Here is the answer you are looking for. I will give you a general over view of fantasy sports in general. I will also lay out fantasy baseball, football and basketball.
A fantasy sport (also known as rotisserie, roto, or fairy-tale sport; or owner simulation) is a game where fantasy owners build a team that competes against other fantasy owners based on the statistics generated by individual players or teams of a professional sport. Probably the most common variant converts statistical performance into points that are compiled and totaled according to a roster selected by a manager that makes up a fantasy team. These point systems are typically simple enough to be manually calculated by a "league commissioner." More complex variants use computer modeling of actual games based on statistical input generated by professional sports. In fantasy sports there is the ability to trade, cut, and sign players, like a real sports owner.
Size of hobby
It's estimated by the Fantasy Sports Trade Association that 19.4 million people age 12 and above in the U.S. and Canada play fantasy sports and 34.5 million people have ever played fantasy sports[1]. A 2006 study showed 22 percent of U.S. adult males 18 to 49 years old, with Internet access, play fantasy sports. Fantasy Sports is estimated to have a $3-$4 Billion annual economic impact across the sports industry.[2] Fantasy sports is also popular throughout the world with leagues for football (known as soccer in the United States), cricket and other non-U.S. based sports.
History
Early history - pre-"rotisserie"
The concept of picking players and running a contest based on their year-to-date stats has been around since shortly after World War II, but was never organized into a widespread hobby or formal business. In 1960, Harvard University sociologist William Gamson started the "Baseball Seminar" where colleagues would form rosters that earned points on the players' final standings in batting average, RBI, ERA and wins. [3] Gamson later brought the idea with him to the University of Michigan where some professors played the game. One professor playing the game was Bob Sklar, who taught an American Studies seminar which included Daniel Okrent, who learned of the game his professor played. [4]
At around the same time a league from Glassboro State College also formed a similar baseball league and had its first draft in 1976.[5]
While those two leagues focused on baseball, it may be football that produced the first version of the hobby. The Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League — began in the early '60s with eight teams and included a cadre of Raiders followers from the media and ticket office — including future league executives Scotty Stirling and Ron Wolf.[6] George Blanda was the first player taken in the first draft in 1963. 1963 draft results
Modern founding - "La Rotisserie"
The landmark development in fantasy sports came with the development of Rotisserie League Baseball in 1980. Magazine writer/editor Daniel Okrent is credited with inventing it, the name coming from the New York City restaurant La Rotisserie Francaise where he and some friends used to meet and play. The game's innovation was that "owners" in a Rotisserie league would draft teams from the list of active Major League Baseball players and would follow their statistics during the ongoing season to compile their scores. In other words, rather than using statistics for seasons whose outcomes were already known, the owners would have to make similar predictions about players' playing time, health, and expected performance that real baseball managers must make.
Because Okrent was a member of the media, other journalists, especially sports journalists, were introduced to the game. Many early players were introduced to the game by these sports journalists, especially during the 1981 Major League Baseball strike; with little else to write about, many baseball writers wrote columns about Rotisserie league. A July 8, 1980 New York Times Article titled "What George Steinbrenner is to the American League, Lee Eisenberg is to the Rotisseries League" set off a media storm that led to stories about the league on CBS TV and other publications.[7]
In March 1981, Dan Okrent wrote an essay about the Rotisserie League for Inside Sports called "The Year George Foster Wasn't Worth $36." [8] The article included the rules of the game. Founders of the original Rotisserie league published a guide book starting in 1984. In 1982, Ballantine published the first widely-available Bill James Abstract, which helped fuel fantasy baseball interest. Fantasy fans often used James' statistical tools and analysis as way to improve their teams. [9] James was not a fantasy player and barely aknowledged fantasy baseball in his annual Abstract, but fantasy baseball interest is credited with his strong sales. [9]
Soon the hobby spread to other sports as well and by 1988, USA Today estimated that five hundred thousand people were playing.[10]
Early analysts/businesses
In the few years after Okrent helped popularize fantasy baseball, a host of experts and business emerged to service the growing hobby. Okrent, based on discussions with colleagues at USA Today, credits Rotisserie league baseball with much of USA Today's early success, since the paper provided much more detailed box scores than most competitors and eventually even created a special paper, Baseball Weekly, that almost exclusively contained statistics and box scores.
