The 2025 season was another fantastic year in the NFFC as we gave away over $6 million in prizes and had almost 25,000 teams competing for prize money. Since 2004, the total amount of prize money awarded through the NFBC, NFFC, NFBKC and NFHC is over $115 million, which is amazing.
The NFFC hosted Live Events in Las Vegas and New York City in 2025 for the 22nd straight season, but it marked the first time we ever hosted Live Events at Greenwich Street Tavern in Tribeca. We filled eight auction and draft leagues in one day there outside New York City and participants had a fantastic time at GST. We’ll be back there in 2026. And in Las Vegas, we hosted live events both weekends at Park MGM and had a record total of 56 live events there. What a year.
Our flagship contest – the NFFC Primetime – once again sold out as we finished with a record 1,068 teams and 89 leagues. It was a historic year as we crowned our 17th different overall champion in the last 18 years as the tag team of Rakesh Chilakapati of Arlington, Virginia and his partner Shawn Wilson teamed up to win the 2025 NFFC Primetime Championship title and that $250,000 grand prize. Their "Rakaroni" team had a historic Championship Round as it scored 747.22 points, the second highest total in Primetime Championship Round history. Their team scored 198.6 points in Week 17 of the Championship Round to win the title by 21.46 points. For Rakesh, it's the culmination of 15 years of competing in the NFFC as he first joined our contest in 2011. While he loves the 14-Team Classic format best, he's been in the Primetime most of the time and he finally took down his first NFFC national title and the $250,000 grand prize.
The Rotowire Online Championship finished with 4,284 teams, up 11 leagues from last year. Wilson Moy of Las Vegas, Nevada won the 2025 Rotowire Online Championship and the $250,000 grand prize, but not without a sweat on Monday night. Four teams entered the Monday Night Game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Atlanta Falcons within 1.09 points of the top spot and all four teams had players going that night. This title once again came down to the final minutes of the final game of the season, just like it usually does. And fortunately for Wilson, he had the best player in that game. His "wassup my Njigba" team held the top spot heading into that game, but he had just a 0.05 point lead over Andrew Geller while Rob Giese and Luis Carranza were both within 1.09 points of him. Carranza had three players going that night, while Wilson had Bijan Robinson and Kyle Pitts going that night. It became a mismatch as Bijan put up 39.9 points in an epic performance and Pitts added 3.60 points. In the end, the "wassup my Njigba" team set a new Rotowire Online Championship Round record with 776.51 points. This is Wilson's second NFFC national championship as he also won the NFFC Classic overall title in 2018. He joins a small group of two-time overall NFFC champions that includes the likes of NFFC Hall of Famers Chad Schroeder and Mark Srebro.
Martin Bedell of Poughkeepsie, New York became our 22nd different champion in the 22 years that we've hosted the NFFC Classic Championship as his team won the overall title and captured the FREE 2026 NFFC Classic entry, valued at $2,000. All prize money this year was once again distributed through the league prizes with first place in each league earning $16,000 and only the one prize in the overall competition. Marty Bedell has competed in the NFFC Classic every year since 2004 as he is an NFFC Charter Member who loves this 14-team format. He finished fourth in his league in points, but then had an epic Championship Round, finishing with 635.72 points to edge Rick Hart by 21.71 points for the title.
NFFC Hall of Famer Michael Edelman won the 2025 NFFC Silver Bullet Championship and that $50,000 grand prize, but it didn't come without a sweat. He had to hold off fellow NFFC Hall of Famer Chris Vaccaro on the final day of the season to win the industry's only single-entry national championship. Mike becomes our seventh different champion in the seven-year history of the NFFC Silver Bullet as he defeated a record field of 264 teams for the title. His “Incredible Hulking Us” team won its league title and was 4th among 68 teams heading into the Championship Round. It fell to 43rd place after Week 15, but it finished with two 200+ point weeks to give Mike his first NFFC national title in his Hall of Fame career. He's been with the NFFC every year since its inception in 2004.
NFFC veteran Dave Taylor of Niagara, New York won the 2025 NFFC Cutline Championship and the $50,000 grand prize as he topped a field of 1,030 teams. Dave became our 13th different champion in the 13-year history of this contest as nobody has been able to win this overall twice. Dave reached the "final table" of 12 participants in Week 17 and he didn't secure the title until late in the Monday Night Game when Puka Nacua scored a fourth quarter TD. Interestingly, Dave made it to the Championship Round by qualifying through the Wild Card Tier in Week 15 and his closest competitor in Week 17 also jumped up from the Wild Card Tier the week before. NFFC veteran Cal Suer also dropped out of the Championship Round after Week 15, but he had the highest scoring team in the Wild Card Tier in Week 16 to vault to "the final table." Cal had the lead heading into the Monday Night Game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Atlanta Falcons, but WR Drake London scored only 1.4 points for Cal before leaving with an injury, while Nacua scored 15.7 for Dave Taylor. The end result was an 8.64 point lead for Dave Taylor and the $50,000 grand prize as he scored 513.72 points.
