What 2025 Guillotine Champions Did With Their FAAB
By Patrick · Survive The Chop ·
Guillotine champions didn't spend less FAAB than everyone else. They spent it later. In 458 guillotine leagues from 2025, the typical champion had more FAAB left than the other teams still alive and bought its stars after prices fell.
Here's what that looked like, and what it means for your bids.
They spent slower, not less
Going into Week 5, the typical champion still had about 85% of its starting budget. The other teams still alive had about 74%.
| Going into | Champion | Other teams still alive |
|---|---|---|
| Week 5 | 84.5% | 74.2% |
| Week 8 | 43.1% | 33.5% |
| Week 12 | 13.9% | 5.2% |
Champions didn't sit on their money. The typical champion had spent more than half of its budget before Week 8. It just spent less of it in the first few weeks, when prices were highest.
Teams with more FAAB left also won more often. Among teams still alive going into Week 8, the third with the most FAAB left won their league about 1.8 times as often as the third with the least. That held for teams that had scored well so far and for teams that hadn't.
They bought their stars later
In Weeks 2 to 4, a top-5 running back or receiver sold for about half of a starting budget. Champions won those players about as often as everyone else, and they paid less: a median of 39% of the budget, against 50% for other teams.
From Week 5 on, champions bought stars more often than the teams around them. In a given waiver run, a champion was about 1.7 times as likely as the other remaining teams to win a top-5 running back or receiver in Weeks 5 to 8, and about twice as likely in Weeks 9 to 14.
Only about 1 in 10 champions got their first top-5 running back or receiver in Weeks 2 to 4. About 2 in 3 got their first one in Week 9 or later. By then prices had fallen a long way. The median star a champion bought in Weeks 9 to 11 cost 11% of the starting budget.
Most of the stars champions bought cost no more than that week's median price for a top-5 running back or receiver. Our weekly FAAB price report shows what players sold for in each waiver run.
What this means for your bids
Be patient early. The first few weeks are the most expensive time to buy a star. You'll lose a lot of those auctions with our numbers, and that's expected. Bid our number anyway. Waiver bids are blind, and not every league has a big spender. If it doesn't land, your FAAB plan can show you cheaper players who fill the same spot.
Don't stay low all season. Champions didn't. Once prices fell, they bought stars more often than anyone else. In 2025, teams that won a top-5 running back or receiver in Weeks 12 to 14 won their league more often than the teams they outbid. If you're close to the chopping block, or a star hits waivers late in the season, that's the time to spend more. In FAAB Insights, the Aggressive setting raises our bids by about 30%.
You don't need to win every auction to build the best team. For more on why our bids start below what wins, read Why our FAAB bids look low.
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About this data
We used 458 completed 2025 Sleeper guillotine leagues with 8 to 20 teams, a FAAB budget and a recorded champion. Spending comes from each league's winning waiver bids on Sleeper. Each week, we compared the eventual champion with the other teams still alive that week, not with teams already cut. The patterns held in the 252 leagues with 18 teams on their own.
"The typical champion" is the median. Top-5 running backs and receivers are ranked by their weekly projections when the claim was made.
Each result has a range we're 90% confident in. Teams with the most FAAB left going into Week 8 won 1.5 to 2.2 times as often as teams with the least. In Weeks 9 to 11, champions were 1.9 to 2.4 times as likely as the other remaining teams to win a top-5 running back or receiver in a waiver run. The late-star result compares teams that won a top-5 running back or receiver with the teams they outbid that could have matched the price.
These are observational results. They show what champions did, not proof that a bidding strategy caused a championship. 2025 was the first season of Sleeper's guillotine leagues, so all of this comes from one season. We'll check it again against 2026 results.