Among the first high-profile experts were John Benson, Alex Patton and Ron Shandler. Benson became perhaps the most famous name in the business in the late 1980s, publishing his first book in 1989 and developing one of the first draft-software simulation programs[11]. He had a 900 number at $2.50 per minute (He charged $150 per hour in the mid 2000s). [12]
Patton published his first book ('Patton's 1989 Fantasy Baseball League Price Guide ") in 1989 and his dollar values were included in USA Today Baseball Weekly's fantasy annual throughout the 1990s.
Ron Shandler published his "Baseball SuperSTATS" book in November 1986. At first the book wasn't meant for fantasy baseball fans, but rather as a book of Sabrmetric analysis.
But it wasn't just baseball that saw new businesses and growth. Fantasy Football Index became the first annual fantasy football guide in 1987. Fantasy Sports Magazine debuted in 1989 as the first regular publication covering more than one fantasy sport. Fantasy Football Weekly was launched in 1992 (later becoming Fanball.com) and had $2 million in revenue by 1999.[13] A large number of companies emerged to calculate the stats for fantasy leagues and primarily send results via fax.
In 1993, USA Today included a weekly columnist on fantasy baseball, John Hunt, and he became perhaps the most visible writer in the industry before the rise of the Internet.[14]. Hunt started the first high-profile experts league, the League of Alternate Baseball Reality which first included notables as Peter Gammons, Keith Olbermann and Bill James. [15].
The hobby continued to grow with 1 million to 3 million playing from 1991 to 1994 [16].
Internet boom
But the seminal moment for the growth of fantasy sports was the rise of the Internet in the mid-1990s. The new technology lowered the barrier to entry to the hobby as stats could quickly be compiled online and news and information became readily available.
While several fantasy businesses had migrated to the internet in the mid-1990s, the watershed era for online fantasy sports was in 1997 when two web sites made their debut that forever changed the fantasy sports industry: Commissioner.com and RotoNews.com.
Commissioner.com launched in Jan. 1, 1997 and first offered a fantasy baseball commissioner service that changed the nature of fantasy sports with real-time stats, league message boards, daily updated box scores and other features -- all for $300 per league. Commissioner.com was sold to Sportsline late in 1998 for $31 million in cash and stock in a watershed moment for the fantasy industry.[17] The sale proved fantasy sports had grown from a mere hobby to big business. By 2003, Commissioner.com helped Sportsline generate $11 million from fantasy revenue.[18] Commissioner.com is now the fantasy sports engine behind CBSsports.com's fantasy area (after Sportsline was sold to CBS).
RotoNews.com also launched in January of 1997 and published its first player note on Feb. 16 1997. RotoNews revolutionzed how fantasy sports information was presented on the web with the innovation of the "player note" which were snippets of information every time a player got hurt, traded, benched or had a news event that impacted his fantasy value - all search-able in a real-time database. [19] Most sites today follow how RotoNews had a "news" and "analysis" element to each player update. Within two years RotoNews had become one of the top ten most trafficked sports sites on the web, according to Media Metrix, ranking higher than such sites as NBA.com. RotoNews.com was sold to Broadband Sports in 1999 and later survived as RotoWire.com.
It wasn't long before the larger media players got involved. Yahoo.com added fantasy sports in 1999 and offered most of its games for free - a largely new business model for fantasy sports.[20] A trade group for the industry, the Fantasy Sports Trade Association was formed in 1998.
Other entries during this era included Fanball.com, launched in 1999 by the parent company of Fantasy Football Weekly.[21]
The first survey of the fantasy sports market in the U.S. in 1999 showed 29.6 million people age 18 and older played fantasy games. However, that figure was reduced in later years when it was determined the survey also included people who play NCAA bracket pools, which are not exactly fantasy sports (where you pick individual players).[22]
Dotcom era
While fantasy sports were fueled by the dot-com boom of the Internet, there was a turbulent period when many of the high-flying Internet companies of the era crashed in 2001. Fanball.com went bankrupt in 2001[23] (later to re-emerge in 2001). RotoNews.com's parent company, Broadband Sports, went belly up in 2001. The company would re-emerge as RotoWire.com.