Eddie Ayers of York, South Carolina won the 2025 NFFC Best Ball National Championship and the $30,000 grand prize against a field of 2,328 teams. This was another close finish as Eddie needed some Sunday Night heroics from Brock Purdy and Christian McCaffrey to finish on top in what was another close finish for our Best Ball Championship. Eddie had never won a national title before this year, but he was in the driver's seat for most of the year in this contest. He jumped into the overall lead in Week 10 and held the top spot right to the end. He got a bit of a scare though as David Dorman moved into the lead on Sunday of Week 17, but Purdy then scored 45.95 points and CMC added 28.10 points against the Bears on Sunday night and the title was all his. Eddie won the title with 3,247.25 points, which was 33.6 points ahead of Dorman.
Graig Crawford of Thornton, Colorado won the 2025 NFFC Online Auction Championship and the $15,000 grand prize as he beat a record field of 960 teams to win this sixth annual national championship. Graig not only won this title, but he had four teams finish in the Top 10 overall. Along with his first place team, he had teams finish 7th, 9th and 10th overall, which is amazing. Graig loves this online auction format and he had 18 teams in the OLAC. He won five league titles and had five runner-up finishers, getting 10 teams into the Championship Round. The CrawBla06 team won the title with 724.36 points, finishing 31.82 points ahead of the field.
We debuted two new national championships in 2025: The NFFC Gladiator Championship and the NFFC Guillotine Championship. Zach Waxman of Ancaster, Ontario became the first person to ever win the same national championship in different sports in the same year!!! Zach won the NFBC Gladiator Championship in 2025 and he followed that up by winning the debut NFFC Gladiator Championship and that $7,500 grand prize. The NFFC Gladiator Championship debuted this year with 1,356 teams consisting of 113 leagues. Prizes were based on 2,100 teams, so it didn't sell out. But we love the concept of picking 14 starting players and seeing who can get the most points in 17 weeks out of those 14 players without any Free Agent pickups or Set Lineup decisions. Just draft and be done; and then pray for good health!!! Zach had the best team and the healthiest team as his @fantasyworker team finished with 3,395.30 points, finishing 99.45 points ahead of the field for the title and the $7,500 grand prize.
The NFFC created the first-ever Guillotine National Championship in 2025 as all leagues in the $50, $100, $200 and $400 price points sent their Top 4 teams to an overall Championship Round in Weeks 14-17. We finished with a total of 95 leagues in all price points, which meant that we had 1,615 teams competing in this contest, with 380 teams making it to the Championship Round. When all was said and done, Michael Bass, 74, of New York City won the $5,000 grand prize with 820.6 points. His Super Bowl III team moved up three spots in Week 17 as it scored 210.9 points to win the title by 10.0 points. This was probably the craziest Championship Round we had in the NFFC because every single roster was so different based on their leagues. In each Guillotine league, the last place team for that week is "chopped" from the competition and their whole 17-man roster is put back into the Free Agent pool. This happens for Weeks 1 through 14 and teams manage their $1,000 FAAB budgets for 14 weeks to keep adding replacements to their rosters. Bass picked up the likes of Puka Nacua, Trey McBride, Chase Brown, Jalen Hurts and others in FAAB throughout the years as teams in his league got “chopped”. We love this format.
Congratulations to George Tsamis and David Kheel as they won the 2025 NFFC Football Challenge Roto and Points titles, respectively. Tsamis won the $20,000 grand prize for winning the Roto Challenge, while also earning $4,000 for having the second place team as well. Kheel won the $15,000 grand prize for winning the Points Challenge. These contests were started in 1993 with CDM Fantasy Sports and continue today in the NFFC.
The tag team of Steve Georgalos of Whitestone, New York and David Hubbard of Angleton, Texas dominated the NFFC Platinum League in the Championship Round to win the title and that $120,000 league prize. They finished with 608.58 points to win the title by 51.11 points. David Hubbard thus becomes the first three-time Platinum League winner as he also won with Nelson Sousa in 2014 and 2017. This partnership came together at the last minute and has now developed into a great friendship. They grabbed the last spot in the Platinum League to fill it out and they didn't officially become partners until a few days before Draft Day at Park MGM in Las Vegas. But they drafted together live in Las Vegas, made it to the Championship Round and had the high point totals in Weeks 16 and 17 to win the $120,000 league prize.
