated with a fantasy team that advances beyond the initial y=1st round of play, and no others. In this regard there may be interim monetary prizes that are progressively higher in progressively later rounds of play. In some embodiments parts a), b), c) and d) above are implemented by one or more computers that upload the maximum of NY fantasy teams from the multiple contestants via the internet; and part e) is implemented by personally presenting a valid bank draft in the amount of the monetary grand prize to the contestant associated with the selected champion fantasy team. In a preferred embodiment only one group-specific winning fantasy team is selected from each of the groups of each respective yth round for advancement to the next subsequent (y+1)th round; and at least the one final-round group has exactly N fantasy teams. Preferably, prior to the initial y=1 round a monetary entry fee per fantasy team is received from the multiple contestants. In certain embodiments across each of the total Y rounds, a monetary prize is awarded to each of the contestants associated with each of the group-specific winning fantasy teams that are selected for advancement, and this tangibly awarding may be performed by presenting to the respective contestant a valid bank draft or electronically transferring funds to a bank or institutional account designated by the respective contestant. The method may be executed across multiple fantasy football brackets and preferably when there are multiple brackets operated in parallel there is no more than one bracket that has less than the maximum of NY fantasy teams.
These and other aspects are detailed below with particularity.
s a diagram continues the
American football is used in the description below as the underlying sport, which may be professional, collegiate, high school or otherwise. Unless otherwise specified, the term football as used herein refers to American football. Embodiments of these teachings are particularly adapted for playoffs during which certain football teams are progressively eliminated during each playoff rounds from further playoff contests; for example in a quarter-final playoff round of American football with 8 teams competing, 4 of those 8 teams will be eliminated in that quarter-final playoff round and only the remaining 4 teams will compete in the next subsequent semi-final playoff round.
The essentials of player selection and scoring for fantasy football play are known in the art and so are only summarized here. In general a contestant chooses his/her fantasy team by selecting current (live) players from actual football teams whose performance in on-field play is reflected as points for the fantasy team on which that live player is represented and selected for fantasy play. There are various regimens known in the art to determine such fantasy team scoring, and Tables 1-2 below are a non-limiting example of a scoring regimen that may be used for fantasy football. The particular scoring regimen can vary from this example so long as it is pre-defined for the fantasy play. Embodiments of these teachings are valid whether the fantasy team contestant (e.g., the person or persons or entity entering a fantasy team for competition in the fantasy league described herein) selects individual defensive players for his/her fantasy team defensive line or selects its fantasy team defensive line from among several pre-defined entire defensive team lineups (or some hybrid combination of these, for example only cornerbacks and safeties are individually selected for inclusion with an otherwise pre-defined defensive lineup).
In a preferred embodiment there is only a single team from each group that advances to the next round of play. In alternative embodiments detailed further below, the two or three highest scoring teams of each group 101A may advance to the next round of play. In general for each group beginning a round with N fantasy teams there will be some number of fantasy teams less than N from that group that advance to the next round of play. The examples immediately following continue assuming exactly one winning team per group per round that advances to the next round of play, except of course the final y=Yth round since there is no subsequent round to which the winning team of that final round can advance.
Continuing for all of
At the start of each succeeding round there remain N=16 fantasy teams per group, so during the next successive y=2 round shown at
For the next successive y=3 round shown at
The final y=4 round shown at
In the
In certain embodiments concerning the awarding of interim monetary prizes, each winning team is awarded only the highest monetary prize it has won and no further prize for any previous interim rounds in which that team prevailed. Using the previous prize amounts $25,000, $2,500 and $250 for an example of this concept generally, if a given team is eliminated in round y=4 it would be awarded US$25,000 after its loss in round y=4 of
In a still further embodiment in which interim prizes are awarded, all teams that survive the initial y=1st round of play win a prize. Table 3 below assumes as the above example Y=4 total rounds of play and N %16 teams per group, but the initial round y=1 is not depicted because no prizes are awarded to any of the fantasy teams that do not advance beyond that initial round of play.
