Underdog BBM5 Preview

It’s here. It’s back. 

Underdog Fantasy kicks off Best Ball Summer with their glorious Best Ball Mania V contest, dropping today at 12 p.m. ET! This is the fifth installment of their flagship best ball contest, following last year’s record-breaking BMMIV, which featured a $15 million prize pool and a $3 million first-place prize. 

Let’s take a look at everything you need to know about this year’s most popular Best Ball Tournament.

Underdog Fantasy Best Ball Mania V Structure

BBMV is part of a collection of best ball tournaments at UnderdogFantasy that will give away a record $17 million in prizes. 

This is headlined by BBMV, which is $25 per entry (although if you use promo code FTN at sign-up, Underdog will match your deposit up to $100 dollars, giving you as many as four extra entries). While the top prize in BBMV has been reduced to $1.5 million, the prize money has been restructured to give greater payouts to the lower finishers. For example, 15th place received $15K last year but will receive $125K this year. There are no payouts for regular-season finishes, which also allows for higher-end payouts during the playoffs. 

When Should I Draft in BBMV? 

This tournament takes all summer to fill, so it’s important to recognize the pros and cons of drafting at different times throughout the summer. If you draft early in the summer (May/June), you often get a discount on rookies who were just selected in last week’s NFL draft. Last season, late-round rookies such as wide receivers Puka Nacua and Tank Dell were fantastic values. If you draft later in the summer, you have more clarity on many positional battles and can avoid unfortunate preseason injuries. There is no “perfect” time to draft. Last year’s BBMIV winning team was drafted on August 28. 

It’s All About the Playoffs

Two years ago, in Best Ball Mania III, 90% of the total prize pool went to the top teams in the fantasy playoffs, and 10% ($1,000,000) went to one single entry in the regular season.

Last year, 33% of the prize pool went to 10,000 teams from the regular season. The top 1,000 teams in BBM4 received prizes on a sliding scale (from $500,000 to first to $1,000 to 1,000th place) and the rest of the 10,000 teams all received $250. 

This year? It’s all about the playoffs, which will put an even bigger emphasis on Weeks 15-17. There will specifically be a huge push for Week 17 stacks, as teams will try to optimize the championship finale. 

We still do not have a date for the NFL schedule release, but we know it’s coming soon. Here are the dates for the last four schedule releases: 

• 2023: Thursday, May 11
• 2022: Thursday, May 12 
• 2021: Wednesday, May 12 
• 2020: Thursday, May 7

We should expect the 2024 NFL schedule release to happen within the next two weeks. Should you wait until the schedule release to draft in BBMV? Again, it’s a matter of perspective. Once the Week 17 schedule is released, everyone will start gravitating toward certain games, driving up the ADPs of key players. Drafting now comes with uncertainty, but if you pick the right players, you will benefit from a discount that will not exist in two weeks. 

Early Draft Strategy

If you start drafting today, you are embracing the unknown variables. I suggest reviewing all of our content here at FTN Fantasy including free agent signings and NFL Draft grades for each team. Our UnderdogFantasy ADP Tool is already live with the results from pre-draft tournaments as well. 

My best advice is to prioritize drafting a balanced team and target players whose ADP you anticipate will rise throughout the summer, especially rookies. The critical picks from last year’s winning team?  Rookie tight end Sam LaPorta in Round 11, rookie wide receiver Jayden Reed in Round 15 and rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud in Round 17. 

Make sure you stay with FTN Fantasy throughout the summer as we analyze the best strategies for Best Ball Mania V!