50 Fun Facts About Fantasy Football

Which Oakland businessman devised modern fantasy football in a New York hotel room on a 1962 Raiders road trip?

Winkenbach was joined in that hotel room by Raiders PR man Bill Tunnel and Oakland Tribune reporter Scotty Stirling.

What word fills the blank in the first fantasy football league, the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin ___ League?

The GOPPPL was still active in 2015 and still using its original scoring system more than fifty years on.

In what year did the GOPPPL hold its first draft, in its founder's Oakland home?

The league had eight members drawn from AFL administrators, pro football writers, and people who had bought or sold ten Raiders season tickets.

Under the GOPPPL's original scoring, how many points was a touchdown pass, rush or reception worth?

A kickoff, punt or interception returned for a touchdown was worth a whopping 200 points, and a field goal was worth as much as a touchdown.

In 1969, the first public fantasy football league was founded at which Oakland sports bar?

Owner Andy Mousalimas had taken part in the very first GOPPPL draft, and the game then spread by word of mouth to patrons visiting his bar for trivia contests.

Before he turned to football, fantasy football's inventor devised a 1950s fantasy game for which sport?

Participants picked a roster of pros and the lowest combined stroke total won, an idea that predates the football league by roughly a decade.

Rotisserie League Baseball, the 1980 game that popularized 'roto' scoring, took its name from what?

Founder Daniel Okrent, a Strat-O-Matic devotee, later said he would probably have invented rotisserie anyway but the board game 'unquestionably' helped.

Which site was first to offer free fantasy football, in July 1999?

Some competitors dropped their paid models in response, while smaller sites such as RotoWire pivoted to selling paid content instead.

Which network launched an online fantasy football competition in 1997?

That same year the fantasy news site now known as RotoWire was launched.

Pigskin Playoff, a 1989 newspaper game played by phone, awarded each week's top scorer a trip to where?

Players entered four-digit codes on a toll-free line to pick their teams, and the game is now regarded as an early ancestor of daily fantasy football.

Per the Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association, roughly how many people played fantasy sports in the US and Canada in 2022?

About four in five of them played fantasy football, and the FSGA estimated the whole industry was worth more than $7 billion by 2019.

The 2006 law exempting fantasy sports from the internet gambling payment ban was attached to which bill?

The UIGEA never actually defined unlawful internet wagering; it only restricted the movement of money.

Which is the only US state whose statutes explicitly prohibit online fantasy sports?

Louisiana and Arizona, whose bans were never written into law, both launched online fantasy offerings in 2021.

In a PPR league, how many fantasy points does a player earn for each reception?

Half-PPR leagues split the difference at 0.5, and ESPN and NFL.com both use full PPR as their default setting.

Under default NFL.com, ESPN and Yahoo scoring, how many points is a passing touchdown?

Rushing and receiving touchdowns are worth six, which is why quarterbacks need volume to keep pace with elite running backs.

In default NFL.com scoring, a passer earns one point for every how many passing yards?

Rushing and receiving yards pay out at one point per 10, so a 300-yard passing day equals a 120-yard rushing day.

In default ESPN, Yahoo and NFL.com lineups, the flex spot takes a running back, wide receiver or which other position?

The default lineup is one QB, two RB, two WR, one TE, one flex, one kicker, one D/ST and six bench spots.

A 'superflex' league lets teams start which position in the flex slot, where it is normally not allowed?

Because you can start two quarterbacks, QBs get drafted far earlier in superflex than in a one-QB format.

In a snake draft, the owner picking first in odd rounds picks where in even rounds?

The 'serpentine' order exists purely for fairness, so no team gets two top picks in a row.

In an auction draft, what decides which owner ends up with a nominated player?

Every owner has an equal shot at every player, unlike a snake draft where your target can be taken before your turn.

In a 'best ball' league, what does a team's weekly point total automatically reflect?

Trades and the waiver wire are usually eliminated too, which is the format used on platforms like Underdog and DraftKings.

What happens each week in a 'guillotine' league?

The eliminated team's players all become free agents, so the waiver wire gets richer as the field shrinks to one.

After the first season of a dynasty league, each subsequent draft includes only which players?

Keeper leagues are the middle ground, usually letting teams retain somewhere between five and ten players.

In fantasy football, what does IDP stand for?

IDP scoring rewards tackles, sacks, interceptions and QB hits instead of using a whole team's defense as one unit.

In fantasy football, what does the acronym FAAB stand for?

Managers spend from a fixed pool through blind bids, so a desperate owner can blow the whole budget on one waiver pickup.

