ANNUAL BBM EVENT

A Note From Josh:

I went to San Diego (and survived Carmageddon!) for the annual Pinetar event and had a wonderful time with other BBM Owners. It was great to meet many other BBM owners and talk about this great game that brings us all together. Barry Zito was not up to par and the Padres looked pretty dominant that night despite their last place record. Thanks to Humin’bird for organizing the event and it was great to meet a lot of BBMers, all of whom except me had a nickname. We had a record crowd this year and we are already looking forward to attending next year’s event. You don’t need to be a member of Pinetar to attend. Just be a fan of BBM. Stay tuned for a future newsletter for news on next year’s event.

LIGHTNING BBM IS MOVING TO FACEBOOK IN 2012

BBM is moving into social media! In 2012, we will be moving Lightning BBM to Facebook. This will enable us to more easily bring BBM to the millions of Facebook users and let our current owners more easily reach out to their Facebook friends to get them to play BBM. And for the first time, we will be offering prizes! We will be converting Lighting to a pay game at a very low price point. For the Lightning enrollment fee and for the prizes, we will utilize Facebook Credits as the currency. We have not finalized the prices for Lightning or the prizes but will do so in the coming months as we familiarize ourselves with the Facebook game environment.

For years, we have heard many veterans state that they would love to bring new people into playing BBM but that the price point is too high. Encouraging your friends to play Lightning on Facebook should be really easy for anyone to do. You will need to be a Facebook member to play.

CHANGES TO PRICING AND PRIZES IN BBM 2012

With the opening of Keeper Renewals this week (see related story) we wanted to announce big exciting changes to the pricing and prizes for BBM in 2012. In 2012, we will be introducing cash prizes for league winners for the first time. You read that correctly. Cash Prizes! We will be saying farewell to the longstanding BBM tradition of balls, pennants and t-shirts as well as to the Grand Prize. We will be offering cash prizes for both Express and Ultimate.

Our pricing and prizes will be as follows:

Express

There will be three different entry points for Express BBM:

Level 1: $9.95
Level 2: $19.95
Level 3: $49.95

The prizes for each game will be:

Level 1: free entry in a $9.95 Express game in 2013
Level 2: $80
Level 3: $200

We have heard for years that the excitement of playing 162 games makes BBM unique and we hope this new great pricing for Express and the prizes with playing, will enable you to convince your friends to play Express BBM in 2012.

Ultimate

For Ultimate, we will have the standard game and we will add two new levels. We will cease the current prize structure we have had for Ultimate and switch to league prizes only. We will cease offering a Grand Prize.

The league levels will be as follows:

Level 1: $79.95
Level 2: $149.95
Level 3: $299.95

The prizes for each level will be:

Level 1: free entry in a $79.95 Ultimate game in 2013
Level 2: $575
Level 3: $1,200

Keeper

We will have one level of Keepers and continue with the existing Keeper structure. A new two-year Keeper will be $149.95. Prizes will change for Keeper Leagues too. The prize for winning your Keeper league is a free entry in a Keeper league in 2013.

Progression

For Progression leagues, the price will continue to be the same as standard Ultimate above, plus a $10 administration fee that Pinetar charges its members. Prizes will also be the same.


Note: With this new pricing structure, there will be no early-season discount in 2012.

Prizes will be for regular season winners only. No prizes for playoffs.

KEEPER RENEWALS

Keeper Renewals are now open! The discount price to enroll and keep your Keeper team for 2012 is $69.95. This offer will be good until October 31, 2011. There will be no extensions for this discount. After October 31, 2011, the price will be $79.95. Users must reenroll by December 31, 2011 or risk forfeiting their team.

REFUNDS FOR TRADED PLAYERS

Trading activity prior to the recent Major League Baseball trade deadline resulted in refunds - and some questions from BBM managers - on the BBM refund process.

Here's how the process works:

When a player is traded from one league to another in MLB, BBM will issue an instant refund for that player and mark the player for deletion. If you have the player on your roster at that time then you will receive the instant refund. The instant refund amount is the player's total salary MINUS $100,000. The remaining $100,000 is refunded when the player is actually deleted from the league.

If the player is in the Free Agent pool when the instant refund was processed and your team is the last to own that player, then you will receive his full salary refund (not the reduced amount) when he is deleted from the league.

Typically, the deletions are done five days after the player is traded in real life.

Once a player is marked for deletion, he will show on your league Transaction page in the “Player Deletions and Refunds” section. It will show the actual number of days until the player will be deleted.

Additional details can be found here in the BBM Guide.

THANK YOU!

As always, we greatly appreciate your continued support of BBM!

All the best,
Commissioner Richard Pagliaro
Rich@BaseballManager.com