It seemed fairly obvious from the sale process that Mock Draft Central generated serious interest on the open market.

When founder and president Jason Pliml first told FSB.com of the intention to sell, the plan was to put MDC up for auction back in November, with a starting bid of $195,000. Before things got to that point, though, Pliml’s company fielded enough direct offers that the direction quickly changed.

“We had at least eight seriously interested parties and probably another six that expressed initial interest,” Pliml told FSB.com this week. “The number of serious suitors was cut in half when we required an all-cash offer as opposed to a combination of cash and private equity.”

Pliml said that although every potential suitor was looking to acquire the whole company, the interest tended to lie in one of three areas:

• Those who were looking to add MDC’s sizable user base
• Those most interested in the inherent live-draft technology
• Those who wanted to grow the company while basically following the existing path

“RotoWire falls into the last category of running it and growing it using a similar business model, particularly since the business model MDC operates under so closely parallels the RotoWire business model,” Pliml said. “Because of the similarities, the transition has been very smooth thus far.

“RotoWire has the same philosophy of good customer service and innovating with technology, so I anticipate they’ll be able to grow things and roll out new features as they get comfortable running what is already in place.”

RotoWire president Peter Schoenke echoed those ideas of similarity and growth potential lying in the parallel philosophies, adding that an existing relationship between the companies helped bring a deal to fruition.

“It just was a really good fit for both parties,” Schoenke told FSB.com in the wake of the announcement. “I’ve known Jason since he started the company and we were one of his first business-to-business partners, so there was a lot familiarity.”

Both sides said that the agreement came about pretty easily, with any delay in finalizing the sale generated only by the sometimes slow steps of the legal-paperwork process.

Now that the acquisition is done, though, Schoenke said RotoWire plans to use its content to bolster MDC’s offerings and vice versa. He sees plenty of value in areas such as the broad and deep average-draft-position statistics of MDC that can help bolster RotoWire’s content offerings in a number of sports. In turn, Schoenke said that RotoWire content will be “integrated” into Mock Draft Central offerings, and that his companies technical knowhow will be put to use in growing the MDC software and applications.

“We plan to invest a lot into the continued development of the draft application … [and] improving the consumer side of the web site,” Schoenke said, adding that they’d like to retain as many “as possible” of MDC’s business-to-business relationships. “MDC really is a unique site in the fantasy sports business in many ways, so we’ll leverage that content and the business opportunities from the software.”

Pliml says he anticipates sticking around for about a year to help get through the transition process, and Schoenke said that Geoff Stein is playing a similar role and will also not remain with the company long term.

Mock Draft Central, meanwhile, joins RotoWire under the umbrella of Roto Sports Inc., which also owns DatabaseSports.com and FantasySportsAdNetwork.com.

RotoWire announced Wednesday that it has purchased fantasy-draft site MockDraftCentral.com.

“It’s a great fit because both businesses have subscription models that focus on customer service and offering products that are worth paying for to give a fantasy owner a competitive advantage,” RotoWire president Peter Schoenke said in the company’s news release.

RotoWire stated that MDC will remain as a standalone site and said that existing customers should count on the same subscription packages and customer service as before. Mock Draft Central founder Jason Pliml will work with RotoWire during the transition period.

Pliml and his company’s board of directors put Mock Draft Central up for sale in the fall, when Pliml said he was ready to take his career in a different direction. Pliml said at the time that MDC carried a user base of about 128,000, and the company won Fantasy Sports Trade Association awards for its technology in 2007 and 2008.

The concept was born back in 2001, with MDC going live online in 2002.

FSB.com will have more on the acquisition as we talk to those involved.

Eight years after creating Mock Draft Central, Jason Pliml says he’s ready for new challenges.

“Having achieved what I set out to do when I started Mock Draft Central back in 2001, my roles and responsibilities have diminished and I want to take my life and career in a different direction,” Pliml told FSB.com. “With my energy focused on sales, brand awareness, and managing software consultants, we grew revenue to the point of profitability. MDC has reached the point of having reliable, award-winning technology, a well-known and respected brand, and a large, loyal audience.”

Pliml says that audience includes a user base of 128,000, with unique-visitor traffic averaging about 30,000 a month over the past year. (That number, of course, varies wildly throughout the year, peaking at 109,770 in August — just before football season — according to Compete.com.)

As for revenue, a feature in The Detroit News to which we recently linked said that MDC is bringing in $250,000 this year.