There are a total of 4096 teams that survive the initial round y=1 in the example of Table 3, and so each one of these in this further embodiment will be awarded a prize. Monetary prizes are progressively higher in each subsequent round of play, so for example if the entry fee per fantasy team is $75 the prize associated with round y=2 may be $150 for double the entry fee (first multiple of the entry fee), the prize associated with round y=3 may be $750 for ten times the entry fee (second multiple of the entry fee), the grand prize associated with the winning team from the final round y=Y=4 may be $1 million while other teams that compete in but do not win that final round being awarded interim prizes between that grand prize and the prize associated with round y=3. In this embodiment the 256 teams that win their respective groups in round y=2 are not awarded the $150 prize associated with that round, but each is guaranteed to win an even greater prize due to a) the prizes associated with the next round are greater than those associated with the previous round, and b) each team that survives to round y=2 is guaranteed to win a prize. That is, for every group of fantasy teams in a yth round between the first/initial round and the final round, a) the winning fantasy team of that group advances to the next subsequent round and is awarded no prize for winning in that yth round, and b) all other fantasy teams of that group are awarded a monetary prize despite not winning in that yth round and none of them advance to the next subsequent round subsequent to that yth round (e.g., they get a monetary prize and are eliminated from further competition).
In this preferred embodiment, the interim prizes are awarded to each fantasy team after said team is eliminated from competition following the first/initial round of play. Note the grand prize is not an interim prize so the championship team wins no interim prize since it was never eliminated. Generalizing from the example immediately above, each team losing at round 2 wins a first interim monetary prize equal to double the entry fee (e.g., $75) for the playoff fantasy competition, each team losing at round 3 wins a second interim monetary prize that is greater than the first interim monetary prize (e.g., ten times the entry fee), and each team losing at round 3 wins one of (N−1) graduated interim monetary prizes depending upon their rank within their respective group for round 3 (where the lowest graduated interim monetary prize is greater than the second interim monetary prize). The grand prize in this preferred embodiment is a monetary prize greater than the highest of the graduated interim monetary prizes.
Continuing with this example, assume the entry fee per team is $75. The first interim monetary prize is awarded to each of the fantasy teams that lose at round y=2 (15 per group if N=16) and each of those teams are awarded $150. The second interim monetary prize is awarded to each of the fantasy teams that lose at round y=3 (15 per group if N=16) and each of those teams are awarded $750. Each of the fantasy teams that lose at the final round y=4 (15 total fantasy teams for the single final round group if N=16) is rank ordered according to their fantasy score for that final round y=4 and awarded one of the graduated interim monetary prizes according to the following Table 4. The highest scoring fantasy team in the final round will of course be awarded the grand prize, which in this example may be $1,000,000 and is not shown in Table 4.
Different embodiments may implement the prizes for the final y=Y=4th round differently. As above, there may be a tiebreaker rule to assure there are no tie scores for that final round, or alternatively if there is a tie score the awards for those two teams are combined and then split evenly among them; for example, a $1 million grand prize for first place plus a $100,000 highest graduated interim prize for second place would be combined and paid out equally as $550,000 to each of two teams that are tied with the highest fantasy score at the close of that final round. Progressively higher prize values for higher scoring teams in a given round, as shown by example at Table 4, may be confined to only the final round or may be employed for other rounds associated with interim monetary prizes.
In a preferred embodiment all prizes are monetary prizes but more generally any prize may be a valuable prize for which ownership is transferred to the contestant associated with the respective fantasy team. For the case of monetary (cash) prizes such ownership may be transferred by personally presenting a bank draft in the amount of the monetary prize to the contestant associated with the respective fantasy team, where such bank draft is valid and payable to that contestant or his/her designee. This may be particularly suitable for awarding of the prizes at a public event which may be publicized via broadcast or video-stream for marketing or public relations purposes. Ownership of the monetary prize may alternatively be transferred by electronically transferring the value of the monetary prize to a bank or other institutional account (e.g., brokerage, PayPal®, Venmo®, etc.) designated by that contestant for receipt of such monetary prize. [Note that where a third party governmental authority such as a tax agency requires withholding of a portion of the total value before transfer to the contestant, the amount of the monetary prize for which ownership is transferred to the respective contestant is the total of the amount transferred directly to the contestant plus the amount withheld and paid to the third party governmental authority on behalf of that contestant. This is because the withheld amount is a debit payable by the contestant but merely collected by the third party from the person or entity paying the prize.] Currency may also be presented to the contestant or his/her designee as the monetary prize and this presentment itself also represents a transfer of ownership of the currency because currency is a bearer instrument. In a preferred embodiment the contestants electronically transfer to the fantasy league operator an entry fee per fantasy team that a given contestant enrolls (for example a $75 or $150 entry fee for the entire playoff season), so electronically transferring the monetary prizes to the contestants associated with the winning fantasy teams embodies an efficient symmetry.
