After a rather successful football season where I tested several different formats for contests, I’ve decided to continue with sports content and additional contests for the 2017 calendar year. The goal of these contests will be to continue to grow the sports community on Steemit.com and to increase overall engagement on the platform.
Over the past month, there has been growing interest in several contests and fantasy league challenges. Having a growing and thriving sports community can help drive overall growth for Steemit and related projects. Reaching out into additional sports and enticing sports enthusiasts to join and engage on Steemit.com can help spur growth in the platform and demand for the STEEM currency.
So without further ado, here are the two selected sports for the proposed contests beginning this month.
PGA Tour and NASCAR
I selected these two sports based on three factors: the more international appeal of golf, the frequency of events, and the length of the respective seasons. Each sport has one weekly event, with golf typically spanning four days (Thursday through Sunday) and NASCAR races primarily falling on Sundays.
The PGA Tour essentially runs non-stop throughout the year. However, the Steemit contests will begin with the Genesis Open on February 16 – 20 and will end with the TOUR Championship on September 21 – 24.
The contests for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series will begin with the Daytona 500 on February 26th and will end with the Ford Ecoboost 400 on November 19th.
These two contests, if played for their duration, will span seven months and nine months, respectively. That’s seven to nine months of active engagement for users. While these users are here engaging with the sports contests, they will also have the opportunity to learn about STEEM/Steemit, check out other content to upvote, follow and support other users with whom they can engage, and may even begin blogging or become investors themselves.
Test Cases and Development Project
There were many users who participated in my football contests every week, or nearly every week, throughout the season. Some of them became loyal followers and have engaged with other sports posts as well. There was quite a bit of engagement crossover between my contests, fantasy sports contests, and other sports posts. I’m hoping that they will continue to support sports content and that additional fans will engage with the PGA and NASCAR contests.
These two season-long contests will also continue to be test cases for a hybrid fantasy sports development project. This is a collaborative effort with 
Contest Formats
Both contests will have a similar format. They will consist of weekly, monthly, and season winners. Point totals will carry over from week to week, so the more frequently a user participates, the more likely it will be that they place well in the monthly and season-long contests. However, participants will not need to enter every week in order to have a chance to win any particular contest (other than the weekly contest, of course), and it will not exclude new users who join the platform well after the season has begun.
For example – a user that joins in early May will have an opportunity to win any weekly contest during the month and to win the contest for May. Likewise, a user that goes on vacation and unplugs for a couple of weeks can simply come back and rejoin at any point without losing out on future contests. While it may certainly benefit any participants in the season-long contest to enter every week, missing a week or two will not effectively end any possibility to receive the long-term payouts.
Being actively engaged every week will provide participants with the best possible chances of winning or placing well in the season-ending contest.
These are the projected plans and formats for the two sports. Formats and payout structures may be subject to revisions throughout the season. If changes are made, updates will be provided and any changes will be noted in the weekly posts.
There will be three planned posts per week – two for NASCAR (preview and results) and one for golf (every Tuesday). Liquid rewards will be divided as follows from the NASCAR preview and the weekly golf post:
40% to weekly winners
25% to monthly winners
20% to season-ending winners
The remaining 15% will be dedicated to the fantasy sports development fund. Additional rewards from the NASCAR results posts will also be dedicated to the development fund.
Weekly, Monthly, and Season Winners
Both sports will have the same payout percentages for the various timeframes.
Three weekly winners, divided as follows:
| Place | Rewards Percentage |
|---|---|
| 1st | 50% |
| 2nd | 30% |
| 3rd | 20% |
Five monthly winners, divided as follows:
| Place | Rewards Percentage |
|---|---|
| 1st | 40% |
| 2nd | 25% |
| 3rd | 20% |
| 4th | 10% |
| 5th | 5% |
Ten season-ending winners, divided as follows:
| Place | Rewards Percentage |
|---|---|
| 1st | 25% |
| 2nd | 20% |
| 3rd | 15% |
| 4th | 12% |
| 5th | 10% |
| 6th | 7% |
| 7th | 5% |
| 8th | 3% |
| 9th | 2% |
| 10th | 1% |
Golf Contest Format
Participants will choose three golfers from the PGA Tour Fedex Cup tournament field each week. Based on the final results of the tournament, golfers will be assigned the following points.
