210 Qualifying tickets, $500,000 in the prize pool and one $150,000 winner. Plus a montage…
The 2022 AFL Live Final was a momentous occasion for all participants when we saw an epic battle between Carlton and Collingwood. The Timber Yard in Port Melbourne provided a spectacular venue with players across Australia coming together to sweat it out for the Championship Belt and the MASSIVE $150,000 cheque.
Hosted by Campbell Brown and Smatho from Draftstars, the day was a big success with Roy, Calvin and Warnie from DT Talk providing the pre-match preview. “Don’t listen to us!” was the war cry from Calvin but with Sam Walsh a late out for the Blues, the majority were keen to see what strategies would play out pre-match.
The food trucks did a roaring trade, you could tell by the amount of pizza boxes across the venue! The tacos and burgers flew out the door and it was very hard to resist those iced donuts after half time. Speaking of half time, it was great to formally congratulate ‘tommysgunnns’ and ‘lemooses’ on their 1st and 2nd place finish in the 2021 AFL Live Final stream event. Browny and Smatho chatted to the 2021 winners about how their big win changed their lives one year ago.
Come 3 quarter time and after a blistering 8 goal term by the Blues, there were some very happy supporters but some nervous Draftstars players. Browny approached the top two leaders including ‘Broady4_’ who was keeping a lid on his emotions:
“I am little bit nervous, but still, plenty of footy to play out… I’ve got my mate Nigel here who won the very last ticket, and he is coming 8th at the moment, so I am cheering him on. I’ve got Cattaz as well who is in the mix too. We have a few of us here cheering. I’ll be happy if any of us win it…”
Coming 2nd at 3 quarter time however was ‘newbie’ who was quite surprised on his leaderboard standing:
“I feel like a fish out of water, he (Broady) is a legend and I’m just a Rugby League fan from New South Wales, I’m in the wrong spot…”
When asked about the potential pay out with a quarter to go, Newbie was more worried about the consequences:
“My wife is following the live link at home, she is probably thinking about purchases but I’m not”.
Confidence on the Carlton win was high but as Browny found out below, a fans passion for his club to play finals was brought into question.
As the 4th quarter started and the Pies kicked some very early goals, the whole audience knew that the Pies were going to pull another win out of the fire once again. The agony of the Blues supporters was plain to see. Contestants were flicking their eyes from the game to the leaderboard and back to the game again. A loud cheer rings out when Collingwood hits the front through a Jamie Elliott goal and devastated Blues fans fall silent.
Before you know it, the game was over and before we were able to grab that last beverage the adjustments came in. Newbie had clawed ahead in the last quarter and became champion after statistical adjustments did not affect the standings.
Check out the video below of Newbie’s cheque and belt presentation. A worthy champion!
Thank you to all participants and to the people behind the scenes, including the team at Draftstars, PlayUp, and the crew at Timber Yard for putting on a fantastic event together.
