European here. I have heard of the concept of fantasy football, but never quite gotten what is so appealing about it, how it works (you pick players from different teams?), and why grown (wo)men are willing to dedicate hours of their life to it. Please explain :).
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You also get fantasy football (soccer) that is huge in the UK.
I’m not sure why you’re baffled by this. People like to pit their knowledge of the sport and league against others and compete on this. Similar to pub quizzes and any other competitive games.
There’s not much to explain. They do it because they think it is fun. There’s also often a social component to it. It’s no harder to understand than why lots of people spend hours playing video games.
>why grown (wo)men are willing to dedicate hours of their life to it.
To focus on this part It’s basically a season long form of sports betting but instead of playing against odds and spreads set by Vegas in fantasy sports people are playing against their friends or co-workers that are in their league. Depending on the league the money wagered may be lot or it may be a low amount with the real prize being bragging rights for picking a good team that year.
Your post history shows your hobbies include video games.
Your post comes off as pretty snarky toward the hobby. I am sure many would say the same about your hobbies.
It’s a huge social aspect of people who enjoy watching American Football. While enjoying the sport they get to engage in it another way with a community of people who like the same sport. We plan a day, go drink beer and draft our fantasy league teams and continue to manage and watch how they do with our friends. This include having said friends over for food and drinks while we watch different football games all while keeping track of our respective teams and scores against our friends.
Not just guys. My daughter, 32, was talked into participating by her brothers. She liked football anyway, but she really researched the players, and now she dominates their league.
I think you are severely overestimating the amount of time it takes to take care of your fantasy team. I’m in 4 leagues and spend a grand total of about 15 minutes on it every weeks, most of them while I sit on the toilet.
It just make the games more interesting.
As a European, has noticed that a lot of US people play fantasy American football.
As a European, has somehow not noticed that an equally large number of people play fantasy football.
Hmmmmmmm.
Also the reason why is quite literally the same as you have for any of the hobbies you enjoy. Because they like it and it can be sociable.
Something I don’t see covered in the replies so far is how to get into it as a beginner.
Fantasy Football can be entirely free and your league mates anonymous if you’d like, so there really is no barrier to entry, other than interest. Alternatively, you can also invite friends and colleagues you know IRL and/or wager money that gets paid out to the winner, and maybe smaller cash prizes for 2nd and 3rd place.
If it’s a just for fun league, there are various platforms you can download the app for, including Yahoo Fantasy, Sleeper, ESPN, and others, these have been the ones I’ve used in the past. You can also do this through desktop browsers through most platforms.
Once you are registered, just click draft now, and you will be given a list of lobbies waiting to be filled out that takes no time at all because a bunch of weirdos like me are joining as well and will often times be involved in multiple leagues.
The two main factors in choosing a lobby are how many people will fill it and the scoring format. The larger the league, the more diluted the talent pool will be. The standard is 12, but you could have larger or smaller as long as it’s an even number.
The scoring format can have a bunch of different rules, but the main things to look at are PPR (points per reception), half PPR, and standard (no PPR). In the first 2, scoring significantly favors players that catch the ball.
Another factor is roster positions that start in your line-up. This can be customized per league. The typical format you’ll find is half PPR and the following roster spots: one quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, a tight end, 1 “flex spot” (your choice of a RB, WR, or TE), a kicker, and a defense. That’s 9 starting roster spots. Also, you’ll also have reserve, or bench, players that don’t count during that week, but could be swapped out for your starters if you choose, usually 7 reserve players. You will need a bench as players *are* going to get injured.
This makes a total of 16 players to draft, so there will be 16 rounds in the draft. Once it starts, draft order will be randomly selected. Most drafts are done in a “snake” format, which means that the order reverses every round since it’s an advantage to pick first, so after player 12 selects last in the 1st round, they will select 1st in the 2nd round and player 1 would select last in the second round, and then the pattern repeats.
This brings us to the largest barrier of entry to fantasy sports… knowing what you are doing in a draft. There are people who are casual fans of football that will watch games but not know who plays for what teams, how good they are expected to be, how much playing time they get, what the coaching, teammate, injury situation may be, how old or how young the players are… all of that plays a part in drafting.
You also need to know how valuable each position is and how early to fill up each spot. Usually, RB and WR are the most valuable, followed by QB, then TE, and kicker and defense are taken near the end of drafts, usually.
Fortunately, there are rankings done ahead of time, and you could just set it to auto draft the best player available. The computer will just fill your team in a balanced way based off of average draft position.
Now, you watch the games, root for your players and against the players that your opponent has. Score more points, and you get a win for the week. The teams with the best records near the end of the regular season face each other in the playoffs, and a champ is decided.
Gambling.
It’s talked about more these days because of all the places doing online gambling also sponsoring or being owned by the corporations that own news organizations.
Without the gambling angle, it is an awful lot of time and effort keeping track of player stats for the season that few people other than rabid sports fans would deal with.
When did fantasy football start/begin gaining popularity? I want the origin story
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