There were also wide variations on business models. RotoNews.com launched the Web's first free commissioner service in 1998, quickly becoming the largest league management service.[24] Yahoo.com became the first major media company to offer games for free in 1999. Due to the rising competition, Commissioner.com, which had charged as much as $300, offered it's commissioner services for free starting with football in 2000.
Two years later the trend reversed. Sportsline moved back to a pay model for commissioner services[25] (which it largely still has today). TheHuddle.com, a free site since 1997, started to charge for information.[26] RotoWire.com moved from a free model to a pay model in 2001 as well.[27]
Despite the economic instability, fantasy sports started to become a mainstream hobby. In 2002, the NFL found that average male surveyed, for example, spent 6.6 hours a week watching the NFL on TV; fantasy players surveyed said they watched 8.4 hours of NFL per week.[28] "This is the first time we've been able to demonstrate specifically that fantasy play drives TV viewing," said Chris Russo, the NFL's senior vice president. The NFL began running promotional television ads for fantasy football featuring current players for the first time. Previously fantasy sports had largely been seen in a negative light by the major sports leagues.
Fantasy sports continued to grow with a 2003 FSTA survey showing 15 million people playing fantasy football and spending about $150 a year on average, making it a $1.5 billion industry. [29]
Legal Issues
STATS, Inc. vs NBA
In 1996, STATS, Inc., a major statistical provider to fantasy sports companies, won a court case, along with Motorola, on appeal against the NBA in which the NBA was trying to stop STATS from distributing in game score information via a special wireless device created by Motorola. The victory played a large part in defending other cases where sports leagues have tried to suppress live in-game information from their events being distributed by other outlets.[30] The victory also accelerated the market for real-time statistics which were largely fueled by the growth of the fantasy sports industry.[31]
CDM vs. MLBAM
The development of fantasy sports produced tension between fantasy sports companies and professional leagues and players associations over the rights to player profiles and statistics. The players associations of the major sports leagues believed that fantasy games using player names were subject to licensing due to the right of publicity of the players involved. Since the player names were being used as a group, the players had assigned their publicity rights to the players association who then signed licensing deals. During the 1980s and 1990s many companies signed licensing deals with the player associations, but companies did not. The issue came to a head with the lawsuit of Major League Baseball Advanced Media, MLB's Internet wing, vs. St. Louis-based CBC Distribution and Marketing Inc., the parent company of CDM Sports. When CBC was denied a new licensing agreement with MLBAM (they had acquired the rights from the baseball players' association ) for its fantasy baseball game, CBC filed suit.
CBC argued that intellectual property laws and so-called "right of publicity" laws don't apply to the statistics used in fantasy sports.[32] The FSTA filed a friend of the court brief in support of CBC, also arguing that if MLBAM won the lawsuit it would have a dramatic impact on the industry, which was largely ignored by the major sports leagues for years while a number of smaller entrepreneurs grew it into a multi-billion dollar industry, and a ruling could allow the MLBAM to have a monopoly over the industry.
"This will be a defining moment in the fantasy sports industry," said Charlie Wiegert, executive vice president of CBC. "The other leagues are all watching this case. If MLB prevailed, it just would have been a matter of time before they followed up. Their player unions are just waiting for the opportunity."[33]
CBC won the lawsuit as U.S. District Court Judge Mary Ann Medler ruled that statistics are part of the public domain and can be used at no cost by fantasy companies.
"The names and playing records of major-league baseball players as used in CBC's fantasy games are not copyrightable," Medler wrote. "Therefore, federal copyright law does not pre-empt the players' claimed right of publicity."[34]
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision in October 2007. "It would be strange law that a person would not have a First Amendment right to use information that is available to everyone," a three-judge panel said in its ruling.[35]
Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, which was an amendment to the larger and unrelated Safe Port Act, included "carve out" language that clarified the legality of fantasy sports. It was signed into law on October 13, 2006 by President George W. Bush. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act makes transactions from banks or similar institutions to online gambling sites illegal, with the notable exceptions of fantasy sports, online lotteries and horse/harness racing.
