This year marked the 22nd straight year of hosting live events in Las Vegas for me and it was just as exciting as the first year was in 2004. I really enjoy hanging out, drinking and talking with our unique participants. There's a special bond between like-minded baseball fans. I enjoyed it in 2004 and I enjoy it even more in 2025. It's fun to plan a party and see everyone have fun at it!!!
This year, the party was just longer and more people attended!!
It started with our first live events in Robbinsville, New Jersey and that was more enjoyable than even I expected. We had a great group of die-hard East Coast NFBC players who had a blast during two auctions, two Main Event drafts and the MTM Ultimate League. We had 50+ unique players participate in five live events over two days and it ended with a Saturday Night Party at the MTM mansion. What a great couple of days.Kudos to Mike Massotto for the party and the planning of the whole weekend. The Hampton Inn & Suites was a perfect host venue and we brought in our own food and drinks for the two days of live events. I wish a Las Vegas hotel would give me that kind of offer because I'd save about $80,000!!!
But seriously, it was so much fun to hang out with everyone at the live events and the party that I'm already booking space for 2026 in Robbinsville. Let's roll it back again.And I know people enjoyed the livestream of the Las Vegas Draft Selection Show that Mike and I did at his house. The great thing is that I was able to do it at the bar with every drink imaginable to me and Mike was far away in a sound-proof Dungeons & Dragons room, so we got along perfectly!!
Same setup next year, Mike, okay? But yeah, that was transparent and fun, and the feedback is that we should do it again next year. In fact, some football guys are asking us to do it for this September's NFFC Primetime leagues. We'll see.I thought the Las Vegas live events at Park MGM went very smoothly and the venue was great. Yes, we didn't have the big ballroom for the Saturday 8 Main Event leagues, but we still had multiple drafts in each room and everyone came to the Kensington ballrooms for the HOF ceremony and recognition of our past Hall of Famers and national champions. It worked out great.
The auctions went very well and many of them got done in around 4 hours. The drafts were also smooth and also got done in around 3 hours. The individual rooms were big enough and it's so easy to get to the Convention Center if you are a guest at Park MGM. Even coming from the Tram makes it easy to find the Park MGM Convention Center. We also were able to lock up our equipment each night in those ballrooms, so it made life easier on my brother each morning. We have a chance to return to the same space next year at Park MGM and I may lock it in soon. Finding good space in Las Vegas on the Strip gets harder and harder each year, so I may just ease my pain and lock this in. We'll see.
Anyway, a BIG THANKS once again to everyone who attended New Jersey or Las Vegas. Everyone at every single auction or draft was there on time and we really had no delays and very few tech hiccups. Players threw out opening bids at high levels to keep the auctions going and everyone in the drafts seemed prepared and ready to make their picks. It's different from the early years when I'd hand out multiple fantasy baseball magazines to each attendee and several people went right off the Cheat Sheets from one of those magazines. We've come a long way baby!!!
It never gets old seeing everyone I knew before or meeting new people I've never met before. It's a fantastic community of players that I enjoy hosting each year, and the staff gets along so well with our great facilitators that we often hang out at least one night on the weekends. We have a good thing going here and we'll try to keep it going.
Good luck in all your leagues this year and once again, THANKS, for helping us host two great weekends of live events and about six months of online drafting. It was a record-breaking year and we'll happily award more than $5.1 million in prize money this year. The only thing that makes us happier than taking in a lot of money is AWARDING a lot of money!!!
Good luck to each of you and enjoy the season ahead.