Fantasy Football Season is Back

With the NFL season just around the corner, fans are gearing up for a roller coaster of a year. Following closely behind the NFL season in acting as a source of excitement for football fans is the favorite NFL-centered game of many, fantasy football. Fantasy acts as a means of connecting fans as well as getting viewers closer to the sport, but why is that? What does it have to offer fans that simply watching the games does not?

For one, it’s an inclusive game that widens the demographic of the NFL fandom in a few different ways. One reason is fantasy football’s relatively easy-to-understand nature, which makes it accessible to many. While football has a laundry list of rules and regulations that may be difficult for some to pick up on without the advantage of being longtime watchers, the rules of fantasy are rather simple in comparison, which can make football a more digestible sport fo casual viewers. Some may get overwhelmed by the emphatic and competitive nature of longstanding, ride-or-die fanatics of their home team, but fantasy acts as an entryway into the fandom without the pressure of knowing every minute detail of the sport.

Fantasy football not only makes less avid viewers more comfortable expressing their excitement for the sport because of the simplicity of the game but also because the game is entirely reliant on individual players’ performances and health throughout the season. For this reason, the game doesn’t hinge solely on strategy, instead involving a heavy dose of luck. That’s an aspect that would give longtime football watchers a significant advantage over a casual or new fan of the sport, as described by Steve Gardner of USA Today. This is not to say that strategy is wholly absent from the game, however.  One of course must take into account the past performances of players before drafting them onto their team, as well as hypothesized future performances predicted by training camp and the NFL preseason. Knowing the depth chart of all 32 teams though, while perhaps an advantage, is far from essential for one’s ability to participate in the game.

The demographic of NFL viewers is also expanded by the sizable number of female participants in fantasy football. As stated in The Journal of Sports Management, “Women represent the fastest growing demographic for the fantasy sports industry, making up approximately 38% of fantasy football participants,” per Gardner. While the narrative dominating the NFL is a primarily masculine one, women’s participation in fantasy football translates into participation in the NFL itself benefiting both female fans in their feelings of inclusion in the sport and the NFL as a corporation in the resulting expansion of viewership and participation.

In addition to the inclusivity of fantasy football, fantasy also encourages the holistic enjoyment of football and takes the edge off of the division within the fandom exacerbated by home-team rivalries. Maya Brosnick from Campus Times comments on this, writing that, “because fantasy teams are made up of players on all different teams, to know what’s happening you have to flip through multiple games. You have a reason to care about more than just the main team you support.” This both strengthens sportsmanship and morale amongst fans and again benefits the NFL as a corporation as it boosts their overall viewership with fantasy players switching between games as a way to monitor the performance of their various players.

Fantasy football also boosts viewer engagement through the common practice of leagues dealing out a punishment for the player with the lowest-scoring team. The often humiliating or undesirable nature of the punishment heightens the enthusiasm of the fantasy participants towards the NFL games and players themselves as their passion for their individual players’ successes is many times intensified by their fierce desire to evade said punishment.

All in all, the nature of fantasy football is one that encourages participation and has, on those grounds, grown drastically in popularity amongst NFL fans. As football fans are readying to cheer on their home team, fantasy players are equally, if not more, eagerly prepping to join their leagues and draft their players.

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