The bill specifically exempts fantasy sports games, educational games, or any online contest that "has an outcome that reflects the relative knowledge of the participants, or their skill at physical reaction or physical manipulation (but not chance), and, in the case of a fantasy or simulation sports game, has an outcome that is determined predominantly by accumulated statistical results of sporting events, including any non-participant's individual performances in such sporting events..."[36]
Fantasy baseball is a game whereby players manage imaginary baseball teams based on the real-life performance of baseball players, and compete against one another using those players' statistics to score points. It is the oldest form of fantasy sports, and arguably one of the most difficult and time-intensive due to the 162-game season of the MLB and the inconsistency of players.
History
Early forms of fantasy baseball were sometimes called "tabletop baseball". One of the best-known was the Strat-o-Matic, which began publishing in 1963 a game containing customized baseball cards of Major League Baseball players with their stats from recent seasons. Participants could then re-create previous seasons using the game rules and the statistics, or compose fantasy teams from the cards and play against each other. The landmark tabletop game Pursue the Pennant debuted in 1985 and took baseball board games to much more realistic levels of play to incorporate ball park effects, clutch hitting and pitching and many other nuances of the game. Fantasy baseball was the theme of the 1968 darkly comic novel The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop., which dealt with themes of creationism and playing god.
Copious materials accessible since 2006 in the Jack Kerouac Archive at the New York Public Library show that Canadian-American writer Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) played his own form of fantasy baseball starting quite young and continued developing and playing this perhaps private version of fantasy baseball during most of his life. At the Library from November 2007 - February 2008, an exhibition on Kerouac's life and works includes several display cases of Kerouac's highly detailed fantasy baseball records, including charts, sketches, and notes.
The landmark development in fantasy baseball came with the development of Rotisserie League Baseball in 1980. Magazine writer/editor Daniel Okrent is credited with inventing it, the name coming from the New York City restaurant La Rotisserie Francaise where he and some friends used to meet and play. The game's innovation was that "owners" in a Rotisserie league would draft teams from the list of active Major League Baseball players and would follow their statistics during the ongoing season to compile their scores. In other words, rather than using statistics for seasons whose outcomes were already known, the owners would have to make similar predictions about players' playing time, health, and expected performance that real baseball managers must make.
Because Okrent was a member of the media, other journalists, especially sports journalists, were introduced to the game. Many early players were introduced to the game by these sports journalists, especially during the 1981 Major League Baseball strike; with little else to write about, many baseball writers wrote columns about Rotisserie league.
Rotisserie league baseball proved to be hugely popular, even in the 1980s when full statistics and accurate reporting were often hard to come by. The traditional statistics used in early Rotisserie leagues were often chosen because they were easy to compile from newspaper box scores and then from weekly information published in USA Today. Okrent, based on discussions with colleagues at USA Today, credits Rotisserie league baseball with much of USA Today's early success, since the paper provided much more detailed box scores than most competitors and eventually even created a special paper, Baseball Weekly, that almost exclusively contained statistics and box scores.. Local papers soon caught up with USA Today's expanded coverage.
The use of statistics like pitchers' wins and RBI are often scoffed at today by members and followers of the Society for American Baseball Research who prefer to use objective evidence, especially detailed baseball statistics to measure player's performance. Sabermetric thinkers argue wins and RBI often misrepresent the performance of players, since they are largely influenced by "outside" factors like run support and bullpen support (for wins) and runners on base (for RBIs).
The advent of powerful computers and the Internet revolutionized fantasy baseball, allowing scoring to be done entirely by computer, and allowing leagues to develop their own scoring system, often based on less popular statistics. In this way, fantasy baseball has become a sort of real-time simulation of baseball, and allowed many fans to develop a more sophisticated understanding of how the real-world game works.
Fantasy baseball has continued to grow [based on recent studies from the Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA.org)], but has been overtaken by fantasy football as the most popular form of fantasy sports. This is primarily due to the fact that some of those sports, such as Football and Auto Racing, only play once a week, making it easier for a person to make adjustments, since they do not have to check their team every day.
