How To Nail Your Fantasy Football Draft This Year, Commish
Your fantasy football draft is the closest thing you will have to planning a wedding, oh mighty commissioner, so do right by your league and yourself and heed the following.
The four most important things you need to consider are:
1. Strong WiFi 2. Hearty food 3. Plentiful drinks 4. General merriment
If you handle the first three with care, the fourth should come naturally. So with those in mind, here are some unique options that check off all these boxes and then some:
Draft from the comfort of your own couch
This one is easy, cheap and by far most boring. But hey, life gets in the way and not everyone can drop everything to sit in a room with 11 other guys for 4 hours.
For this, everyone logs into your draft from wherever he or she is and you bang it out, round after round. Warning: You will get bored, so BYOC (bring your own caffeine).
Your fantasy football provider makes this one easy; just check the live online drafts from Yahoo! or the NFL.com.
Throw a party at someone else's house
There's always one member of the league -- we'll call him "André" -- who makes way more money than the rest of you and has the sweet apartment to show for it.
He's never the commissioner, but he'd be more than willing to host if you do all the work.
Just do a sweep of the space before: Make sure he has WiFi to match his 54" 4K flatscreen and a fridge not stuffed with kale and coconut water. Also, order the booze ahead of time to be delivered so you're not scrambling to find a case of Schaefer 10 minutes before the first round (Drizly can help you with that).
On to the food. Make it easy to cleanup; you don't want the savages in your league getting wing sauce all over his Italian leather sofa. Everyone loves those giant sandwiches, so fire up your Seamless account like the Millennial cliche you are.
As for the draft itself, Draft Night makes the logistics easy with a Big Board you can AirPlay onto your TV and individual roster selection (and it even lets your friends who get unavoidably detained remote-in their picks).
Let your local be your fantasy
Your neighborhood bar offers everything you need for a solid fantasy football draft, especially if you do it on one of the less busy weeknights (stay away from Trivia and Happy Hour).
You want to bring in a dozen or more people on a slow Tuesday night to run up a food and drink tab and sit quietly in a corner? They'll be pouring you a bartender's round before you know it.
Plus, there won't be the headache of check splitting after the fact; bars are used to 12 pieces of plastic being thrown around when the bill comes.
If you're in NYC, the indispensable Murph Guide has an exhaustive list of bars that would love to help you blow your first-round pick. If you're not, just ask your favorite local sports bar; they'd be fools not to take you in.
The Destination Draft
Now we come to the big one, the option that will make you seem like the commissioner of the year.
If your league has a few bucks to spend, this is the option for you.
Get away from work, family and life so you can focus on the important things: Antonio Brown's pre-season workouts and how cheap you can grab Tom Brady with his suspension in place.
Some places have specific fantasy football draft packages available: Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut has all kinds of packages that include WiFi, draft kids, food and drink specials in one of the VIP suites, and they even come with a butler! A real butler!
Plus, you can hit the tables afterward to try to make up the money you're eventually going to lose after your stud second-rounder ends his season early with turf toe.
If you're willing to hop on a plane and make a weekend of it, Vegas is always awake and open. SinCityVIP has a wide array of options to help you draft, eat, celebrate and even get over the next day's hangover in and out of the desert heat.
And for those of you who worship the Shiva, the beach is calling. Renting with Airbnb ensures you can pick a place with strong WiFi and an even stronger view of the water. Which is more important? The WiFi of course, but the view helps when your cheat sheet is useless by the third round and your league's Taco starts to draft his multiple kickers.
You now have the options in front of you, so make a decision: Time is running out before the Super Bowl 50 rematch that kicks off the season on Thursday, September 8.
Cheers!
