Sponsorship Announcement

Fairfranco had a question about the (former) FTL table, correctly answered by Jamie and Emp. The column headings IP and LW do indeed refer to Implied Price and (table position Last Week). The +/- column shows how many places someone moved since last week. Whether the Strike Rate (SR) proves to be of any interest remains to be seen.

Graeme, The Football Analyst, has capped the bounty at £400 which is fair enough. I was actually expecting the trickle of of new entries spotting the value in taking Graeme on with a close to 20 point start to be more of a flood, but then TFA did liken himself to Barcelona which may have frightened off a few Cambridges, Alfretons and Lutons:

"Putting my systems into Cassini’s friendly tipster league would be like Barcelona playing in the Bsq Prem for a season"

Graeme did also suggest that as potentially the main sponsor of the FTL, he should have naming rights. It's just not a catchy name, with too many Ts and Fs. "TFA's TFL" or "The FTL sponsored by / in association with TFA"? WTF! But with up to £400 coming our way, I guess I can accommodate the proposal, so the FTL will henceforth be known as The Football Analyst Tipster League. With such large sums of money at stake, the "Friendly" went out of the window long ago anyway.

For those concerned that the impartial approach of this blog might be threatened, rest assured that editorial content will be unaffected, and I will continue to call it as I see it. If the TFA selections perform more like Barnet than Barcelona, you will read it here. Speaking of which, Barcelona did slip up again last night with Oldham Athletic losing at Notts County.

And yes Graeme, there is a minimum number of selections required - 64 for anyone joining before the end of September, and 56 for those in October. Plus no sitting on profits, with a minimum of five selections per month. With 22 entries to track already, I think I'll take Graeme's suggestion one step further and close it to new entries for this season. At this time of the year, as many of you know, much of my focus switches to the NBA which opened its 2013-14 season last night. The best sport for in-play trading by some distance.

Although my interest is mostly in the Western Conference, where 'my' Golden State Warriors (if you see a team live more than once, they are yours!) look very good to improve on last season's play-off run and win more than 47 regular season games, I will also be keeping an eye on the Brooklyn Nets in the East. Their Russian owner Mikhail Prokhorov, is bankrolling more than $102 million in player salaries, (and projected luxury tax payments totalling $86 million) a sum higher than any other team in the league. They are the Chelsea of the NBA, albeit with an untried coach (part-owner Jason Kidd) but assisted by a former Nets head-coach in Lawrence Frank. I'm not sure the Nets are at home to Mr. Failure this season, and with Derrick Rose back and looking strong for the Chicago Bulls, and a strong Indiana Pacers team, Miami Heat face some tough competition if they are to make it to their fourth consecutive Finals.