‘A Way to Bring People Together’: Fantasy Football Drafts Become an Annual Travel Tradition

For more than a decade, Jake Fehling and 12 of his friends, most of them college buddies from the University of North Carolina, have found a special way to get together.

Once a year they go to a different city together, but their travel isn’t centered around weddings or reunions or even Tar Heel games. Instead, Fehling, 46, and his friends have been meeting up across North America to hold their annual fantasy football drafts.

Since 2015, they’ve traveled to 11 unique locations: Portland, Oregon; Portland, Maine; North Carolina’s Outer Banks; Richmond, Virginia; Boston; Denver; San Diego; Nashville; Lake Tahoe; Chicago and, this year, Montreal. They’ve only missed one year together: 2020, when they held a virtual draft due to the COVID–19 pandemic.

Says Fehling, “It’s a fun way for a bunch of old college guys to get back in touch with each other.”

According to a survey last month from YouGov, 9% of the adults in the United States are expected to play fantasy football this year, which equates to roughly 25 million people. As with Fehling’s group, for many of them, the draft is the highlight of the season, a chance for serious strategizing, serious camaraderie, and, it turns out, serious travel.

This year, Fehling’s fantasy league — named “Sundays of Bliss” — went international for the first time, journeying to Canada with 11 of the league’s team managers (one member had to draft virtually because of a pre–planned family commitment) and their friend Jeff Singer, who acts as a professional auctioneer, calling out bids for players in breweries and Airbnbs.

They could have simply stayed home, but their drafts have become about much more than selecting players to fill out a roster. Frankly, the draft is just one part of the action. Fehling said draft weekends are typically four-day trips lasting from Thursday through Sunday, highlighted by visits to local breweries, sightseeing around the area and local activities.

The annual winner gets the honor (and responsibility) of choosing where they’ll travel the following year, and they’re also tasked with finding activities on the trip. The league’s reigning champion, Rich Jones, chose to bring their draft to Montreal this year.

Fehling said Jones joked after the trip that the league’s last-place finisher should be the one to plan it, since organizing, collecting money and coordinating logistics for 12 people can be a hassle.

“We try to keep it moving,” Fehling said. “In Montreal, we woke up Saturday morning and rode bikes 12 miles. We rode around Montreal; we went on the F1 track. Like, when’s the last time you rode a bike 12 miles? Not an e–bike, a bike. It was just fun.”

On the way to Montreal, they actually flew into Burlington, Vermont, and visited three breweries around town before renting a party bus with a driver for the two-hour ride into Canada.

They blasted ’90s hip–hop music throughout the ride, which didn’t stop until they reached the U.S.–Canada border. At the stop, Fehling said a Canadian customs officer asked to come on the bus, noticed the large group and immediately quipped, “What is this?”

Once they told the official they were headed to Montreal to hold their fantasy football draft, he replied with curious enthusiasm: “Are you serious? Wow, all right, well come on in, boys.”

Given how many people play fantasy football — the YouGov figure would be five times the reported number of kids who play travel sports in the U.S. — this could also be an untapped marketing opportunity for cities looking to draw fantasy players to their cities at the end of summer as tourism season winds down.

Las Vegas began catering to this segment this year, hosting the inaugural Draft Nation event at the Circa Resort & Casino in August. Draft Nation promoted a lively weekend in Las Vegas that included appearances from former NFL players Adrian Peterson and Austin Ekeler as well as numerous reporters and fantasy football analysts from across the country. Draft Nation featured panels, conversations with analysts and celebrations for three days centered around fantasy football, topped off with a closing gala.

The event also coincided with America’s first National Fantasy Football Draft Day, which was celebrated on August 21.

Drafting on the Open Seas

Justin Sherbal met his fellow fantasy football managers back in elementary school in South Florida. They started their league in seventh grade, and now that they’re all college graduates living across the country, their fantasy football draft is the perfect reason for a reunion each year.

In–person drafting for their league — “United Snakes of America” — started in Tampa in 2023, since four of the 12 people in their league lived there at the time. They visited New York City and Charlotte in the following years.

Sherbal, 27, has designed custom T–shirts for each trip that include each league member’s face. Oftentimes, these shirts recreate iconic sports photos, such as the 1992 United States men’s Olympic basketball team “Dream Team.”

“Even dating a few years back, I was big on making photoshop edits in our group chat,” Sherbal said. “When we got to the point where we were going to drafts, I was like, ‘We should make a shirt to commemorate it.’”

Every trip includes what Sherbal calls a “marquee event.” In 2023, they drafted in Tampa and attended the Florida State–LSU football game in Orlando. When they traveled to New York in 2024, they hit up a Yankees game. The Charlotte trip in 2025 was capped off by a visit to the U.S. National Whitewater Center for rafting.

This season, their draft hit the open seas. Sherbal’s group took a three–night Royal Caribbean cruise from Miami to Nassau, Bahamas, complete with Hawaiian–themed shirts adorned with each member’s face.

