Now that you have decided to enter the high stakes fantasy baseball arena, it's time to figure out the best league to play in. It comes down to how much money you are willing to spend, the experience in the format and the knowledge of the player pool. The National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) is the most popular and rtsports.com and fantrax.com offer some leagues, too.
One of the ways I prepare for the season is by doing a NFBC draft champions league. There are entry fees of $150, $400 and $1,000 for this format. There's an overall prize of $30,000. The difference with this format is you don't make any waiver wire moves. As with all NFBC formats, there are no trades. All you do is draft your team and set your lineup each week for pitchers with hitters being allowed to be changed on Friday's for the weekend.
The drafts are 15 teams and 50 rounds, so you better know the player pool and minor leagues at an extremely deep level. If you don't, it's best not to participate unless you want to test yourself at the lowest entry fee. The drafts can be done with a one-hour clock or with a slow draft with two or four hours to make picks.
For those used to playing in a points format, the NFBC offers the best ball cutline championship. The leagues consist of 10 teams and 42 rounds. This is a best-ball format, which means you don't have to set lineups. It automatically takes the best scores each day for the 23 starting slots.
There are two FAAB periods on April 7 and June 2 where free agents can be acquired. The regular season ends July 7 and then there's a nine-week period where you need to make the cut to advance. The contest concludes on Sept. 20. The entry fee is $150 with $250 going to first place in the league as the majority of the entry fees go to the overall prize of $75,000. There's consolation prize of $5,000 to those that don't make the initial cut.
The big prize comes in the Main Event. This is a 5x5 roto league consisting of 15, 40-team leagues. The draft is 30 rounds with FAAB running each Sunday night. The overall prize is $150,000 and, in each league, the winner gets $7,000, second place gets $3,400 and third gets $1,700. These drafts can be done online or live in person in New York, Las Vegas and Chicago in March. These are very competitive leagues.
If the price point for the Main Event is too much, there's an online championship with an entry fee of $350. These are 12-team leagues with 30-round drafts and the max amount of teams is 2,400. The league winner gets $1,400 and second place gets $700. The overall prize winner gets $125,000. This format might be most similar to a home league except it's not a daily format. The pitchers are locked in at the beginning of the week, while the hitters can be changed on Friday for the weekend. FAAB runs on Sunday nights.
If you're not ready to play in an overall contest, there are satellite leagues where the entry fees are only rewarded to that league. For 15-team leagues, the entry fees are $150, $250 and $500. In the 12-team formats, the fees are $150, $250 and $500.
There's also an auction format, which I have participated in for the last two years live in New York. The entry fees are $1,400 and $2,500 with an overall prize of $30,000 and all these are live drafts. If you can't do it live, there is also a new format with the online auction championship with entry fees of $150, $250 and $500 with an overall prize of $3,000. These are 15 teams with 23 players being auctioned on a $260 budget with a seven-round snake draft after the auction. The top eight overall will be paid in addition to the top three in each league.
The RealTime Fantasy Baseball Championship is an online championship. The grand prize is $10,000 and the top 25 overall teams get paid. There will be up to 180 teams competing in 12-team leagues with an entry fee of $350. The league champion wins $900 and second place gets $600. The draft is 30 rounds with 23 starting spots in a 5x5 roto format.
RealTime Fantasy Sports also has leagues with the prizes going to the league only. These are 10-team leagues with different price points. The $125 leagues have $1,100 in prizes, $250 leagues have $2,250 in prizes, $500 leagues have $4,500 in prizes, $1,000 leagues have $9,000 in prizes and $2,000 leagues have $18,000 in prizes.
RealTime also has a 12-team head-to-head points style league. The entry fees are $125, $250, $500 and $1,000. The winner of the $1,000 league gets $6,000. The top four teams qualify for the playoffs and playoffs are a three-week total points challenge.
Fantrax.com doesn't have an overall championship, but they offer leagues with entry fees ranging from $100 to $1,000 that include roto, head-to-head points and points formats with weekly and daily options. The payouts for the $1,000 entry fee are $8,250 for first, $2,250 for second and $1,000 for third place.