As another week of fantasy football ends, players are anxious to see who won the most fantasy points and who in the group chat will be the butt of next week’s jokes. The game invented in the 1960s by Bill “Wink” Winkenbach, an investor in the NFL’s Oakland Raiders, differs from the online version played by 29 million Americans today, but still serves the same purpose.
According to an article by CBS Sports, in its early days a fantasy football draft featured twenty players.
In today’s game, league members fill 16 roster spots in a starting lineup of nine players with seven on the bench. The setup for each league is different but a standard league follows a specific format.
The scores are decided based off the performance of their players during a real game. Winkenbach created this method of scoring to increase viewer attention to actual football games and fantasy football has done just that for the last 62 years.
Michael Cosman, a long-time Eagles fan says fantasy football entices him to watch more games from teams outside of his usual interest.
“With fantasy football, it makes me more engaged into that game and it makes it more interesting too,” said Cosman.
“Say for example an 0-3 and 0-3 team clash against each other in the week, nobody’s going to watch that game because these teams suck,” said Cosman. “It’s going to be boring, but with fantasy you’re like, I need this person to score a touchdown, so I’m going to watch until he scores.”
Two weeks into this year’s fantasy football season, the ESPN Fantasy App cited a new record of 13 million users as stated by ESPN Press Room.
The virtual gridiron has not only increased viewership for NFL streaming networks but has created a diverse community of die-hard football fans and non-fans alike.
For some, the desire to engage in fantasy football comes from the low stakes gambling that is associated with the game.
“I always thought of it as like a form of like just a game to play with your friends and a kind of a low stakes kind of gambling,” said 32-year-old Robert Alvarez.
Cosman says the ability to have some control over your team makes the risk of losing the end reward worth it.
“It’s addicting. If you like betting, you’re going to love fantasy football. It’s just a mixture of both betting and watching your favorite sport,” said Cosman. “But this time you have a little bit of control over watching the players, so you select your favorite players that you feel that are going to perform very well.”
Others play because it keeps them connected with friends from around the nation.
“Back then, I was just playing with my fraternity brothers and we all lived in the same vicinity,” said 31-year-old Isaac Blanco. “But now we’re all spread out throughout the country, so it’s all cool because it’s a way for us all to keep in touch with each other.”
In a predominantly male fanbase, many women may feel discouraged to join a league but the demographic of those who play fantasy football is extremely vast.
“You’d think there would be like only men playing, but there’s definitely a lot of women in the leagues that I play in,” said Blanco.
“It’s not just, you know, with your bros or anything like that,” said Cosman. “In one of my leagues, we have like 5 girls out of 10 of us.”
Fantasy football is not only meant for the most extreme football fans, but for anyone with even the slightest interest in the game.
“It’s a good gateway into it and helps you create that investment,” said Alvarez.
Those interested in joining a league can download apps like ESPN Fantasy Sports, Sleeper Fantasy Sports and CBS Sports Fantasy.
Alyda Muela is the web editor and can be reached at [email protected]