For non-cash prizes of tangible property such as an automobile or a house, ownership is transferred with title to that property; or for the case of tangible property such as a valuable wristwatch for which there is no title, ownership is transferred when the contestant or his/her designee takes possession of the tangible property. For intangible prizes such as exotic vacations, concerts or the theater, ownership may be transferred to the contestant when the fantasy league operator or its designee provides to that contestant or his/her designee a valid ticket or reservation (electronic or otherwise) in the name of the contestant or his/her designee for airfare, hotel, activity and/or (e.g., theater, concert, play) for example. In these implementations with non-monetary prizes, the above descriptions relating to relative value of the prizes (higher, lower) is implemented with respect to the monetary value of the prizes regardless whether the prizes themselves are monetary. In any case, the awarding of the prize is embodied as a tangible transfer of ownership to the winning person/contestant, and this transfer is tangible even if done via an electronic bank transfer since such electronic transfers are readily verifiable and accepted as transfer of ownership.
In a specific but non-limiting embodiment, each fantasy team that advances to the next subsequent (y+1)th round should be re-populated with a new selection of fantasy players for that next successive round, where the newly selected fantasy players correspond to actual (live) players of the football teams that advance to the next round in the underlying football league, whether high school, college or professional. Thus the fantasy teams in each round will be populated by names corresponding to the actual players that advance in the playoffs of the underlying football league and the fantasy scoring can reflect actual player performance for the corresponding round of the underlying football league. Assuming that for
For the above embodiments in which fantasy team lineups are re-constituted/re-populated in each successive round, there may be default rules so that fantasy teams are treated fairly in certain circumstances rather than being effectively eliminated from further competition by events beyond their control; for example if an actual player suffers an injury after being selected for a fantasy team's lineup in fantasy round y=2 but prior to the start of the actual NFL divisional round in which the actual player was to compete. Each fantasy team naming that player for its (y=2)th round lineup may be awarded zero points for that player in round y=2, but certain rule alternatives may be more forgiving and award to each of those fantasy teams: a) the lowest number of fantasy points attributed to that actual player for any game across the current season of the underlying sport in which the actual player participated; or b) the number of fantasy points attributed to that actual player for the immediately preceding week of play (regular or post-season) in which that player participated.
The specific non-limiting example of
For the case in which there are less than the maximum number of fantasy teams in a given bracket, that bracket is considered less than fully subscribed. In practice when there is a less than fully subscribed bracket the fantasy league operator may install ‘dummy’ fantasy teams that are generated by the operator itself to fill the bracket. If there are less than a minimum threshold number fantasy teams in a given bracket (for example, the minimum threshold may be 60%, 70% or 80% subscribed) the operator may cancel those fantasy teams from play and issue a refund of the entry fee to those canceled contestants to avoid having to fill a substantial portion of a bracket with dummy fantasy teams. Dummy teams should be selected with the same constraints as to players and salary cap as any other fantasy team, and they may be manually generated by the fantasy league operator or automatically generated by a computer algorithm. For the case in which the bracket threshold is satisfied and the operator completes the bracket with dummy fantasy teams, there are a number of ways to disperse the dummy fantasy teams among the actual non-dummy fantasy teams entered by actual contestants so those actual contestants playing the non-dummy teams do not feel at a disadvantage. In one embodiment the dummy fantasy teams may be randomly inserted among the various N(Y−1) groups of fantasy teams during the earliest playoff round so that ideally the bracket would be completely filling in the first round with a combination of regular/non-dummy and dummy fantasy teams. Whether completely filled or not, any dummy fantasy team prevailing in a given round will advance to the next round the same as if it were a regular/non-dummy fantasy team contestant.
