About Fantasy Sports

Read on to find out more information about what fantasy sports are.

What are fantasy sports?

Fantasy sports are games where fantasy players put together a team that competes against other fantasy owners (typically in leagues) based on the statistics generated by individual players of a professional sport. Fantasy players follow the statistical performance of real athletes which translates into points. Those points are calculated and ranked against other players in the league on typically a weekly or daily basis to determine the standings of the fantasy leagues.

Players play against one another in rotisserie leagues, where statistics are compiled and overall winner determined at the end of the season. Players can also go head-to-head on a win-loss system and the teams with the best records enter a playoff system and the final victorious player declared the champion.

In fantasy sports there is the ability to trade, cut, and sign players, like a real sports owner. Athletes are acquired mainly through drafts, auctions (set values for players) or salary cap (set amount to spend with dollar amounts set for players). Many players spend a great deal of time monitoring news and analysis to ensure that their player rosters are being maximized and to find other athletes that can help their teams improve.

How do you play fantasy sports?

Many people play fantasy sports with friends and colleagues and form private leagues to that end. Some also play in public leagues, where you may not know the other managers. There are free leagues like Yahoo! which tend to offer basic features. Some owners opt for paid leagues, which cost a fee, but have other features, like the ability to track statistics live. Many leagues have a “buy-in” amount of money that allows the winners of the league to be paid out according to that leagues’ discretion. Some sites which allow salary cap leagues, cost a fee to play, with the winner being paid out per a preset fee schedule.

What types of leagues and drafts are available?

There are several basic types of drafts:

• Draft – players pick based on their draft position, and typically follows a serpentine path (e.g. 1st pick gets last pick of second round) which promotes fairness. The number of rounds depends on the discretion of the commissioner but 14-16 rounds is common.
• Auction – players bid on athletes are given a set amount of “money” to bid.
• Salary Cap – like a real general manager would, owners draft players given a set amount of money. The values of the players are pre-determined.

There are also several types of leagues: redraft, keeper and dynasty.

• Redraft – owners in a league redraft players each year, in essence starting over.
• Keeper – owners are allowed to keep a certain number of players from the previous year.
• Dynasty – owners can keep any number of players they had on their roster from the previous season, with the purpose of the draft mainly to draft rookies and players that were not owned in the previous or current year.

Which sports have fantasy components?

• Many sports have fantasy components, including: baseball, basketball, football, soccer, hockey, wrestling, tennis, racing, and golf.