I know many of you want to know what ASL is working on. So I decided I will try go give a monthly update.
The Machine for Full Season and Dynasty Leagues
First, I know many of you want to know about The Machine for full-season fantasy football - yes, we are working on it!
The Machine was the top selling and top ranked app in CBS Sports App Central from 2012 to 2014. CBS Sports their App Central at the end of 2014, and this created a challenge for ASL. We hobbled along until the end of 2016, but decided we needed to rebuild The Machine in more modern technology. (It was build in Adobe Flash technology.)
Here's a 2-minute demo video to remind you of what we are missing!
It was, and will be again, ASL's flagship product. Since I still get a lot of requests on the status of The Machine, I thought I would give a quick update on its progress.
First, from 2018 until the end of 2024 we took a detour into the realm of Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS). We thought this would be a quicker path to revenue and could rebuild The Machine from it, but we underestimated the challenge of building a competitive DFS Optimizer. DFS strategy has evolved a lot since 2018, and we have had to keep evolving our DFS Optimizer to keep up with it. We had two large contracts around the DFS Optimizer in 2023 and in 2024, so we had to keep our focus on it both those years.
Finally, we are refocused on The Machine for full season fantasy sports. There are many phases to make the new product:
- Specify of all the functions
- Design the graphics
- Code the math functions
- Code the new user interface
- Integrate with projection providers and/or build projections
- Integrate with league providers
We have all the previous code so we haven't lost the recipe.
However, this time around, The Machine will cover MLB, NBA and NHL, in addition to NFL. My brain goes into overload trying to figure out the math required for all the rules for rotisserie MLB leagues. Generating MLB recommendations will be at least 100 times more computationally intensive than NFL. It's a good thing that our new architecture runs in a virtual cloud of CPUs, not Adobe Flash!
I can't wait to see how much more powerful the Trade Finder tool will be!
We are currently in the first phase of the above list. We have spec'd out the most intense and math intensive functions which build on the math of the previous version of The Machine, but are probably 4 x more complex.
What about an ETA? If it was just coding the math, it might be possible to have it ready for NFL 2025, but making the full product seems to be on track for 2026. I plan to write an update once a month, to keep you informed. Theoretically, The Machine for NFL will be available after only 18 more of these updates!
The DFS Machine
How about the DFS Optimizer? We are continuing to improve the DFS Optimizer and we are designing a new user interface. We have some of the most experienced DFS players on our team, and collectively they bring experience of about 40 other DFS Optimizers and play at a very high level. We are adding more powerful features, especially for managing cross-correlation effect, otherwise know as forms of stacking for positive correlation and grouping for negative correlation.
We are rebranding it as "The DFS Machine" and when done, it will:
- run faster and smoother
- update more frequently
- be more intuitive and easier to use
- have more powerful features!
I hope this update was helpful and interesting. Stay tuned, there is a lot going on behind the scenes and much more to come!