In fantasy jargon, what is a 'sleeper'?

The opposite is a 'bust', a term that can describe a single bad week or a whole wasted season.

The 'Zero-RB' draft strategy means passing on running backs during which part of the draft?

The theory is that running back is the most volatile and injury-prone position, so you load up on receivers first and take fliers on backs later.

'Streaming' a roster spot from waivers each week is most common at which position?

The idea is to chase favorable matchups, which is why streamed defenses tend to face the league's worst offenses.

The FX comedy 'The League' followed six fantasy football friends living in which city?

The show was largely improvised and ran for seven seasons, moving to the new FXX channel for its fifth.

On 'The League', the championship trophy called 'The Shiva' is named after whom?

Andre briefly renamed it 'the Dre' after winning it, and the resulting bad luck was dubbed 'DrAIDS'.

On 'The League', what is the name of the booby-prize trophy handed to the last-place finisher?

Its holder must also endure the punishments that come with it, a tradition many real leagues have copied with costumes and Waffle House marathons.

Before becoming ESPN's senior fantasy analyst, Matthew Berry was a screenwriter on which 2001 movie?

Paul Hogan later sued Berry and the Writers Guild, insisting he alone had written the film.

DraftKings was founded in 2012 by three former employees of which company?

Its first product was a one-on-one baseball contest timed to MLB's opening day, run out of co-founder Paul Liberman's house.

FanDuel was founded in 2009 in which city?

It began as a pivot from Hubdub, a news-prediction site, and only later became the New York-based DFS giant.

Which running back set the NFL single-season record with 31 total touchdowns in 2006?

He was named MVP with 44 of 50 votes and had a hand in 33 of the Chargers' league-leading 59 touchdowns.

Which Chiefs running back set a then-record with 27 total touchdowns in 2003?

He entered the league as an undrafted free agent with Baltimore in 1997 and won a Super Bowl ring there as a backup.

Who became the first Seattle Seahawk to win NFL MVP after scoring 28 touchdowns in 2005?

He set the total-touchdown record in the Week 17 finale against Green Bay, and it stood for exactly one season.

Whose 1999 record of 2,429 yards from scrimmage stood for a decade before being broken in 2009?

He won a record three Offensive Player of the Year awards in a row with the Rams and was named MVP in 2000.

Which Tennessee Titan set the single-season record for yards from scrimmage with 2,509 in 2009?

His 2,006 rushing yards that year made him the sixth player ever to top 2,000, and the media dubbed him 'CJ2K'.

Peyton Manning opened 2013 with seven touchdown passes against which reigning champion?

He was the first player to throw seven in a game since 1969, and fantasy owners who started him banked a month's worth of points in Week 1.

Who set the single-season record with 23 touchdown catches in 2007?

He also holds the rookie record with 17 in 1998, and was the catalyst for the two highest-scoring offenses of their time in both seasons.

Whose tight end yardage record did Rob Gronkowski break in 2011, hours after it was set?

Gronkowski's 17 receiving touchdowns that year were the most of any player, the first time a tight end had led the league outright.

Cooper Kupp's 2021 receiving triple crown was the first since which player achieved it in 2005?

Kupp's 145 catches trailed only Michael Thomas's 149, and he capped the year as Super Bowl MVP.

Which former LSU teammate broke Justin Jefferson's rookie receiving-yards record the next season?

Jefferson bounced back in 2022 as the youngest player ever to lead the league in both catches and yards, at 23.

Which running back is the only player to rush for 2,000 yards in a season in high school, college and the NFL?

His 2,027 yards in 2020 made him just the eighth NFL player past 2,000, and the second Titan to do it.

Travis Kelce's tight-end record, ended in 2023, was how many straight 1,000-yard seasons?

The streak ended only because he sat out the Chiefs' meaningless Week 18 game.

Which 1980s 49ers back had a 1,000-yard rushing and receiving season before Christian McCaffrey did in 2019?

McCaffrey went eighth overall to Carolina in 2017 and later won Offensive Player of the Year with San Francisco in 2023.

Lamar Jackson's 2019 MVP season made him the first signal-caller since whom to rush for 1,000 yards?

Jackson finished with a QB-record 1,206 rushing yards and was the second unanimous MVP ever, after Tom Brady in 2010.

Which MLB outfielder was suspended in 2022 for slapping Joc Pederson over fantasy football?

He said he did not regret it: 'It's a matter of principle, man.'

Which Broncos passer told ESPN in 2006 that fantasy football had 'ruined the game'?

Tiki Barber took the opposite view, saying it gave individual recognition in a sport built around the team.