There are certain questions we get all the time here at Fantasy Guru. Here are the answers.
What are fantasy sports?
“Fantasy sports” is a name used to describe an entire industry of online and in-person contests in which participants select a certain number of athletes in a particular sport (a “roster”) and then pit their rosters against the rosters of others. The athletes collect points based on their performances in their games/matches/tournaments over the course of a day, week, month, or season. The points accumulated by the athletes on a person’s roster are added together to come to a “team score”, which then competes with the team scores of the other people in the participant’s contest/league.
As you can probably imagine, there are infinite ways to participate in fantasy sports, but the most common ones are friendly season-long fantasy football and season-long fantasy baseball leagues, in which friends/acquaintances/coworkers form a small “league” of (8-12 people), then select their athletes (usually by conducting a “draft”) and compete over the course of an NFL or MLB season.
What is DFS?
“DFS” is an acronym for “Daily Fantasy Sports”. DFS is a version of fantasy sports in which the draft, contest, and results/prizes all happen on the same day, rather than over the course of a season, like in traditional fantasy sports.
In DFS, players enter contests offered by sites like DraftKings, FanDuel, and SuperDraft. Each player in the contest selects whatever athletes they want for their team — usually in accordance with a set of rules set by the site — and the athletes collect points based on their performances in that day’s game only. The players’ teams are then ranked according to how many points their athletes accumulated, and prizes are awarded to the highest-scoring team(s).
How do you play fantasy sports?
The most common way people participate in fantasy sports is through “home leagues”. Groups of friends, relatives, or coworkers come together to form a league (usually of 8-12 people), and they compete with each other over the course of an NFL or MLB season according to the rules they set.
The next most common way is by joining a public league on a site like Yahoo!, ESPN, or one of a dozen others. There, individuals who sign up are organized into leagues randomly and can compete for fun.
DFS is also a very popular way of participating, with sites like DraftKings, FanDuel, Yahoo!, and SuperDraft offering contests regularly.
How do you play fantasy football?
How you play will depend greatly on the specific rules of the league you joined. In general, just before the season begins the league will host a “draft”, where the league members will come together (in person or online) to pick the athletes who will be on their respective teams. Drafts can be conducted in many ways, but the most common ones are the snake draft and the auction draft.
A snake draft works much like the drafts you see conducted by major sports leagues like the NFL. A draft order is decided on beforehand, and then each team in the league will take their turn selecting one player to add to their roster. Once a player is chosen, he or she becomes a member of that team and is no longer available for selection by any of the other teams. It is called a “snake draft” because the order the teams select in reverses at the end of each round (for example, in a 12-team league, the team who chooses 12th in the first round will choose 1st in the second round, giving them the 12th and the 13th choices, overall. The team who chose 1st in the first round will, therefore, not get another choice until 12th in the second round, giving them the 1st and 24th choices, overall). If you visualize this process you’ll see that the choices weave back and forth as the draft goes on, much like a coiled snake.
Auction drafts have become more popular in recent years because they remove the “luck” inherent in choosing a draft order for a snake draft. In an auction, each team is given a certain number of “draft dollars”, an imaginary currency, and the available athletes are put up for bidding, one at a time, with each team given the chance to bid on that player for however many draft dollars they’re willing to spend. Each team has to fill their entire roster with their dollars, however, so they must spend wisely.
How do you set up a fantasy football league?
Fantasy football leagues can be set up with tools as simple as a pen and some paper or an Excel spreadsheet, or you can run your league using one of the dozens of websites designed specifically for that purpose. Yahoo!, ESPN, and CBSSports are probably the three most popular league-hosting sites around, but you can find many others through a simple Google search.
Can you make money playing daily fantasy sports?
Of course! Sites like DraftKings, FanDuel, SuperDraft, Yahoo!, and more offer real-money DFS contests regularly in all of the major sports. If you want to turn your DFS play into a supplemental income, however, we strongly recommend signing up for a site like www.EliteFantasy.com, where they will give you the analysis, tools, and education you need to be a successful DFS player over the long term!
What is the most popular fantasy sport?
American Football, with baseball a distant second.
What states allow daily fantasy sports?
DFS is available in every US state except Arizona (AZ), Hawaii (HI), Idaho (ID), Louisiana (LA), Montana (MT), Nevada (NV), and Washington (WA).
How much does MyFantasyLeague cost?
To operate your NFL fantasy football league out of MyFantasyLeague.com, the cost is $79.95 if you purchase on or before 8/1/20, and $89.95 if you purchase after 8/1/20.
Can you play fantasy baseball by yourself?
Absolutely! Sites like Yahoo!, ESPN, and CBSSports offer public leagues that anyone can join!
How is fantasy baseball scored?
Fantasy baseball can be scored in many different ways, but the most common ones are Rotisserie (or “Roto”) and Head-to-Head: Categories.
In a Rotisserie league, certain stats are decided upon before the season begins, and at the end of the season teams are ranked from first to last according to how their players performed in each of those stats. In a 12-team league, the team who finished first in a certain stat would receive 12 points, the team who finished second would receive 11, and so on down to the team who finished last (who would receive 1 point). After all stats are scored, the team who accumulated the most points would be the winner.
In a Head-to-Head: Categories league, each team plays head-to-head with the other teams, with each “match” lasting (usually) one week of the season. After each match, a team scores a win, loss, or tie in each of the stats (the “categories”) tracked by the league based on how they performed against their opponent’s team. At the end of the season, each team’s cumulative win-loss-tie record is tabulated and the team with the best record is declared the winner.
How do you win fantasy?
You take advantage of the tools at FantasyGuru.com (for season-long leagues) and EliteFantasy.com (for DFS), of course!
How does a fantasy baseball draft work?
In general, just before the season begins the league will host a “draft”, where the league members will come together (in person or online) to pick the athletes who will be on their respective teams. Drafts can be conducted in many ways, but the most common ones are the snake draft and the auction draft.
A snake draft works much like the drafts you see conducted by major sports leagues like the NFL. A draft order is decided on beforehand, and then each team in the league will take their turn selecting one player to add to their roster. Once a player is chosen, he or she becomes a member of that team and is no longer available for selection by any of the other teams. It is called a “snake draft” because the order the teams select in reverses at the end of each round (for example, in a 12-team league, the team who chooses 12th in the first round will choose 1st in the second round, giving them the 12th and the 13th choices, overall. The team who chose 1st in the first round will, therefore, not get another choice until 12th in the second round, giving them the 1st and 24th choices, overall). If you visualize this process you’ll see that the choices weave back and forth as the draft goes on, much like a coiled snake.
Auction drafts have become more popular in recent years because they remove the “luck” inherent in choosing a draft order for a snake draft. In an auction, each team is given a certain number of “draft dollars”, an imaginary currency, and the available athletes are put up for bidding, one at a time, with each team given the chance to bid on that player for however many draft dollars they’re willing to spend. Each team has to fill their entire roster with their dollars, however, so they must spend wisely.