The company won Fantasy Sports Trade Association awards in both 2007 and 2008 for its technology and has held licensing partnerships with various companies around the fantasy sports industry.

Pliml says that MDC has received some direct purchase offers, which will be reviewed by the board of directors. No deadline has been set for the sale, but the site continues to operate throughout this process. (Visitors can already get a jump on the 2010 baseball season, for example.)

Interested parties can contact Pliml, whose e-mail address is also available on the MDC website.

FSB.com will have more information once a sale is made.

Company: Mock Draft Central
Launched: 2002
Site: www.mockdraftcentral.com

Jason Pliml concedes right on his site’s about page that the growth rate has surprised even him.

“I guess I should have known that when you mix an addicting hobby, technical know-how, hyper-ambition and a cold beer,” he writes, “anything is possible.”

If you think about it, though, the rise of this particular company could be even more indicative of the place that fantasy sports has taken within the broader sports/entertainment culture than any of the other companies profiled on this site.

There are the fantasy games providers, those who actually host the leagues and present the contests, providing outlets for those fans looking to enjoy themselves. Then there are the myriad content providers, offering advice for those who want to enjoy themselves a bit more than the leaguemates they’re trying to beat.

Then there is Mock Draft Central. Although the site provides some content, it basically acts as the batting cage in which you work out before facing the live-game pitching that is your actual league draft. Of course, that is oversimplifying the venture.

Mock Draft Central is an ambitious software hub that is based at a site that focuses on delivering a multisport mock draft lobby. The idea generated from a fantasy player/software engineer who found his own draft preparation to be cumbersome.

“I used to endure a laborious preparation process for my upcoming fantasy drafts,” Pliml, the founder and president of MDC, tells FSB.com. “I would lay out several spreadsheets and predict which players would be selected by various teams. Not only was it boring and redundant, but it incorporated all of my own biases regarding the players. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if I could practice against people that knew what they were doing, but not in my actual league?’ The seed was thus planted.”

That seed was initially fed by funding from Pliml’s previous work as a software-engineering consultant. Beginning at age 21, he worked on a wide variety of projects in areas that ranged from real estate appraisal to nuclear power plant operation and a few others that most of us would need advanced degrees to even talk about. By 25, he had co-created a consulting firm that did nearly a million dollars worth of business over the first year and a half. It was after splitting with his initial consulting partner that Pliml eventually dreamed up and put together MDC.

By 2005, though, MDC was looking to move beyond what the early sources of funding could support. That led Pliml to the Grand Angels investment group of Western Michigan — where MDC is based — who liked his business model but reportedly liked the company leader more.

“The classic line is that investors bet on the jockey and not the horse,” Grand Angels president Jody Vanderwel told the Grand Rapids Business Journal at the time. “I think he has a great business model and a very robust technology, but behind that is a man who is not only very technologically able but a bright man who loves what he does. His passion for this business is so obvious.”

Plenty of small-business owners have entered their respective markets with passion, though, and Mock Draft Central would not have become successful in such a competitive field without delivering a strong product. The company won the 2007 Fantasy Sports Trade Association award for Best Draft Tool and carries an impressive list of licensing partners, which currently includes Rotowire, Open Sports, U-Sports, AFFL, NFFC/NFBC, RotoBowl, FFPC, Quest Fantasy Leagues and My Fantasy League.

In addition to licensing use of the MDC draft software and helping to integrate it into partner sites, Mock Draft Central has aided in software development for contest and content sites, provided content editing services and farmed out its average draft position statistics to what Pliml says is more than half of the fantasy magazines out there.

“In short, we are uniquely skilled and well-positioned to do a lot of different things,” Pliml says. “We’re always on the lookout for opportunities that maximize the utilization of our skills and our technology.”

In addition to football, the site has handled baseball, basketball and hockey drafts since its inception and has added college football and basketball, golf, NASCAR and arena football to the menu. Pliml says that the company is considering jumping into soccer and cricket as well, though no immediate plans have been made.

All of this comes from a company that employs just one other full-time staffer, Geoff Stein, as well as a regular rotation of two more part-time workers. Pliml says the part-time contingent can grow to four in the busiest times.

The continuing rate of rapid growth in the fantasy sports industry could produce more of those busier times for Mock Draft Central. After all, no matter what sport you wish to play, where you decide to host your league or whom you go to for advice, it all starts with the draft.