2025 FFPC Big Gorilla Tournament Preview and 2024 Retrospective
2025 Preview
The FFPC “Big Gorilla” is the rebranded mid-stakes $1,000,000 Grand Prize redraft tournament, previously known as the FantasyPros Championship (and Footballguys Players Championship prior to that). It is one of the most popular national tournaments in fantasy football today and has an entry fee of $350 per team.
The Big Gorilla is actually two tournaments in one. The traditional prize structure, with a $1,000,000 grand prize for the overall winner, is in effect again in 2025. Beyond the top prize, there are some differences this year vs last in terms of prizes.
- Slightly smaller tournament pool size – 17,700 teams in 2025 (1475 leagues) vs 20,004 teams (1667 leagues) in 2024. Note that the tourney DID NOT sell out last year. 1375 out of a potential 1667 leagues filled, so there was some overlay that appears to be have factored in to a slightly smaller tournament size for this year. (Remember the top prize money is guaranteed regardless of entries).
- Some slight reductions in prize amounts beyond 1st, which is still $1,000,000. Ex. 2nd is $150,000 vs $200,000 in 2024, 3rd is 50,000 vs $75,000 in 2024.
- Prize payouts for overall finish goes down to Top 800 finishers vs Top 1000 finishers in 2024, but consider that “prizes” of subscriptions to the FantasyPros website service have been eliminated.
- Prizes for coming in 1st or 2nd within your individual league remain the same. 1st place prize of $1500 (or 2026 Main Event entry or 5 2026 Big Gorilla entries), and a 2nd place prize of $500.
- 2 consecutive 7 picks wins a $125 Best Ball Tournament credit (Odds: 144 to 1)
- 3 consecutive 7 picks wins a 2026 FFPC Main Event entry – $2200 value (Odds: 1728 to 1)
- 4 consecutive 7 picks wins a 2026 FFPC High Society League entry – $10,000 value (Odds: 20,736 to 1)
- 5 consecutive 7 picks wins an all-expense paid Jungle Safari for four or $50,000 in cash (Odds: 248,832 to 1)
- Regular Season – The regular season WILL BE 12 WEEKS. You will play every other team in the league once, and Week 6 will be conducted as an “ALL-PLAY” week, where the 12 teams will be ranked according to points. The top 6 teams in Week 6 get a win, and the bottom 6 teams a loss.
- League Championships – Weeks 13 and 14 are a 2 week head to head elimination between the top 4 seeds coming out of the regular season (seeds based on overall record and win loss record). Newer players should keep in mind that there may be players on bye weeks during this championship period. (Schedules are TBD). If you make it to the league championships and lose week 13, there is no league prize money. Making it to the Week 14 championship game has a 1st place prize of $1500 and 2nd place prize of $500. Carrying week 13/14 bye players strengthens your team to win the league (as you won’t have to fill in for them during regular season byes), but you may stumble in the league championships. Advancing to the Championship Round should be the focus however. Regardless of your league championship outcome, the top two (2) seeds (highest points and best record) of each league in the regular season earn an automatic berth into the Championship Round, where the big money prize is. The league champion also earns a berth into the Championship Round, so if you win the league as a 3/4 seed coming into them, you also advance to the Championship Round.
- Championship Round – From each individual league, 2 to 3 teams will earn a berth to the Championship Round, which is a 3 week total points sprint in weeks 15 -17 for the overall title. The regular season overall points leader and win-loss leader from each league automatically win berths into the Championship Round. An additional third team can make it to the Championship Round if they win the league championship, but were not the league point / win-loss leader. In 2024, the Championship Round had 3,358 teams competing against one another in this 3 week sprint. It’s not JUST about week 17, but a cumulative performance across 3 weeks that starts with your average weekly score during the 12 week regular season. Below you will find an “Enhanced Leaderboard” from the 2024 Championship Round, which not only shows the final standings, but the standings at the beginning, and after each week of the 3 week sprint.
HUGE NEW BONUS FEATURE FOR 2025 – There is an additional tournament, called “The Early Rampage”, that is a COMPLETELY FREE ADDITIONAL BONUS for those players who sign up and join as one of the first 2,400 teams (200 leagues) before June 15. The Early Rampage Tournament runs in parallel with the Big Gorilla (ie, league winners advance to the championship round) and has $25,000 in prizes, with $10,000 to the overall winner.
One more fun aspect of the Big Gorilla tournament is the “Seven Bananas” promotion.
The Seven Bananas promotion rewards teams for getting multiple 7-picks in a row across consecutive Big Gorilla drafts of which the user is a participant. To qualify for the promo, the 7-picks must be acquired in CONSECUTIVE filled drafts (draft orders must be randomized consecutively). For fun, we ran the numbers to calculate the odds of receiving the 7 pick two, three, four, and five times in the row.
Note that the Seven Bananas promotion lasts the entirety of drafting season, not just during the Early Rampage period. Personally we would have liked to see a “12 Bananas” promotion, instead of 7, to reward the hard luck #HighStakesBros who keep getting the undesirable 12 pick (although picking at the end of the draft has yielded good results in recent years). Make 12 a lucky number! Who says no?
Here is a chart summarizing the prizes within the 2025 Championship Round. As seen, this is a very top heavy competition, and overall , only the top 20% (approximately) of finishers in the Championship Round receive an overall prize (in addition to whatever league prize they won of course).