In another embodiment the actual/non-dummy fantasy teams may be clustered into a minimum number of the fantasy team groups during the first/earliest playoff round to maximize elimination of the dummy fantasy teams as early as possible. In this other embodiment there will be some and preferably most groups that include only paying contestant fantasy teams (zero non-dummy fantasy teams), at most one group with a mix of dummy and non-dummy fantasy teams, and one or more remaining groups populated with only dummy fantasy teams. Since those remaining groups would have only dummy fantasy teams the operator may provide only one dummy fantasy team as the winning team from each such remaining group to advance to the next playoff round as opposed to actually having groups in which only dummy teams compete against one another. As play progresses to subsequent rounds any advancing dummy fantasy teams would eventually be put into groups with other non-dummy fantasy teams. Preferably if there remains any dummy fantasy team or teams in the final round, the operator of the fantasy sports league will eliminate any such remaining dummy teams from competition in that final round to ensure that the overall winner of the final bracket is a paying contestant. The rules of play preferably set forth clearly for the paying contestants how dummy teams, if any, are handled during the various rounds of play.
A variation on the embodiment above having certain groups populated entirely by dummy fantasy teams is to eliminate those groups altogether. Consider an example where N=16 as the maximum number of teams per group and there are a total of Y=4 playoff rounds. A full bracket would have exactly 65,536 teams dispersed among exactly 4096 groups of exactly 16 fantasy teams each. Assume for this example there are only 57,963 fantasy teams entered by actual contestants and that this number meets the fantasy game operator's minimum threshold to run the bracket. In this variation, for the first y=1 playoff round these 57,963 fantasy teams will be dispersed among 3622 groups each having exactly 16 regular/non-dummy teams, and the remaining 11 regular/non-dummy fantasy teams could be grouped with 5 dummy fantasy teams for the 3623rd group or else that 3623rd group can continue with less than N=16 fantasy teams competing. For the next subsequent round y=2 there will be 3623 teams prevailing from the first round dispersed among 227 groups in which case either one group (the 227th) will have less than 16 fantasy teams (preferred) or that single group can be filled with dummy teams so that every one of the 227 groups has exactly 16 fantasy teams for round y=2.
Alternatively the fantasy game operator may choose to abstain from dummy fantasy teams altogether, which in the variation example immediately above would leave group number 3623 with a total of 11 fantasy teams, all regular/non-dummy. To the extent the contestants are able to see beforehand the other fantasy teams in the group against which they will be competing in any given round, this is not preferable because those fantasy teams in group number 3623 will be perceived as having an unfair advantage for the first round as compared to all the fantasy teams in all the other 3622 groups having 16 teams each.
In any of the embodiments above in which dummy fantasy teams are deployed, the fantasy game operator may choose to purposely reduce their likelihood of success, for example by imposing an artificially low salary cap for the computer-generated player lineup selection of dummy teams or by failing to select a key player such as a quarterback for the lineup of dummy teams. It is in the fantasy game operator's interest that no dummy team become the overall winning team in round y=Y to avoid even the appearance that s/he has ‘rigged’ the contest.
The above examples assume N=16 teams per bracket and Y=4 rounds of play. Other football leagues may have a different number of playoff rounds Y which these teachings mimic in the fantasy sports regime. Examples 2 through 4 below still assume exactly one winning fantasy team per bracket and demonstrate different values for N and Y to illustrate the flexibility of the teachings herein to other football leagues. The value of N is not constrained for any given value of Y but for a more straightforward comparison examples 2-4 below choose the value of N such that the value of NY is relatively close to the NY=168=65,536 maximum number of fantasy teams in the above example at
Example 2: N=6, Y=6.
Example 3: N=9, Y=5:
Example 4: N=40, Y=3:
The examples 5-6 below dispense with the assumption of one winning team per group per round. Specifically, example 5 assumes two winning teams per group per round and example 6 assumes three winning teams per group per round, except that in these and other embodiments in which there is more than one winning team per group preferably the final y=Y round of play results in a single grand prize winning fantasy team from the single group competing in that final round of play. In these examples, each successive yth round except the final y=Y round reduces the number of teams and number of groups by a factor of N multiplied by the number of winning teams per group, and by a factor of N for the final y=Y round of play.
