The 2010-11 Season in Review for Uptick Sports

It’s been an up-and-down year, albeit a good one, for Uptick Sports.  Now that the 2010-2011 NFL regular season has come to end, the fantasy football stock market is closed until next season.  Consequently, I thought I’d take some time to to take a look back and provide an update to our fans and stock traders.

First, I’d like to congratulate Bobby Thurman, who finished as the top stock trader this season by turning his initial $10M starting position into a staggering $121B (yes, that’s billion, with a “B”) ending cash balance.  Bobby wins our grand prize, a new iPad.  Russ Enright finished in second place with $105B.

These huge numbers corresponded with a sizable growth in the number of trades within the market this past season. Over 4.6 billion shares in the stock of NFL players were traded by market participants this season, compared with 1.6 billion shares the prior year.  That’s a growth rate of over 188% percent in just one season!  Furthermore, the number of unique, single, trades by stock traders grew by almost 30% year-over-year.

While this growth is impressive, however, the quick breakaway by the top two finishers from the rest of the trading pack may have dampened the overall enthusiasm for fantasy football stock trading.  In fact, a few of you have contacted me directly to say that this was the case, and the numbers support this assessment.  Trading volume peaked between weeks 7-9 of the season, but dropped sharply thereafter.  Over 1 billion shares were traded in the seventh week of the season alone, but fewer than 100 million shares were traded during 6 of the final 8 weeks, including a low of 31 million shares in week 16.

So what do these numbers foretell for Uptick Sports?

Well first, some changes are in order.  To that end, I’ll be sending out a survey to stock traders within the next week or so in order to solicit feedback to improve the quality of the stock market game for next season.  Perhaps a smaller starting cash position will provide more competitive balance for a greater duration of the season.  Or possibly, a system of awarding a weekly prize to the top stock trader for each week of the season, rather than a season-ending grand prize, will ensure sustained interest for a full 17 weeks next year.

In short, I’m not yet sure which changes will be implemented to improve Uptick Sports for next season.  One thing you can be sure of, however, is that I’ll be listening carefully and taking in your feedback in order to continuously improve the quality of the game.  Uptick Sports is the first of its kind, and as with anything new, it’s bound to evolve as the voice of the customer guides its growth.

So lastly, I just want to say thanks to our stock traders, Facebook fans and Twitter followers for the great experience of this past season.  Rest assured that the off-season will not bring radio silence.  I’ll be actively blogging, interacting on Facebook and reaching out to traders to test new features as they’re developed.

Thanks again!

Best Regards,

Shane Barnhill, Founder, Uptick Sports