2023 MLB Schedule Opens With 15 Games On March 30

[Greg Ambrosius]

Major League Baseball released its scheduled today for the 2023 season and all 30 MLB teams are playing on Opening Day, Thursday, March 30th.

That allows us to prepare for the 2023 NFBC season now that we know when Opening Day is. This was expected and so we have already contacted a couple of favorite Las Vegas hotels and have a start on the location and ballrooms that should be open for us. I'll talk to my sales reps when I'm out there next week for NFFC live events at the Bellagio and Park MGM and hopefully we'll have a host venue before the end of September.

We will do the same thing in New York City next weekend when Tom and Darik are out there for live NFFC events and see if the Stewart Hotel is available in mid-March. Stewart Hotel renovated their ballrooms starting in May and have not been open for conventions since then, but this is our preferred choice if they open their convention center again before March. We'll let you know how that looks soon.

So the plan right now is:

Las Vegas: Thursday, March 23-Sunday, March 26 and we'd be open to live events on the 27th, 28th and 29th as well.
New York City: Friday, March 17-Sunday, March 19 (yeah, St. Patrick's Day for the opener!!)

Those are the only host cities for 2023 and we hope to have record attendance at each location.

2023 will be the 20th anniversary season for the NFBC and I'm looking into getting some anniversary apparel before the live events. I have to look at my original list to see who are the Charter Members who stuck with us for 20 seasons. We'll have some fun throughout the off-season and look back at some historic moments from 20 years of the NFBC and then we'll celebrate all of our past champions and Hall of Famers again at the live events.

Okay, mark your calendars. We have the dates for 2023. Let's finish 2022 strong first, but then be ready for the 20th anniversary season of the NFBC!!

[King of Queens]

NCAA Regional (Sweet 16) is going to be at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas from March 23rd to March 25, 2023. First time Las Vegas has ever hosted the NCAA men's Division I basketball tournament.

Don't wait on your travel plans!

[Greg Ambrosius]

Well, this isn't exactly the best news we've ever heard before our 20th anniversary season, but at least we know early enough to do something about it.

Today we learned that the Stewart Hotel will be shutting down and reconstructing the building for other purposes. We don't know if that means apartments or condos or what, but we were told today that it wouldn't be for the hotel or for a convention center.

That's not good news for the NFBC because the Stewart Hotel made it possible for us to host live events in the heart of New York City over these last few years. We looked at other locations in the Big Apple for the NFFC this September and we were either too small for their space or their space was way too expensive for our contests. We did not find a single suitable location, but we were able to secure one convention room at Dave & Busters in Manhattan (43rd and 8th street). There was one good option in Brooklyn, but our New York NFFC guys didn't want to go that far from the city.

We're good to go at Dave & Busters for football and I think it's going to work just fine, but it would be very tough to get in more than 2 live events per day there for baseball because baseball drafts and auctions take so much more time. We are in the process of looking for hotel space and we'd gladly take any recommendations you have, but right now we need some help to host an aggressive schedule of events in New York City March 17th, 18th and 19th like we had planned. We normally get around 10 live events a year in NYC and we had hoped for even more in 2022.

Any suggestions? We have time to check everything out, so email or call us with some options. We'll keep looking ourselves, but we'll take all the help we can get. Thanks all and let's try to stay in New York City for a 20th straight baseball season.

[mdecav]

I assume the Hilton off 6th Avenue is one of the too expensive places since we previously used it in 2014 if not later than that.

Two other options I can think of off the top of my head are the Javits Center which should have TONS of space or the Sheraton on 7th Ave., around the corner from the Hilton between 52nd and 53rd.

[Edwards Kings]

Charter List for all "Main Event" Seasons since 2004:

1. Wayne "Lord of Futility" Edwards

[Greg Ambrosius]

I assume the Hilton off 6th Avenue is one of the too expensive places since we previously used it in 2014 if not later than that.

Two other options I can think of off the top of my head are the Javits Center which should have TONS of space or the Sheraton on 7th Ave., around the corner from the Hilton between 52nd and 53rd.

So I hope that everyone in New York realizes that we are doing everything we can to stay in New York City for a 20th straight season, but it's not easy. We are now looking at 10 or 11 live event leagues over three days and places like the Sheraton or Hilton want $10,000-$20,000 a day in rent. It's just not feasible to host live events at those hotels anymore and honestly they don't want a small event like us if we can't guarantee big food & beverage minimums and large room blocks. We know we can't guarantee what they want for this space anymore, so unless they are desperate to fill space those options no longer work.

That is why the Stewart Hotel was affordable for us. They charged $5,000 a day for rent, had a reasonable food & beverage minimum and didn't require a room block from us. We could make ends meet there, but even $15,000 in rent when we had only 9 or 10 leagues in New York City made it tough. We never pay rent for space in Las Vegas and never have, which makes Las Vegas ideal for our live events. But it was more than doable in New York City thanks to the Stewart Hotel and that hotel was in a great location and allowed us to host live events for a passionate part of our customer base. It was a no-brainer to host there.

Now we're all going to have to work hard to make this work if we want to stay in New York City in 2023, which we definitely want to do.

We hosted football at Dave & Busters and it went very well, but those were 12-team leagues. The location is ideal, there's no sound issues and the only negative was a lack of air conditioning in that room when it was hot, but that shouldn't be a problem in March. We would just be limited to one auction league at a time with no overlap, but we feel we can get two 15-team drafts in the room at one time as long as the buffet is outside. We would alter the schedule a little to make things work, but this is still an option we are considering. There are plenty of hotels in that area and our NFFC guys liked the location right off Times Square, so we are definitely looking into this location for baseball.

Give us through the next few weeks to check around, but I promise we are doing everything we can to make this work for March 17-19 in New York City. I'll admit that this is the top option I am considering, but I've put in requests already for multiple hotels in the City and so far the options are limited. But we'll keep looking and post as soon as we have more information. Any help from New Yorkers is appreciated. Thanks.

2023 is our 20th anniversary season for the NFBC and the NFFC. We are the only high-stakes contest to ever host in New York City and we have every intention of hosting live events for both sports there again. We just have to work together to make this happen, so be patient and let's do all we can to draft live in the Big Apple again in 2023. Stay tuned.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Charter List for all "Main Event" Seasons since 2004:

1. Wayne "Lord of Futility" Edwards

I will find this list and see which Charter Members are still active 20 years later. Should be fun and I plan on doing some reminiscing about the last 20 years online and on our podcast going forward. Can't wait to get the Anniversary Tour started.