Winning NFFC Diamond League titles and $60,000 each were Riku VihreAsaari and Rob Aspinall. Riku had a heck of a year as he won the Diamond League, finished second in the Las Vegas 12-Team Ultimate League and finished third in the 14-Team UItimate League. He has played in the private high-stakes leagues since 2011, but this is his first league title in the Diamond League. His FinnishFlash team totaled 653.27 points in the Championship Round to finish 64.55 points ahead of Jason Magoon. Rob Aspinall of Houston, Texas won the 2025 NFFC Diamond League that was held in Las Vegas on Friday, September 5th at 3 pm PT. This is Rob's second NFFC Diamond League title as he also won this title in 2023. His "CanAmConnection" team finished fourth during the regular season to just make the Championship Round, but it had big weeks in Weeks 16 and 17 to finish 13.43 points ahead of John Pierce for the $60,00 prize.
We had three Ultimate League champions this year with Brian Zeid of Aurora, Ohio winning the 2025 NFFC 14-Team Ultimate League and that $30,000 prize with a solid Championship Round. His team finished second in points during the regular season, avoided the “cuts” in Weeks 15 and 16 and then had a big Week 17 to win the title by 36 points over Michael Edelman. In the 12-Team Ultimate leagues, NFFC Hall of Famer Chad Schroeder and Roger Gonzalez each won titles and $25,000. Chad won the NFFC Las Vegas 12-Team Ultimate League that was held on Friday, September 5th at Park MGM. Chad's "Cocktails & Dreams" team finished third in points during the regular season, but it then finished with the top score in the Championship Round to win the $25,000 league prize. Cocktails & Dreams finished just 8.64 points ahead of Riku VihreÃsaari for the title. Roger Gonzalez of Metairie, Louisiana won the NFFC 12-Team Ultimate Online league that was held on Tuesday, September 2nd and that $25,000 league prize. Roger's "Sideline Sage" team finished second during the regular season in points and then had a big Championship Round effort to win the title by 53.68 points. Chad has now won four NFFC 12-Team Ultimate league titles, while this was the first one for Roger.
We had a record eight NFFC Super Draft Leagues in 2025 and five NFFC Super Auction leagues. Wow. Winning Super League Draft titles were: Chris Vaccaro, New York 12-Team Super League ($16,500); Brett Giglio, September 3rd 12-Team Online Super League ($19,000); Bob Catsiroumpas, September 5th 12-Team Online Super League ($19,000); Jeff Pretzer, August 31st 12-Team Online Super League ($14,000); Lou Weber, August 28th 12-Team Online Super League ($14,000); Chad Schroeder, 12-Team Las Vegas Super League ($16,500), Chris Eibl, August 25th 12-Team Online Super League ($16,500); and Michael Edelman, August 30th 12-Team Online Super League ($16,500).
Winning Super Auction League titles were: Chris Vaccaro, Michael Edelman, Las Vegas 14-Team Super Auction League ($19,000); Chris Eibl, New York 12-Team Super Auction League ($19,000); Roger Gonzalez, Las Vegas September 3rd 12-Team Super Auction League ($19,000); and Aaron Rask, Las Vegas September 5th 12-Team Super Auction League ($16,500).
We hosted three NFFC Kickoff Gridiron Leagues in 2025 at Park MGM and we came away with three great champions. Scott Keikoan of Las Vegas won the 14-Team Kickoff Gridiron League title for the first time, a title he has always wanted to win!! Kevin Hudson of Kersey, Colorado won the 12-Team Kickoff Gridiron League title, also his first win in this format as he took down the Friday night Gridiron title. And Matthew Shepherd of Napa, California won the Thursday night NFFC 12-Team Kickoff Gridiron League, his second Gridiron title in this format. att previously won the 2018 12-Team Kickoff Gridiron league title.
Jaron Bybee of Blackfoot, Idaho won our NFFC $25/$50 Best Ball Championship and a FREE 2026 NFFC Primetime entry. Jaron joined the NFFC in 2024 and has been a solid Best Ball Championship player and now he gets to step up to the NFFC Primetime for the first time. The NFFC $25/$50 Best Ball Championship had 3,106 teams and Jaron won his $25 Best Ball league and that $200 league prize and this FREE Primetime entry valued at $1,800. He now can turn that $25 entry into a $250,000 grand prize if everything goes right next year.
The NFFC introduced a new contest in 2024 called the Champions League Qualifier. Twelve owners from last year advanced to the CLQ Championship Round and Kyle Hillesheim of Egan, Minnesota won the debut title as he defeated 11 other competitors in this league. Kyle won $6,125 as we paid the Top 4 teams overall.
And we topped off the year with two NFFC Post-Season Contests.
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