Example 5: N=16, Y=4, two winning teams per group IN each round except y=Y:
Example 6: N=16, Y=4, three winning teams per group in each round except y=Y
Examples 5-6 make particularly clear that when there are more than one winning team per N-sized group in all but the final round of play, the final y=Y round of play encompasses a single group of more than N fantasy teams where the number of teams for the final y=Y round of play increases over N with increasing numbers of winning teams per group for the previous rounds. Specifically, the 2 winning teams per group at example 5 led to a final round group having 128 fantasy teams, and the 3 winning teams per group at example 6 led to a final round group having 432 fantasy teams. Since previous rounds had fantasy teams in groups of N=16, the final round play where they compete against some multiple of 16 may lead to some non-winning contestants resenting the gameplay structure after their loss, which is not preferable.
To enhance the user experience and to even out the competitive odds across all the various rounds of play including the final round, examples 5 and 6 above can be adapted such that in the final round there are still exactly N fantasy teams populating each of several final-round groups instead of all the remaining more-than-N fantasy teams aggregated into a single final-round group. In this case monetary prizes may be awarded to the single winning team from each of those various final-round groups and there would be no single largest-prize champion fantasy team for the overall bracket (e.g.,
The above examples assume each fantasy round of play corresponds to a different playoff round in the underlying football league. But the rounds for fantasy playoff play does not have to exactly match all of the multiple rounds of play in the underlying football league; in these teachings there may be one or more rounds of play in the underlying sport for which there is no corresponding fantasy play. For example if the football league gameplay utilizes Y=3 playoff rounds instead of Y=4 playoff rounds the fantasy rounds may exclude the wildcard round of the professional American football playoffs. The technical effect is that embodiments of these teachings have fantasy rounds corresponding to some (more than two) or all rounds of play for a given season of the underlying football league. This aspect of these teachings differs substantially from conventional fantasy football competitions which typically have only single-round fantasy competitions (e.g., weekly fantasy football) which correspond to exactly one round of the underlying football league (regular season or playoffs) from which the winning fantasy team or teams is determined and there is no carry-over of winners from week to week or round to round.
Embodiments of these teachings are preferably implemented in an on-line Internet-based infrastructure in which the fantasy teams are selected by individual contestants at Internet-linked computer terminals such as personal computers or mobile devices such as smart-phones, tablet or laptop computers and the like on which particularized software applications are resident or accessed directly from online servers. The various team selections entered by the contestants at these various computer terminals are uploaded to the league operator's computer memory which preferably resides in a server or a group of networked servers where they are stored. Grouping of these various fantasy teams and play amongst them as detailed herein is executed via the league operator's software, which is also resident on that server or group of networked servers. Such software typically has a ‘stats feed’ that inputs the actual (live) players' performance on the field from which the fantasy teams' points are calculated and compiled.
A playoff round for the underlying football league is one contest for the case of the sport's overall championship game, or a group of contests for all other playoff rounds, which halves the total number of teams competing to be the overall champion, and in American football the various playoff contests for a given playoff round are played close in time to one another though all are not necessarily played on exactly the same date. The rounds of fantasy play correspond to these playoff rounds of the underlying football league, so that in the above example playoff round y=1 of Y=4 corresponds to the wildcard round of professional (NFL) football while playoff round y=3 of Y=4 corresponds to the conference championship playoff round that determines one winning team from each of the AFC and NFC.
Continuing with
However the lineups are updated for subsequent rounds of play after the initial round y=1, in the final y=Y round there is exactly one group of exactly N fantasy teams (assuming as above exactly one winning team per group per round) from which there is a single winning team, and block 406 has a monetary prize awarded to that one winning team from that final y=Y round. As detailed more fully above, there may be additional/interim monetary prizes awarded to fantasy teams from groups in other rounds apart from the final round but
Respecting the initial lineup at block 502, the fantasy players and field positions may include some individual offensive players and a defensive line selected by the contestants from a set of pre-defined defensive lines with no individual defensive line layers selectable apart from the entire defensive line as a whole, for sports in which there is a defined defensive and offensive line.