As far as the format of fantasy competition itself, the season schedule is broken into 3 segments, the same as 2024. Pay special attention to the notes about the All-Play week, and the fact that the regular season is relatively short (12 weeks). Complaints by players who do not read the rules and understand the format BEFORE THEY DRAFT are often seen at the end of the season. Do not be THAT GUY, who then complains to the FFPC after the fact. You are sinking $350 into each team for this tournament, so get informed. Now back to the contest format ……
For complete rules and prizes, visit the OFFICIAL overview of the competition HERE.
Early drafters in the tournament often consist of the most hard core players of the FFPC. They will hop in early and often during the early months of the draft season. Some of these players will end up with over 100 teams, in the hope of obtaining as many “bullets” as possible to fire in the Championship Round. The player pool tends to widen as the summer months kick in, and the volume of drafts increase day by day. Additionally, draft results tend to vary more as the draft season progresses in lock step with the widening of the players who participate in the drafts. If you are looking for teams that have a higher variance of outcome at the end of the season (for better or worse), you will want to get in some early drafts before the rookie landing spots, free agency, and team roles are determined closer to the season. #JustSayin
2024 Retrospective
In 2024, the contest was comprised of 1375 individual leagues of 12 teams. It was NOT a sell-out, falling far short of the 1667 league maximum. The drafts for these leagues were conducted over the course of the preseason, beginning February 20th, well before the NFL draft in May, and running right up until the Sunday Week 1 kickoff. We have examined the drafts of the winning teams in this competition to identify trends on player selection and roster construction.
If you are a new player, the data contained in these reports should help provide you with a framework for drafting in 2025. If you are an experienced player, a lot of what you see may seem like things you already know, but seeing the numbers crunched should confirm a lot of the best practices that you have been implementing when drafting these teams in the past. Also note that unlike best ball, the drafts for these season long contests are only a partial component of overall success. Waiver wire pickups and weekly lineup decisions also play a huge part, so you may find reviewing the 2024 waiver wire pickups helpful for some guidance. It summarizes, for each waiver run, how much FAAB is generally required to win players based on the particular week of the season. You can find that data HERE.
The analyses provided here are in the context of making it to the Championship Round. Success during the Championship Round is going to be based primarily on the production of players within that 3 week (15-17) sprint which can be unpredictable. Consider that there is a lot of player overlap among the teams in the Championship Round. Having the top performers during weeks 15-17 (and actually starting them) is the primary determination of your success there. When you review the “Deep Dive into the Top 5 Overall Winners”, we note a player’s statistical positional ranking specifically within that time frame.
Enough of the chit chat, let’s look at the data! (FYI, the analyses themselves are premium subscriber material)
Roster Deep Dive of the Top 5 Winners OverallAn in depth look at the rosters of top 5 teams overall from 2024 with a master chart that breaks down the detail from each of those teams. These teams won between $1,000,000 (1st) and $15,000 (5th). The master chart that we compile will show: • Every player rostered on every top 5 finisher during the championship rounds (weeks 15-17) |
Draft Slots of Winning TeamsThis analysis examines the draft slots of the teams that made it into the Championship round, and shows which were the best (and worst) draft slots to draft from in 2024. |
Winning Roster Construction of Drafted TeamsThis analysis breaks down the number of players drafted at each position for every team TOURNEY WIDE, and compares those metrics with the number of players drafted at each position by TEAMS THAT MADE IT to the Championship Round in 2024. |
Player Advance Rates To The Championship RoundThis analysis looks at the drafts of the teams that made it to the championship round and looks at the percentage of players owned on those teams. |
Rookies Drafted Per Championship Round TeamThis analysis looks at the drafts of the teams that made it to the Championship Round and counts the number of rookies drafted by those teams to determine if there is an optimal number of rookies to draft. |
Championship Round Finish For Teams By Month DraftedThis analysis takes a very close look at the overall finish of teams within the Championship round based on where they finished and what month they drafted their team. There is a lot of speculation regarding when the best time is to draft your tourney teams. Is it better to draft them early in the preseason and land players BEFORE their ADP might rise? Or is it better to play it safe, and wait until closer to the season to avoid any potential landmines around player injuries? |
Player StackingWe have created a few player “Stack Explorer” tools on the site. These have been very popular during the tournament draft season. We also created a stack explorer which lets you analyze player stacks for the teams that made it to the Championship Round. Based on a particular player stack, you can see which teams in the Championship Round had that stack, and also what their final standing was. The tool actually lets you see the results for ANY combination of players. (Note that the teams in the Main Event Championship Round can also be analyzed using this tool). |
Player Stacks Advancing to the Championship RoundThis analysis breaks down all of the QB / Skill Player stacks that were drafted in the 2024 FantasyPros Tourney. Each stack is shown with the total # of stacks drafted (across 1375 leagues), and the number of stacks that made it out of their league and advanced to the Championship Round to compete for the overall prize. |
FantasyPros Championship Round Premium Enhanced LeaderboardOur enhanced leaderboards for the Championship rounds show you how teams progressed through the three weeks of the sprint. You will see the beginning rank, final rank, and also the ranks of the teams after each week. Weekly point scores (in addition to ranking) are included, so you can literally see how teams moved up, or down, after each phase/week of the Championships. Full Team rosters of EVERY TEAM (color coded) are included so you can see at a glance the players on the teams. |
The NFL Opening Weekend “Free Look”The “Free Look” is a lesser known rule quirk that players experienced in the tournament leverage for a competitive advantage during the first weekend of the season. This is a strategy your competitors DON’T want you to know about. As a once famous politician said, “That’s not hyperbole”. |