booster draft question

A booster draft is done with 3 booster packs per person, so with 8 people you will need 24 boosters. What has worked best for my group of friends is for one person to buy a booster box (36 booster packs, usually less than $100 either on ebay or massdrop.com) and then they will just keep all of the cards. In contrast, if all 8 players buy 3 booster packs each (8x3x$4 + tax = about $100) and then people will likely feel the need to get their money back by drafting the more expensive cards even if they don't fit in the deck they are drafting which makes the draft significantly less fun in my opinion. Also, if a booster box is purchased then the buyer gets the extra 12 packs pretty much for free.

Although it sounds like you and your friends might be wanting to add the drafted cards to your respective collections. In this case your group can buy a booster box and split the cost. This way you get those "extra" 12 booster packs for practically nothing and you just have to figure out how you want to distribute them since 12 doesn't divide by 8 evenly.

If you have any other questions about drafting or if anything I said doesn't really make any sense feel free to ask! My group of friends and I love to draft so I have quite a bit of experience with it.