Now with the initial lineup of all the fantasy teams participating in a bracket uploaded at block 502, the first round of fantasy play is detailed at block 504. The value of y indexes as {1, 2, . . . , Y} and so this initial first round is represented as round y=1 for which block 504 details three distinct actions. Firstly the uploaded fantasy teams are grouped into no more than N(Y−1) groups, each group having a maximum of N teams. As detailed above there may be dummy teams added to fill the bracket with a total of exactly NY fantasy teams for this first round in which case very group would have exactly N teams, or in other embodiments where less than NY fantasy teams participate in the initial first round of this bracket there may be one or more of these groups that are populated with less than N fantasy teams.
In either case the actual sports teams playing in the underlying football league compete on the field and from that on-field performance there is ascribed to each of the uploaded fantasy teams a score based on that on-field performance, where a) the relevant on-field performance is during a round of the underlying football league that corresponds to the initial first round y=1, and the relevant on-field performance is also b) the performance of the actual/live players corresponding to the fantasy players in the initial lineup of the respective team. This ascribed score accounts for pre-defined defensive lines for embodiments that do not allow selection of individual defensive players (assuming there are defensive fantasy points at all). For example if the fantasy scoring rules translates the performance of the Dallas Cowboys defensive line during the wildcard playoff round into 72 points, then any fantasy team selecting the Dallas Cowboys defensive line for their initial lineup in the initial first y=1 round would have 72 points of that fantasy team's total score for the initial first round arising from that on-field performance by the Cowboys defensive line. Offensive points are in addition.
Now with all the fantasy scores ascribed to all the grouped fantasy teams in the initial/first y=1 round, block 504 concludes with comparing, for each respective one of the no more than N(Y−1) groups, those ascribed scores of only the fantasy teams within the respective group and from the comparing selecting one group-specific winning fantasy team for advancement to the next subsequent yth round. Since this action is specific to each group there are as many fantasy teams selected for advancement to the next round as there are groups (assuming exactly one winning team per group is selected; other options are detailed above).
Block 504 deals with the initial first round in which y=1, and so the next subsequent yth round increments the index y by 1 so block 506 at
There are four actions at block 506 for the current yth round. Recall from block 504 that only one group-specific winning fantasy team from each of the previous-round groups was selected for advancement to this current yth round; these are the only fantasy teams (for this bracket) upon which block 506 operates and this is true whether block 506 is entered from block 504 or is iterated again in later rounds as the index y is incremented.
Firstly block 506 groups only those fantasy teams that were selected for advancement to the current yth round on which block 506 operates, and it groups them into no more than N(Y−y) groups, each group having a maximum of N teams. In some embodiments there may still be some dummy teams in these groups and for the case in which the previous round was fully filled with fantasy teams (dummy or otherwise) then each and every one of exactly N(Y−y) groups will each have exactly N fantasy teams.
Next block 506 accounts for the updated lineups. This may be done prior to the (re-) grouping mentioned at block 506 or after, as the fantasy teams keep the same name/identifier and only their respective lineups are updated for competition in this current yth round. These updated lineups are uploaded from the contestants associated with the fantasy teams that are selected for advancement to this current yth round, and since updated lineups are obtained/uploaded in all rounds after the initial lineups in the initial first y=1 round this is referred to as an updated yth round lineup for the respective fantasy team. Similar to the initial lineup, each of these updated lineups comprise fantasy players and field positions corresponding to live players and field positions of the underlying football league that were not eliminated during the previous (y−1)st round. Then block 506 ascribes to each of the fantasy teams of the current yth round a score based on the on-field performance, during a round of the underlying football league corresponding to the current yth round, of the live players corresponding to the fantasy players in the updated yth round lineup of the respective team.
Finally block 506 compares, for each respective one of the no more than N(Y−y) groups, the ascribed scores of only the fantasy teams within the respective group. From this comparing there is selected one group-specific winning fantasy team for advancement to the next subsequent (y+1) round immediately following this current yth round.
