Quark Sports - 2004-2005

I came across Quark Sports right after the 2004-2005 NBA season had started. I believe the site launched for the football season that year so basketball was just their 2nd season online. They had a cool points based weekly salary cap game. Luckily, I saved some info to look back on. Here was the scoring system:  

This seemed to favor guards who got a bunch of steals and threes (Baron, Iverson), active forwards who got blocks and steals and occasional threes (LeBron, G. Wallace), and big guys who could either block a lot of shots (Przybilla was the MAN in the 2nd half) or bust some threes (Okur).

Each week you had a salary cap of $100 million to select a team of 8 players: (3 Guards, 3 Forwards, 2 Centers). Player salaries ranged from $1 million to $30 million each depending on their number of games played and recent week performances. It was a fun way to play fantasy hoops because the "engine" behind the game was very impressive. It even gave you a weekly grade for each of your player selections relative to the "perfect lineup" for that week.

For the first 5 weeks of the season they offered the game for FREE. I didn't start playing until week 2, but I was able to build up a lot of "Quark Dollars." After Week 5, they upped the weekly prizes: the top 5 places got: $250, $100, $50, $20, and $20, respectively. They also placed you in a league of 25 teams and the league winner each week got an extra $20. They continued to give away Quark Dollars for other top finishers.

Once I got the hang of things, I started to do really well. In fact, I won so many Quark Dollars that I didn't have to pay them a single penny the entire season. Over the 24 weeks that I played, I won the weekly prize 3 different times. I had a Top 5 weekly finish on 12 separate occasions. The weekly prizes were nice, but I was in it for the long haul.

Quark Sports also awarded Season Prizes based on the total score of your top 12 weeks. As you can see in the Season Standings, I finished 276 points ahead of the 2nd place finisher and 391 points ahead of 3rd place. I was awarded a check for $2,500 as their 2004-2005 NBA Season Champ. All told, I won over $4,200 from Quark Sports for the 2004-05 NBA season. If you see below, it says that "Quark Sports Fantasy Basketball will return next season."

That never happened. They sent an email out a few months later stating that they had gone bankrupt. It was sad to see such a unique, enjoyable, and profitable fantasy game go belly up, but their business model just couldn't contain the likes of Roto Evil.