I’m sure it takes a ton to make ottoneu happen, but it’s hard for me to convince someone to play when it’s a 40% rake.
What a ridiculous comment.
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I really hate the term ‘rake’.
Ottoneu is not a casino. It’s a small business run by one person (me) that makes no money on ads or selling user information or anything other than the fees charged at various prize tiers.
This can be called “40%” at the $50 tier if one really, really wants to, but I find it hard to take that seriously. Generally it is $20ish a year for year-round fantasy sports. It costs (slightly) more at higher prize tiers because those tiers have much higher liability and fees associated with them.
I do not make a ton of money doing this. I do this because I love doing it. If someone thinks $20/yr is too much, I do not really particularly care about having them as a customer.
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I have no idea how you run this great platform for $20. I won’t even attempt to estimate how many countless hours I spend on it/ thinking about my rosters- could be embarrassing. Ottoneu Anonymous anybody?? Probably works out to about a dime per hour of fun. Pretty strong value I’d say. Thanks Niv!
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$20/yr works out to $1.67 per month. And you get 12 months of entertainment from Ottoneu whereas most other formats/platforms it’s only 6 months per year. $1.67 is really trivial.
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And in additional to all the fun, our yearly $20 means there are no ads, which is great! 
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First of all, I love ottoneu, thats not what the request is about. I’m also not saying it should be free, (less rake is not no rake.) Clearly we are all hardcore about fantasy baseball or else we wouldn’t be here. My point is that it’s more difficult convincing someone who might otherwise enjoy it when at the $20 and $50 tier a large % of the prize pool goes towards admin. The higher tiers on the other hand have very little admin relative to the money being played with and are a massive deal. It kind of feels on some level the lower tiers are subsidizing those who can play with more. Niv, I don’t mean for this post or anything I’ve said here to be unappreciative. Ottoneu is absolutely my favorite format to play. You could probably charge 70% and I’d still play.
I just wouldn’t think of it as a rake. It is a standard-ish service fee.
If someone is even talking about the rake, they should be playing DFS or poker - games that encourage you to play as many hands / entries as possible and are entirely focused on making money, which is where the idea of the rake comes from and the only reason people should care about a ‘rake’ - if it cuts into their profitability. Ottoneu is not that game and it actually boggles my mind anyone would talk about a ‘rake’ in terms of season-long or dynasty fantasy baseball. It shows a complete lack of understanding of the term ‘rake’.
Ottoneu costs $160/yr less than Netflix is my response to literally anyone who says it costs too much. If they want to do a rake analysis of Netflix, that is their choice.
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If you’re really worried about money being lost to admin fees, play a base $20 league with a offsite cash pool that you independently handle yourselves or via something like LeaugeSafe if it’s a league of strangers. None of my leagues do this, but I’ve seen it mentioned on the forums and in listings for vacated/new teams. A bit more work for your league mates and potentially a commissioner, but solves your problem without suggesting that Niv’s trying to “take a rake”. I’m a firm believer that @nivshah deserves more than he takes, when you adjust for the fact that a good chunk goes out the door to cover hosting fees, PayPal fees, etc.; plus he’s constantly making improvements and debugging any issues. Overhead isn’t cheap and people’s time (in this case Niv’s) is valuable; $20 is very little, especially when ads aren’t popping up everywhere and my information is secure.
This is a ridiculous statement if you do some basic math; if anything the higher stakes leagues subsidize the smaller ones as the “admin fee” for those is higher, even if the percentage is smaller.
$20 tier: = $240 admin fee ($20/team)
$50 tier: $600 - $350 in prizes = $250 admin fee ($20.83/team)
*Repeat above math:
$75 tier: $275 admin fee ($22.91/team)
$100 tier: $300 admin fee ($25/team)
$250 tier: $500 admin fee ($41.67/team)
$500 tier: $1,000 admin fee ($83.33/team)
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I made this a little more obvious for you whocan.
Niv I appreciate you responding and listening.