Why? Because it was just the most sensational season of NFFC drafting ever. We had 21,536 teams drafting on the NFFC site this season, starting the day after the Super Bowl through the morning of the Sunday Week 1 games. That's just insane.
We filled 1,778 leagues this year. We set records across the board that I'll talk about, but more than that the camaraderie that I saw at the live events was just heart-warming. I know we've created an incredible fantasy football community, but I now realize more than ever that those friendships that you folks have formed through fantasy football have become like best of friends in life friendships. That's pretty cool that we had a part in uniting some of you through fantasy football and in turn you talk to these folks as friends on a daily basis. I love it.
I do want to single out the live event participants for one moment, though. We ran about 47 live events in Las Vegas and 8 in New York City and for every single one every single participant was there on time and ready to draft. In fact, most of you were there early and wanted to announce your picks well before we launched the drafts. That makes our jobs so much easier. When I asked everyone to be 10 minutes early in Las Vegas on the final Saturday for some fun awards giveaways, everyone was there and seated 10 minutes early. Again, that makes our jobs so much easier.
The live events are so much fun and so enjoyable today compared to the early years when we had to chase people to get to the draft room on time. The electronic draft boards allow these drafts to be done in 90 minutes or less and even the online auction software can be used during a live auction if you're looking for players or Average Auction Values. We got a lot of positive feedback from our live drafters about our software and we have passed that onto our IT team. But we continue to take suggestions to make it even better and Darik will talk with John and our other IT guys to see what we can do to improve it even more in the future.
But again, THANK YOU to everyone for the best season ever. And next year is going to be our 20th anniversary season and we hope to make it even better yet!!! Let's enjoy this season, but I really think our 20th anniversary season is going to be one to remember.
But here's the bottom line on the 2022 NFFC season:
* 984 Primetime teams - a record and a big jump from 816 teams last year and 636 teams in 2020
* 4,752 Rotowire Online Championship teams - a record and a big jump from 4,256 teams in 2021
* 3,072 Draft Champions National Championship teams - a record and our first time over 3,000 teams
* 240 Silver Bullet teams - a sellout with 240 unique owners
* 720 Online Auction Championship teams - the max total again and up 312 teams from last year
* 2,130 Cutline Championship teams - this was the only national championship contest that didn't sell out and it's something we'll look at for 2023. We love the format, but we'll see where we can improve this product and if $100,000 is the right number for the grand prize
* 98 Classic teams - we are glad to keep the Classic around and filling 7 leagues plus a New York Super 14-Team private league was great. This format will stick around for our 20th anniversary season and hopefully longer.
* 10 Live Auctions - It was great to have eight $1500 Auction Leagues and two $2500 auction leagues. We hope to grow the auction format through our Online Auction Championship Leagues, but having more live auction leagues is great, too. We have the best live auctioneers in the industry and it's so much fun to have more live auction leagues this year.
* 9 Super Leagues, 3 Ultimate Leagues, 2 Diamond Leagues and a Platinum League. The demand for the high-dollar private leagues has never been higher, which is great, and it's possible we could expand this list next year. We'll see.
On behalf of myself, Tom, Darik, Brian and all our great facilitators, THANK YOU again for a great, great drafting season. You made our jobs easier and hopefully we made your drafting experience better. Let's enjoy the competition ahead and may the best teams win.
As for New York City and Las Vegas, we are looking at the venues we had this year and seeing if space is available already for 2023. Dave & Busters worked for us this year, but if we're going to return there we have to feel confident that we can have two drafts at once in those rooms. The setup works for one auction at a time, but getting two live drafts in there at once and working on the air conditioning is key to us returning. We'll continue to look at every possible hotel space in the area, but there's a reason we are the only live events provider to host in New York City: It's not easy or cheap to do so. If anyone has any other suggestions or comments, we are all ears.
In Las Vegas, Park MGM turned out to be a great venue for the Second Weekend events and several people said they would like us to stay there. I am talking with them already about our March NFBC events and they do have space right now for March and next September. We'll see where the talks go, but staying at Park MGM and/or Bellagio is definitely on the table for NFFC 2023. I'm talking with them now and will know more shortly, but thanks for any and all feedback on those hotels. And I thought the Bellagio was perfect for First Weekend as those DaVinci Ballrooms are spacious and easy to get to.
THANK YOU again and best of luck this season. We couldn't be happier with the drafting season and now let's enjoy the in-season part of the game. This should be a fun next 16 weeks for everyone involved. Good luck and we can't wait to award more than $5 million in prizes at season's end!!!
and thanks to Chris and Joe for hosting us on Thursday night at GST before the NY event began. It was great to get back there. And ParkMGM was a great location with everything there a hit as well. The Saturday Primetime in particular with 5 leagues all drafting at once was so much fun to watch but the entire weekend went off without a hitch and it was great seeing old friends and meeting plenty of new ones. 