Fantasy Baseball 2025: Prepping for the Main Event

This article is targeted at subscribers preparing for their first NFBC Main Event league, with a particular focus on drafting live. The recommendations in this article also should be helpful to fantasy managers drafting online and for contests other than the Main Event.

The NFBC Main Event is the premier high-stakes fantasy baseball contest. Managers compete in 15-team leagues with a 30-round snake draft and weekly FAAB. Main Event teams cost $1,800, and the league prizes are $7,500 for first place, $3,700 for second and $1,800 for third. A major attraction of the Main Event is the overall component, with managers competing not only to win their individual leagues, but also against every other team in the contest.

Last year, there were 855 Main Event teams (57 15-team leagues), and the top 35 teams won overall prizes, with Clark Olson winning the championship and pocketing $200,000 (in addition to the prize for winning his league). This year, in Las Vegas, Clark — who has been competing in the Main Event since it started in 2004 — will be inducted as the 10th member of the NFBC’s Hall of Fame.

The overall component works exactly like roto categories within a single league but is applied to all teams in the contest. Thus, if there are 855 teams, the team with the most runs scores 855 overall points in that category, the team with the second-most runs scores 854, etc., all the way down to the team with the fewest runs, which scores one point. This scoring system is also applied to the other nine roto categories and overall standings are tracked throughout the season just like league standings.

The league prizes (increased for this year) are attractive, but with a sizeable portion of the entry fees being allocated to the overall prize pool, most fantasy managers want to leave the draft with at least some chance for overall glory. That means that the vast majority of managers are striving for strong performance in all roto categories; there is hardly any intentional punting of categories in Main Event drafts (although circumstances may lead managers to punt categories in-season, usually after hopes of an overall prize have been extinguished, to finish as high as possible in individual leagues).

Drafting Live or Online

One of the first decisions a manager participating in the Main Event needs to make is whether to draft live or online. As a huge fan of the NFBC’s live events, I am very biased on this one. If folks have the time and the resources to attend the live events, do it. Last year, in a similar article, I wrote this about drafting live: “You will experience the NFBC community at its finest, and where else can you get to spend days with like-minded, super competitive/obsessed people that share your love for baseball and fantasy baseball? It’s also a lot more fun drafting in the same room, face-to-face with your competition, complete with typical draft banter and trash-talking. I love drafting fantasy baseball teams and while doing so online is always fun, I cannot overstate how much more enjoyable it is to draft live – and socialize with – fellow NFBC fanatics.” I feel the exact same way one year later.