Submission #28068 by Beth El Temple Men's Club - West Hartford (217)
2023
I have read the 2023 Torch Awards Program Guidelines.
Beth El Temple Fantasy Football League
Family and Youth Programming
Page 1
This was a fantasy football league for the entire 2022-2023 season geared towards families. There would be teams of at least two people, and the competition would commence with a draft to be held at the Temple prior to the start of the season. A nominal fee would be charged to participate and there would be several winners who would get gift cards as their prize.
A Beth El Men's Club board member, who has spent his entire professional career in the sports industry, came up with the idea of a fantasy football league for the Temple. Having previously worked at ESPN, he was very familiar with running a league through their website and volunteered to chair this program. Since the Men's Club has been proactive in having activities geared towards younger men and their families, we enthusiastically embraced this program.
While we publicized this to the entire Temple, we know from experience that the best way to get people to participate is to ask them directly. The program chair, having children of his own in the Temple's religious school, knows many of the young families we were targeting, and he reached out to them. We ended up with 12 teams, most of them being father and son teams.
The league started with a draft at the Temple the night before the beginning of the NFL season. Refreshments were provided, and everyone brought their laptops in order to participate in the draft. A couple teams were not available to show up in person, so they participated in the draft remotely. We were surprised that the entire draft was completed in just one hour and everyone had their roster.
It was just $10 per team to enter, and participants ranged from die-hard football fans who had participated in these leagues for many years to those who never were in a league and barely knew any football players. We were all in it for the fun and camaraderie. We interacted with each other throughout the season, offering to trade players. We enjoyed going on the ESPN website and seeing how all the teams were doing, and looking at the enormous quantity of statistics that was available. Despite the different levels of knowledge of the participants, it was amazing just how close the teams were in the standings for most of the season.
At the end of the season, three teams ended up with gift cards totaling $210. While the Men's Club took in $120 for the 12 teams, we decided to subsidize this after so there would be meaningful prizes for the winners.
This event was so well received that we now have plans for the second annual fantasy football league for the upcoming 2023-2024 football season.
While we publicized this to the entire Temple, we know from experience that the best way to get people to participate is to ask them directly. The program chair, having children of his own in the Temple's religious school, knows many of the young families we were targeting, and he reached out to them. We ended up with 12 teams, most of them being father and son teams.
The league started with a draft at the Temple the night before the beginning of the NFL season. Refreshments were provided, and everyone brought their laptops in order to participate in the draft. A couple teams were not available to show up in person, so they participated in the draft remotely. We were surprised that the entire draft was completed in just one hour and everyone had their roster.
It was just $10 per team to enter, and participants ranged from die-hard football fans who had participated in these leagues for many years to those who never were in a league and barely knew any football players. We were all in it for the fun and camaraderie. We interacted with each other throughout the season, offering to trade players. We enjoyed going on the ESPN website and seeing how all the teams were doing, and looking at the enormous quantity of statistics that was available. Despite the different levels of knowledge of the participants, it was amazing just how close the teams were in the standings for most of the season.
At the end of the season, three teams ended up with gift cards totaling $210. While the Men's Club took in $120 for the 12 teams, we decided to subsidize this after so there would be meaningful prizes for the winners.
This event was so well received that we now have plans for the second annual fantasy football league for the upcoming 2023-2024 football season.
Page 2
Original Program
Silver