Fantasy football (gridiron)

Fantasy football is a game in which the participants serve as owners and general managers of virtual professional American football teams. The competitors select their rosters by participating in a draft in which all relevant National Football League (NFL) players are available. Fantasy points are awarded in weekly matchups based on the actual performances of football players in real-world competition. The game typically involves the NFL, but can also involve other leagues, such as the Canadian Football League or NCAA.

There are three main types of fantasy football:

Fantasy football is often played in small groups of mutually familiar individuals who may or may not be playing for money. However, online fantasy contests, particularly those run by daily fantasy companies, regularly involve large groups of people who otherwise do not know each other contributing to a shared betting pool. The structure of these games has led some jurisdictions to characterize and regulate online fantasy contents as a form of gambling.^[3]

In head-to-head leagues, a fantasy team matches up against a different fantasy team from the league each week. The team that receives the most points of the two receives a win for that week, while the other team receives a loss. Points are dictated by a common scoring system that can be adjusted in a variety of ways (see ). A team's total is the sum of all points accumulated by players who were placed in a starting slot by the team owner for the day they were playing (as opposed to being on the bench, in which any points gained would not count). Teams with the best win–loss record may advance to the playoffs in the final weeks of the season. If two teams have the same record, playoff qualification tiebreakers are employed based on league preference.

Scoring configurations

Total points leagues are leagues in which teams accumulate points on an ongoing basis. The league standings are determined by the teams' total points. Total points leagues are often also best-ball leagues, in which owners do not need to set a starting lineup, as their weekly point totals automatically reflect their highest-scoring players at each position. Other forms of roster management, such as player trades and the waiver wire, are traditionally eliminated in best-ball leagues.

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All-play leagues are leagues in which all teams play each other each week. For example, if there are 14 teams in the league, the highest-scoring team in each week would post a 13–0 record, the next highest-scoring team would post a 12–1 record, and so on.

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Pirate leagues are leagues in which a winning owner gets to choose a player from his or her opponent's roster.

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In guillotine leagues, the lowest scoring team is eliminated from the league each week. All of the players on the eliminated team's roster become free agents and may be subsequently added to any remaining team. This process continues until only one team remains and is crowned the league winner.

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1 (QB)

Quarterback

2 (RB)

Running backs

2 (WR)

Wide receivers

1 (TE)

Tight end

1 Flex (RB, WR, or TE)

[d]

1 (K)

Placekicker

1 Team defense/special teams unit (D/ST)

6 Bench players (BN)^[f]

[e]

Demographics[edit]

According to the Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association (FSGA), of the 59.3 million people who played fantasy sports in the US and Canada in 2017, 43.2 million were American adults.^[19] In 2019, 45.9 million American adults participated.^[19] The FSGA estimated that 19% of American adults played fantasy sports in 2019, compared to 13% in 2014.^[19] A 2019 FSGA survey found that 81% of fantasy sports players were male, 50% were between the ages of 18 and 34 (with an average age of 37.7), 67% were employed full-time, and 47% made more than $75,000 per year.^[19]^[m] A 2015 analysis found that 89.8% were white and 51.5% were unmarried.^[50]