As the high-school level fall sports season comes to an end, there are still many ways for players and fans to stay involved and active besides simply watching their favorite team’s game each week. Many football fans participate in different online leagues with their friends and family to compete against each other, one of these games is Fantasy Football, which is a mobile game where fans create a mock roster by selecting real-life players for their team and compete against friends throughout the season. Players earn points based on how their virtual team performs in real life. Participants act as team managers and make decisions like the starting lineup and trading players.
The commonly known Fantasy Football is played in leagues ranging from 4-18 teams. These leagues can include friends, family, or random strangers. At the beginning of the season, each league has a draft in which each team selects 16 football players, nine starters and seven bench players. Those players can be switched, dropped, or traded for others throughout the season. A new matchup begins each week, and you compete against another person from your league. When one of your starting players runs, passes, catches or scores a touchdown, you earn points.
Kade Hustad, an SHS senior, has enjoyed football from a young age and has played Fantasy for numerous years. This year, he is in three leagues. “I participate in one league with 12 friends, another with six, and another with 14 random people.”
Fantasy has allowed Hustad, like many of its users, the opportunity to compete against others and their knowledge of football and NFL players. The game has also brought more attention to all NFL teams.
“I think it is fun to follow the players on your team; it makes you care more about the games. Before fantasy football, I only cared about the Packer’s players, but now, every Sunday, I watch all the games to see how my players do,” Hustad said.
FanDuel is an online platform much like Fantasy Football but focuses on single days or weeks matchups instead of an entire season. FanDuel uses cash to motivate its participants. Participants can enter in the fantasy sports contest each week in sports like NFL football, NBA basketball, MLB baseball, and others. For many of its users FanDuel is a platform to engage in competition.
Julie Lynch is an SHS Language Arts Teacher who got involved with fantasy sports having grown up surrounded by football her entire life. “Every Monday, Thursday, Saturday, and especially Sunday was spent with the people I love glued to the TV.”
Lynch first got involved by joining a Fantasty Football league with her coworkers at her previous job, “I knew nothing about football or any of the players at the time, but I have always been super competitive. I researched and learned, and that first season, I took home first place out of ten teams. It was not only much more fun watching the games, but the camaraderie of talking about the games throughout the week (and the occasional trash-talking) was a lot of fun, too,” Lynch said.
To this day Lynch regularly participates in fantasy sports, specifically FanDuel. “I do a few 25-cent fanduels each Sunday. It’s rare to win anything big, but watching Red Zone all day and rooting for my players is a lot of fun,” Lynch said.
FanDuel has been a fun way for Lynch to stay involved in the football season where she once wasn’t such a huge fan of. “One year–about ten years ago–I decided, ‘If you can’t beat them, join them,” Lynch said.
Lynch advises against starting FanDuel with the hopes of winning big money, “Go into it with the attitude that you will lose, so only wager what you plan to lose and do it for the entertainment of it.”
Despite this she has had a few big wins.
“Last year, I took my son to a live game in Minnesota. The Packers were playing the Vikings. Before the game, my family and I picked five players we thought would do best, and we ended up winning first place, which paid for our entire trip,” Lynch said.
Overall, FanDuel has been a way for Lynch to be involved in a long-loved family past-time of watching football.
Although FanDuel is just a game at the end of the day, it is a way to stay connected and have some lighthearted competition with your loved ones each fall.
“I wish I embraced football much sooner because now it is an important part of my life, and my new favorite time of year is fall. Go BEARS!!” Lynch concluded.
