6 Years Of Mania

In this week's P.O. Box:

On Monday, Underdog will launch Best Ball Mania VI. That number makes me feel old.

I remember when the first BBM launched. It was the summer of 2020. We were still in the thick of COVID-19 and quarantine lockdowns. At the time of the announcement, Underdog wasn’t even in the Google Play Store yet. Some of the replies to the initial post are funny.

Justin Herzig won the inaugural contest and $250,000 thanks to a 6-TD game from Alvin Kamara.

Underdog kicked up the stakes with Best Ball Mania II. We announced it directly after the NFL Draft from a studio in Miami with a mega live stream. Best ball bros became a thing for the first time. I spent the summer streaming a bunch of drafts, including one with Erik Beimfohr that would go on to finish in the Top 10.

Chess Liam, who coincidentally served as my chess coach throughout that summer, won the $1m top prize. He reminds people of this fact every single day.

Things really started to heat up in 2023 with the launch of BBMII. There was $10m in total prizes and $2m to first. Underdog Cardio Club launched this year. Liam hosted a fantasy analyst named Pat Kerrane for a very fortuitous stream in the summer. Best ball bros spent the entire summer obsessing over Week 17 correlation.

Kerrane, my long-time Ship Chasing partner, shipped BBMIII after the final game of Week 17 was cancelled. Chasing Kerrane was born. The best ball streaming boom began. Mike Leone dropped the Best Ball Manifesto on ETR, which triggered a new wave of hyper-analytical best ball strategizing.

BBMIV went big with a $3m first place prize and also introduced significant regular season prizes, including $500k to first place. Best ball bros spent the summer worrying about weather during an El Nino year.