The index y is incremented again at block 508, which returns to block 506 to operate on this next subsequent (y+1) round which is re-named at the top of block 506 as the current yth round. Per block 508 this repeating of block 506 is done in turn for each subsequent (y+1) round. Eventually y is incremented to the point where y=Y and this round of play is the final y=Y round which terminates the iterative loop back into block 506 once block 508 operates on the final y=Y round. With the assumptions above of a single winning fantasy team per group per round, in that final y=Y round there is exactly one group having exactly N fantasy teams. Thus block 506 selects exactly one winning fantasy team from the final round y=Y, which block 508 identifies as the single winning fantasy team that is selected. Block 510 then has a monetary prize awarded to at least the selected single winning fantasy team from the final y=Y round. There may be additional monetary prizes awarded to the runner-up fantasy team and/or other fantasy teams in the final or other rounds of play, but
In one non-limiting embodiment each initial lineup at block 502 and each updated yth lineup at block 506 comprises individual fantasy players associated with offensive field positions and a defensive line selected from among a closed set of defensive line options, such as may be stipulated by the fantasy league operator for example in a pull-down menu of options visible at the contestant's computer terminal or mobile device. Individual fantasy players cannot be substituted where there is a defensive line selection option.
For the case in which a bracket is fully subscribed then the process shown at
Blocks 504 and 506 each have one winning fantasy team selected per group per round. In practice it may be that the overall fantasy score is tied among two fantasy teams in the same group of the same round. In this case ascribing the scores of the fantasy teams at these blocks can, for a case in which two or more fantasy teams in the respective group have a tied total fantasy score, further apply pre-defined tiebreaker rules such that exactly one winning fantasy team from the respective group is selected. As an example, in one embodiment for the case of a tie the tiebreaker rule can specify the team with the higher second-half score prevails, or the team with the higher fourth-quarter score, or the team with the higher number of points attributable to touchdowns prevails. In a specific embodiment there are multiple such tiebreaking rules arranged in a hierarchy such that if there remains a tie fantasy score after applying the first rule of the hierarchy the next rule is applied and so forth until the tie is broken and only one team prevails. These tiebreaking rules are applied only for those teams with the tied highest score in the group so as to prevent any team with less than the highest score from prevailing amongst the group due only to the tiebreaking rules. A further option for a tiebreaking rule is the fantasy team that submitted its lineup earlier is the winning team among those fantasy teams with the same fantasy score for a given round.
The above description of
In general terms the server 620B can be considered a machine that reads the MEM/non-transitory program storage device and that executes the computer program code or executable program of instructions stored thereon. While the server 620B of
The program 618 is assumed to include program instructions that, when executed by the associated one or more digital processors 614, enable the server/system 620A/B to operate in accordance with exemplary embodiments of this invention. That is, various exemplary embodiments of this invention may be implemented at least in part by computer software executable by the digital processor 614 of the server/system 620A/B; and/or by hardware, or by a combination of software and hardware (and firmware). Note also that one or more of the servers 620B may also include dedicated processors 615. The electrical interconnects/busses between the components at
The computer readable memory 616 may be of any memory device type suitable to the local technical environment and may be implemented using any suitable data storage technology, such as semiconductor based memory devices, flash memory, magnetic memory devices and systems, optical memory devices and systems, fixed memory and removable memory. The digital processors 614, 615 may be of any type suitable to the local technical environment, and may include one or more of general purpose computers, special purpose computers, microprocessors, digital signal processors, and processors based on a multicore processor architecture, as non-limiting examples. The modem 612 may be of any type suitable to the local technical environment and may be implemented using any suitable communication technology.
Computer readable memory is non-transitory because propagating mediums such as carrier waves are memoryless. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer readable storage medium/memory would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), other types of optical storage devices, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.
It should be understood that the foregoing description is only illustrative. Various alternatives and modifications can be devised by those skilled in the art. For example, features recited in the various dependent claims could be combined with each other in any suitable combination(s). In addition, features from different embodiments described above could be selectively combined into a new embodiment. Accordingly, the description is intended to embrace all such alternatives, modifications and variances which fall within the scope of the appended claims.
This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/594,797 filed on May 15, 2017, and further claims priority through that parent application to provisional U.S. patent application Ser. No. 62/336,716 filed on May 15, 2016.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62336716 | May 2016 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 15594797 | May 2017 | US |
| Child | 16700929 | US |
