The National Football League (NFL) is the largest sports league in the United States. One would be hard-pressed to find someone on the street who could not at least name one player or had no plans to watch the Super Bowl. Established in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, the NFL has grown tremendously from its humble beginnings of 14 teams (only two of which still exist, and which have both changed their names since) and renting baseball stadiums to play in front of crowds of around 2,500 fans. Throughout this period, there have been many points that have completely changed and evolved into the league, allowing it to reach new audiences. Some easy changes to point out are the beginning of broadcasting NFL games on TV to allow viewers to watch games at home, the decision to have big stars headline halftime shows in the Super Bowl like Michael Jackson in order to get fans outside of football watching, and the commercialization of the NFL with products ranging from clothes, housewares, video games, and more that integrate the NFL into everyday life. However, an often lesser discussed but arguably just as influential creation that has drastically reshaped the NFL as we know it today is fantasy football. While many adore fantasy football, it has attracted a nearly equal number of critics who feel it has done more harm than good.
Fantasy football began in 1962, but it was much different from what it is now. For starters, no technology was used, everything was handwritten. Only a few positions like quarterbacks, receivers, and running backs were drafted, and the point of distribution was much simpler than today, pretty much only relying on touchdowns since they were easy to track. The points each player had acquired that week were posted in the newspaper, and managers manually kept track of how many points their players had gotten. Fantasy was also a much more niche activity, and only die-hard football fans even knew what it was. Around the ‘80s, however, fantasy started becoming more mainstream, and in the ‘90s, it gained even more traction due to the ease of using the internet.
Today, fantasy has been more influential in pushing the NFL than nearly any other evolution of the league. Staples of NFL culture like RedZone were specifically created to capitalize on the explosion of fantasy leagues. Casual fans tracking the yards a backup running back ran or comparing the targets two wide receivers had would have been unheard of half a century ago. Sophomore Nick Lanteri feels that fantasy has given him “a better understanding of football and knowing how good new players are.” The NFL has gained more sponsorships, pulled in more viewers, and gained billions off of fantasy culture. Players who would have been mainly unknown have now gained fandoms for themselves, largely due to team managers drafting them and being happy with their results. Sophomore John Jarrel said he feels fantasy has helped him “learn what the analytics are about stats and rankings.”
However, fantasy football has not been all beneficial to the NFL and its fandom. Nowadays, fans often care more about statistics than the actual game of football, a sentiment reciprocated by many. Freshman Lucas Pollin shared that he feels fantasy “makes [it so] people [would] rather do well in fantasy than root for their own team.” Freshman Ryan Bowes added, “When people watch the game, they just follow their players and don’t root for a team anymore. People focus more on stats than watching the games.”
Players who have one bad game are often harassed on social media by fans who lose games after a player did not get the points they expected, ruthlessly tearing into players who might have just been unlucky or up against a much better team. Fans will often root against their favorite teams just because a player they have started in fantasy is playing against their team, creating a disconnect between the bond a fan has to his/her team that was never present before fantasy.
The offense-leaning nature of fantasy football has been a major factor in the NFL implementing rules and regulations protecting offensive players and increasing penalties, one of the main contributors to why many fans feel the game is “softer” nowadays. People will often root for injuries, with freshman Adam Abir feeling that, “If people are playing a good player in fantasy, they might be rooting for them to get injured and cheering when that happens, which should never be happening.”
Finally, fantasy league punishments for last-place team managers have caused division and anger amongst fans over a sport that should bring people together. Many leagues will implement punishments for last place teams, and often these punishments are much more cruel than they should be for how generally approachable fantasy football is otherwise. While some punishments are simply giving money to the winner, more cruel punishments can include being forced to film embarrassing videos and post them online, being stuck in IHOP for 24 hours, having to drink a gallon of milk and run a mile at the same time, and being sent to a nearby state with no money or phone and having to find a way back. The fact these punishments sound so extreme but are some of the more recognizable and common ones is, to most people, borderline insanity. These punishments cause gamedays, which should be exciting and fun, to be stressful and anxiety-inducing for teams not doing so well, even if they are, in the words of senior Tim Neri, “funny and should be a thing in every fantasy football league.”
Fantasy football has impacted the NFL in many ways. Whether good or bad, fantasy has left a permanent mark on how the league operates that will never be counteracted. With fantasy leagues crowning their champions as the NFL playoffs begin, it is important to take a closer look at one of the real factors of change in the NFL that is often glossed over, even if it has integrated into the daily lives of football fans so well.