| Results | Points Awarded |
|---|---|
| 1st place | 12 |
| 2nd – 5th | 7 |
| 6th – 10th | 4 |
| 11th – 20th | 2 |
| 21st - final cut | 1 |
There will also be a 2x multiplier each week, to be determined at the time of posting. Each participant that correctly guesses the multiplier statistic will earn double their total points for the week.
Weekly points will carry over until the end of the month when a monthly winner is determined. At the conclusion of each monthly contest, the total will reset for the next month.
All weekly points will also carry over for the season point totals.
NASCAR Contest Format
Participants will choose three drivers from the weekly race field in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. The points system will be based on the final results of the race and the field size.
If 42 cars, then...
| Results | Points Awarded |
|---|---|
| 1st place | 42, plus a 10-point bonus |
| 2nd | 41 |
| 3rd | 40 |
| 4th | 39 |
| 5th | 38 |
And so on, down to the last place driver, which will receive one point.
Each contest will also have a 20-point bonus statistic to be determined weekly. All participants who correctly guess the statistic will receive an added 20 points to their weekly totals, which will also carry over into their monthly and season totals.
Weekly points will carry over until the end of the month when a monthly winner is determined. At the conclusion of each monthly contest, the total will reset for the next month.
All weekly points will also carry over for the season point totals.
Please note that there have been changes to the NASCAR racing format this year. You can read about the changes to the format and points system here: FAQ for NASCAR’s 2017 Race Format Enhancements. These changes may have an impact on the final results for each race.
Please watch for the inaugural posts for the two new contests over the next couple of weeks. Additional rules will be presented in each post for the respective contests, such as entry procedures and deadlines for submissions.
Additional Contests
As these two seasons are winding down, American football will be returning to the scene and those contests will resume – possibly with our own interface for presentation. The Steemit Fantasy Hockey League is ongoing and will conclude in June with the Stanly Cup Playoffs. There are also tentative plans for a March Madness contest for NCAA basketball.
These contests will continue to provide us with valuable data and opportunities to try different formats, to discover coding requirements, and to perform the appropriate testing. They will provide a variety of test cases for using the STEEM blockchain in order to create a functional and user-friendly fantasy sports interface.
A Call to Action
I would like to ask that all users, sports fans or not, please reach out into your respective social circles and inform any friends and family who are sports enthusiasts to please join Steemit.com or Busy.org. Please tell them about our efforts here and about the sports community that we’re trying to grow. We want users to have fun with and on this platform – to continue reaching out into the internet world and bringing in passionate active users who can become ambassadors for the sports community and the platform themselves.
If you see something that you believe someone in your social circles might like, tell them about it. Invite them here. Give them the opportunity to find a new, enthusiastic sports community. Allow them to get in early on the action and to grow with us on the platform, so that their voices may be heard and be influential as the user base expands.
I know that sports fans are passionate about their teams and their respective sports. And I also know that there are a ton of these fans looking for a place to share their thoughts, experiences, and knowledge about their favorite players, teams, and sports. I’m sure that they would be thrilled to know that they can not only share their opinions with everyone, but that they can potentially earn money for it! Let’s use that to our collective advantage and help to further put STEEM/Steemit on the crypto and social media maps.
Most importantly, I want everyone to enjoy these contests. Have some fun on this platform! That's the ultimate goal!
Thank you to everyone who has supported and continues to support the efforts on Steemit to create a thriving sports community! I hope to return the favor by doing what I can to establish STEEM as the premier cryptocurrency and blockchain for superior sports content, contests, and applications!
Special thanks to 
for supporting and sponsoring this Steemit initiative!
Please show him support in return with a witness vote and by using the BlockTrades services.
The images are from Pixabay.com
