Disgruntled Fantasy football coach Tavis Hughes had had enough after topping the round 7 leader board and being rewarded with a $10 Doordash prize voucher that can't be used in New Zealand.
After being interviewed on Sky TV sports show The Crowd Goes Wild, Hughes challenged the NRL Fantasy League prize-giving department to "Sort it out, now!" suggesting that there should be better prizes for the effort put into the hobby "prizes better than ten bucks".
“They haven't just stitched me up but the whole nation up.”
In case readers have never heard of NRL Fantasy, it is an online game that plays in real time alongside the NRL competition. It has become wildly popular (including inside the Māori Television whare), attracting more than 180,000 players.
Participants have a pretend amount of money to obtain a full playing team at the start of the comp (back in March), and can get whoever they want within the budget they have. However well the players they choose play in real life every weekend determines how many points they get in the Fantasy team, and how much their value goes up for the team overall.
But, after Hughes' experience, a petition was started on Change.org to get the NRL to hand out better prizes for the fantasy league and, surprisingly, the NRL Fantasy responded, with a light-hearted news bulletin explaining that the prize department flat out "forgot" about New Zealand.
To make up for the fantasy fumble, Doordash has offered to fly Hughes down to Wellington to be the first Doordash customer in New Zealand and has upped the prize from $10 to a $500 Doordash voucher.
“I’m not even from Wellington,” an impressed Hughes said.
“The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Complaining online will get you stuff.”
“A small victory for all Kiwi NRL fans everywhere but bittersweet having to do the haka to get the rewards.”
Hughes said there was also a rival fantasy league called KFC Super Coach NRL 2022, which is handing out two thousand dollars top of the table weekly prizes and a chance to win $50,000 for the overall winner.