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.

A quiet, unassuming truck driver/DJ/Swolecast fan named Farid Shaheed took down the contest with a heavily correlated team. The anti-Week 17 bros took a nail to their coffin. Farid hilariously didn’t tell his girlfriend or family.

After the first place prize grew each of the first four years, BBM found its footing with a flatter payout structure in 2024—$1.5m to first place and the Top 20 finishers all walking away with at least $100k. Best ball bros became a heavily evolved species.

A user named LGREWE50 shipped BBMV and became our first fully anonymous winner. They have yet to do any interviews or guest spots.

And now BBMVI will drop on Monday. I think they nailed the prize structure and found the perfect balance between playoff and regular season prizes.

BBM editions of Best Ball Breakfast will kick off Monday at 10am et. As I mentioned on After Dark, Shawn Siegele will sadly not be back this year for a regular spot, but we are all lucky that Leone will be replacing him.

Here’s the lineup for 4/28:

🤓 FANTASY LIFE: Early Bird Discount. There are some very cool things coming for best ballers at Fantasy Life this summer that I’m excited for you guys to see. You can lock in 25% early bird discount for FantasyLife+ with promo code EARLY25:

I write the Fantasy Life Newsletter three days/week right now. Get it in your inbox free every am:

☕ BEST BALL BREAKFAST: These Rookies Won’t Be Cheap Next Week. One final stream for the pre-draft sickos.

☣ LOLZ: BBMVI Payouts & The Future of Best Ball. Plus, a discussion on the ProphetX controversy.

🚢 SHIP CHASING: Round 1 Watch Party. What a night.

⏰ OFF & ON THE CLOCK: Bold Predictions For The NFL Draft. We guessed the landing spots for all of the top rookies.

💪 THE SWOLECAST: Draft Ruminations. The one where we discussed whether Tuttle should get a vasectomy.

📈 ADP CHASING: How The Rookie Class Will Reshape ADP Landscape. The slate is about to get flipped on its head.

🥃 DFS AFTER DARK: Shawn Siegele’s Next Move. a wide-ranging conversation about fantasy, writing, and business with the fantasy G.O.A.T.

📛 BADGE BROS: Underdog State of the Games with Nick Rudman. Must watch if you play on UD.

Best Ball After Dark returns Saturday night (8:00pm et) with special guest Sackreligious. We’ll be building out a draft plan for BBM and identifying the risers to target when the contest opens.

You can become a YT member for access or subscribe on Spotify for a private RSS feed (I post the video/audio there directly after the show).

I wrapped up our April book the other day and have decided on May selection. Notes below…

🍌 Book #4 for May (5%): Gator Country: Deception, Danger, and Alligators in the Everglades by Rebecca Renner

David Grann meets Susan Orlean in this page-turning true story of an underground operation into the mysterious world of alligator poaching and its larger than life Floridian characters.

H/t to Eddie for this recommendation, which feels right up my (our?!) alley.

🍌 Book #3 for April (COMPLETED): The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King by Rich Cohen

I enjoyed parts of this book—mainly the early scenes about Zemurray’s pluck—but it didn’t grip me in the way Empire of Pain or the Erik Larson non-fiction stories did.

Here’s a smattering of comments from the Discord that I think do a good job of articulating where it comes up short:

💉 Book #2 for March (FINISHED): Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe.
🐃 Book #1 for February (FINISHED): The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry

Got a question for me? Reply to this e-mail and I’ll get back to you…