So, you want to save your fantasy league from the throes of boring, lonely, online drafts? I can’t tell you we have all the answers, because I believe there’s always room for improvement in everything we do. I will, however, tell you that the core members within the Church of Gronk fantasy league have worked, and continue to work, each year to go bigger and better with the draft experience.
If you’re like me, you play in multiple fantasy football leagues each fall. I average about six leagues per season and there are two leagues that stand above the rest. The number one reason for that? Live drafts. It gives me the opportunity to reconnect with the other dozen or so members that I will be competing and talking trash with for the next several months. The chemistry just isn’t the same if you don’t have the chance to interact with your fantasy peers face-to-face and cultivate those relationships.
Who am I kidding, though? One of the biggest perks of the live draft is the excuse to cut loose for a few hours (or days) with your pals and put the weight of real life on the shelf during that time. I mean, this is something that takes place just ONCE a year. Live a little…
I’ll spare you the hours I could spend sharing stories and history of our live drafts year after year, but you do need to understand how this event grew into what it is now. The Church of Gronk was born in 2012. Our transition from online to live drafting was made in 2015. That first live draft took place at a Hooters restaurant, and while much fun was had and teams were drafted, the public event just didn’t allow us to explore all the possibilities and create the awesome traditions we hold dear now. But we live and we learn and we grow, right? Now, for the things you’ll need to set that draft party OFF!
1. PEOPLE!
Unequivocally, most importantly, the people in your fantasy league are the main ingredient. If you have that commissioner who is selfish, or if you have that league loser who thinks they’re too good to follow through with the punishment they agreed to at the start of the season, that can spoil the vibe for the whole group. Fill your league with people that you get along with, can have a good time with, and care about. I promise you the correct combination of personalities will create one of your favorite events of the year and give you memories to last a lifetime. Conversely, the wrong combination will kill your league before the season comes to a close.
2. DRAFT DATE
The date is important because, once you have your league members locked in, you’ll want to accommodate them all as best you can. But also, don’t be the league that schedules their live draft in July. Most NFL teams don’t even report to training camp until the end of the month so that’s just too early…
For us, the sweet spot was always the final weekend of August. By that point, you’re through the meat of training camp, most of those inevitable pre-season injuries will have already happened, and your members can avoid feeling their season has derailed before it even begins. To keep one of our league’s founding fathers and former champions, we bumped our annual draft date up a weekend earlier in August, beginning a couple of years ago. His daughter’s birthday always falls right around that final weekend of the month so we had to make the decision to accommodate, or lose him if we continued with that schedule. Since then, he’s won back-to-back championships so I’m not sure if we made the right decision for the league after all…
3. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
As I stated before, public drafts are cool, but they’re just not for us. If you want to schedule a Hooters or a Buffalo Wild Wings or even a TopGolf live draft, that is absolutely your prerogative. Again, people are the most important ingredient for a healthy league and accommodating them is key. If you’re going to schedule a draft at a place like those listed above though, my recommendation would be TopGolf. Their live draft packages are obviously going to be a little pricier than the others, but man, they know how to set your league up for one hell of a time!
If you decide to go the route of a more private live draft, you can pretty much never go wrong with a league member’s place if they offer to host. If that’s the case, allow that member to host and then everyone else put together a spread of food and drink. A perk of doing drafts this way is your league can avoid having to pay for the place to hold the draft. Also, it’s likely a familiar venue for your league members. It goes without saying that you should always show respect and appreciation for the hosting member and their property.
With us building our draft into the annual weekend retreat that it’s become, we use a majority of our league dues to rent an Airbnb within an hour or so of our hometown. We’ve booked mountain cabins and lake houses, and both have been smashing successes. In 2022, we booked a cabin that seemed like the perfect setting for 12 guys to escape to for a couple days. Enough beds for everyone, plenty of space for draft activities, just the right amount of seclusion so that we don’t disturb any neighbors, and an amazing set of hosts that own the property. We’re lucky to have been able to schedule this location for our 2023 draft as well!
4. WHAT YOU GON’ EAT?
If people are the most important ingredient for a successful draft, food is a close second. No one is going to enjoy the draft party if the food is bad or nonexistent altogether. Start having the discussion a couple weeks prior to draft day and get everyone on the same page.
Potlucks are a fun way to let all your league mates create a wonderful variety of goodies. I can almost guarantee you’ll have members that bring something from their local Walmart bakery/deli, you’ll have someone else show up with some Little Caesar’s hot & ready pizzas, but you’ll also have opened the door for some members to bring some home-cooked delicacies. Family recipes that have been passed down for generations. No matter what, potlucks will assuredly provide enough food for all.
Want to skip the hassle and have it catered? That’s another fine idea. Just be aware that catering isn’t always the cheapest option, depending on what you get. Even for a group as small as 10-12, it can get a little pricey. I’d say you can expect at least $200 on a catering bill if you get anything other than $5 pizzas. We’ve done pizzas, we’ve done wings, we’ve even done seafood boils that were catered. All were delicious and served their purpose, but all were additional costs to each member of the league.
The best way we’ve found to attack the food situation for our drafts has been to agree on a main course that the league fund pays for. Then we can purchase the ingredients and cook it ourselves, while each member can bring whatever side or dessert they feel necessary. It’s basically still a potluck, but with a little more direction.
5. DRAFT MATERIALS
If you’re going to do a live draft, you gotta have a draft setup. You can’t just have everyone sitting there, writing their picks on a piece of notebook paper. No, you need to have, at minimum, a draft board with player labels. The price on these can vary, depending on what you want. The Church of Gronk league fund pays for our custom board every year (pictured below), which costs approximately $65. It has our league name and logo on it, and the guys love it. You can typically get away a little cheaper if you order a generic board without customization, though.
A podium is such a nice touch for a live draft. It gives your commissioner a proper place to give their State of the League speech or opening remarks to officially open your draft. It also gives your members a proper place to stand and announce each pick. I built a podium from scratch (pictured above) a couple of years ago, specifically for this event, and you wouldn’t believe how much this improved the flow of our draft. Previously, members would just stand at their chair and yell their pick before placing the player label on the board. That’s no fun. This is a draft. Act accordingly.
Know that there is no limit to how far you can go with draft décor. I’ve seen some insane draft setups that I honestly envy. But we’re not rich so we’ll continue to add on each year, little by little. You can go wild with championship banners, member nameplates and seating charts, lights, PVC goalposts, podium backdrops, and the list goes on and on.
NOW GO HAVE FUN! If you have your people, your place, your food, and at least a draft board and a podium of sorts, you’ve got all you really need to have an awesome fantasy draft party! No, it doesn’t have to be an entire weekend event like the Church of Gronk draft. (If you can get all members of your league to agree to it though, it’s like the best weekend of the year.) We wish you a successful draft, a competitive season, and healthy league for years to come!
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