Upon boarding, league members quickly found the ship’s sports bar, complete with a long table and ESPN on the televisions. They taped up a draft board and began their draft on the ocean.

“We really just monopolized that area,” Sherbal said. “We pretty much took over that space for four and a half hours.”

Fellow cruisers noticed the group, shared their draft opinions and watched the draft unfold. One man stuck around the league’s two–time winner Robert Joy and asked him for tips, taking screenshots and jotting notes as he made selections.

“It was just cool to see how people were so into it,” Sherbal said. “People on the cruise are from all different parts of the country and all different types of people, and everyone’s just sharing the same experience of enjoying fantasy football.”

An Annual Beach Trip

Andrew Schnittker’s fantasy football league has been active since 2015, when his group of longtime friends were freshmen in college. In-person, offline drafts have always been a staple of their North Carolina–based league. But when members moved across the country after college graduation, they decided to make a trip out of it.

In 2021, Schnittker, 30, and his league — “Blood, Sweat and Beers” — started their annual travels on a trip to Maryland, as their founder had moved to the D.C. area. This was also the year they began purchasing a physical draft board with stickers for each draft–eligible player.

When they needed a draft location for 2022, Schnittker volunteered to host at his grandparents’ house in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. Each year since (except for 2024 due to Hurricane Debby), they’ve made the beach their draft spot.

The group has established traditions like getting Domino’s pizza on Friday night, heading to the ocean on Saturday and drafting later that evening. At the end of the season, the winner earns a trophy.

While Schnittker said they plan to stick with Ocean Isle Beach for the foreseeable future, they’ve considered traveling to other cities with baseball stadiums.

But for now, they’re happy to keep coming back to the beach town that’s become the home to their fantasy draft tradition — and their annual reunion.

“A lot of us live different places,” Schnittker said. “A few of us live in different states. Life gets busy. We don’t get to spend a lot of time together throughout the year. On draft weekend, obviously we’re doing our draft, but it’s also a chance for us all to get together and hang out. For a lot of us, it’s probably the only time in the year that we get to see each other.”

Spanning Decades — and Cities

Before Fehling’s league expanded its draft travels to all corners of the U.S., they met up in various cities across North Carolina, as that’s where many of them lived at the time. They’d held drafts at an Embassy Suites in Cary, North Carolina, met up in Winston-Salem and driven down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Fehling’s league branched out in 2015, combining a trip to visit league member Bobby Sapp in Portland, Oregon, with the draft weekend.

“We just said, ‘Look, we’ve all got legitimate jobs now, we’ve done the local thing,'” Fehling said. “(Sapp) built this epic four–day trip for us, where we went to waterfalls and a bunch of breweries. We went to his house and all around Portland, Oregon, and had the best time. After that trip, we said, ‘Why don’t we just keep going?'”

Fehling organizes the specific venue where their league will hold its actual draft. In some years, including the most recent one in Montreal, they’re able to find large Airbnbs with common spaces to set up shop.

When they need to take the draft outside of where they’re staying, Fehling seeks out highly–rated breweries and calls with a unique request — space for 13 fantasy footballers (including an auctioneer in costume) at any time of day the brewery can host them.

“(I say) ‘We need the whole space,’” Fehling said. “We’re willing to come in early, like 10 a.m. before you open. We will spend, typically, a few hundred dollars. If you need us to eat, we’ll eat on site. … Every single time, it’s like ‘Wait this is cool. I think I can send one guy over to open early for you.’”

Fehling said he sees it as a win–win for his league and the brewery’s operators. They get a cool venue to hold their auction, and the brewery makes money.

When they hold drafts in public spaces, the action sometimes carries into the venue’s regular opening hours. The group gets a kick out of reactions when regular patrons notice Jeff the auctioneer shouting prices to a group of middle-aged men.

“He takes it so seriously, where he’s calling out, ‘I’m going to put Bijan Robinson up, do I have 20? All right, I’ve got 21. 25. 30. 40,'” Fehling said. “He’s calling it out like an auctioneer. It makes it feel real, and he’s just the best. If we didn’t have him, it would still be fun, but he takes it to another level.”

Fehling admitted he hasn’t won the league since 2009, so he hasn’t had the chance to pick a location yet. But league members talk about future destinations all the time.

They’re considering traveling to cities like Mexico City; Kansas City, Missouri; Asheville, North Carolina; and even Dublin. But since that’s all up to the league champion, there’s more on the line than just bragging rights.

Fehling is hoping his “stars and scrubs” strategy this year will lead him back to a championship. In the auction, he said he spent “all his money” on Atlanta Falcons running back Bijan Robinson, Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Puka Nacua, and since he plays in a superflex league, New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye and Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels.

For members of Fehling’s 26-year-old league, in-person drafts are important dates on the calendar. Life’s routines, children, work and relationships can make it harder to keep up with old friends. So, in–person fantasy football drafts have become a way to connect every year.

Said Fehling, “To have this fenced-off weekend every year when I can see old friends who are going through the same things in life, you can kind of turn off your brain and just enjoy old stories, old friendships, new cities and a stupid game.”