Rotisserie baseball game details
Player selection
Rotisserie leagues and their descendants typically draft teams before the season begins (or very shortly thereafter). One approach is to hold an auction, whereby each owner has a fixed amount of money to bid for players, and he must fill his team's roster within his budget. Another approach is to perform a serpentine system draft of available players until all teams are filled.
In either case, the skills of the team managers come into play in the "preseason" by their knowledge of the talent and ability to forecast the performance of Major League Baseball players and prospects for the coming season. Toward that end, they draw on a great variety of sources of information, including tout sheets by various forecasters, who predict the coming season's performance and the likely overall "value" (often in terms of auction dollars) of the Major League players.
Some leagues allow teams to keep some players from one year to the next, allowing savvy owners to build fantasy dynasties. These leagues are often referred to as "Keeper Leagues." Keeper leagues have the same people in them, and owners keep their players, unless any off-season moves are made.
Many leagues allow teams to trade with each other during the season, as well as to replace players who get hurt or stop performing well with players from the pool of those who are not presently owned. However, some leagues prohibit such in-season "free agent" replacements, feeling that the game is more interesting when teams must live and die by the quality of their draft.
Also, at the league's discretion, there are only so many free-agent moves that a fantasy team can make per season, and a team may not just "drop" all of their players if they are not progressing well during a season. The free-agent limit is also sometimes used to limit the so-called "pitch-and-ditch" tactic, a method of play in which a manager drafts a free agent pitcher with the intention of using him in only one game before replacing him with a pitcher who is scheduled to start the following day.
The stakes
Many fantasy leagues are played for money. Owners ante up an entry fee at the beginning of the season and may also be charged for in-season activity such as trades and "free agent" acquisitions. The pool of money is collected and then distributed to the winner(s) at the end of the season. Most often, however, these are games in which the main reward is bragging rights or the participants' sense that they not only know how to assess baseball talent but also how to play the fantasy game in all of its dimensions including perhaps above all the selection of real baseball talent.
The 'game' is played
The statistics compiled by the players from each team are then ranked, and the team with the best statistics at the end of the season is determined to be the winner.
The original Rotisserie League used the following statistics:
team batting average (total hits divided by total at-bats)
total home runs
total runs batted in
total stolen bases
total wins
total saves
team earned run average (9 times total earned runs divided by total innings pitched, the lower the better)
team WHIP (total number of hits and walks allowed by pitchers divided by total innings pitched, the lower the better)
This is often called a "4x4" league (4 hitting stats and 4 pitching stats). Many leagues adopt a "5x5" format, with runs and strikeouts added, respectively. Still other leagues are "6x6", most commonly adding OPS (OBP plus SLG), and holds. However, the "6x6" format does not have a standard or consensus set of categories to use. Other modifications to the rules include a minimum number of at-bats and innings pitched; teams that do not make the minimum were awarded last place in the respective categories.
An alternative head-to-head system states that each team competes against only one team each week. At the end of the week, each team tallies wins and losses based on whatever criteria are set by the league. There are three basic forms of head-to-head leagues (often referred to as "H2H"):
Head-to-Head Rotisserie: Wins, losses and ties are based on your team's performance in individual categories.
Head-to-Head One Win: Just like H2H Rotisserie, but the winner receives just one win, rather than one win for each category the team wins.
Head-to-Head Points: Stats accumulate points for each team (a Home Run/Stolen Base/etc. is worth a certain number of points), and the team with the most points at the end of the week is awarded a win. These leagues often take advantage of several other stastical categories, from outfield assists to quality starts.
Opponents are dictated by a round-robin system. At the end of the season, the team with the best win-loss record is the victor.
Many head-to-head leagues also feature playoffs over the last 3-4 weeks of the MLB regular season. A set number of teams make the "postseason" and play a single-elimination tournament to decide a victor.
Pop Culture
In the 2007 film Knocked Up, Paul Rudd's character is shown participating in a fantasy baseball draft fully dressed in Baltimore Orioles gear. When asked what he was doing by his confused and angry wife, he responds "It's a fantasy baseball draft. I got Matsui!" very enthusiastically
Fantasy Football is a fantasy sports game in which participants (called "owners") are arranged into a league. Each team drafts or acquires via auction a team of real-life American football players and then scores points based on those players' statistical performance on the field. A typical fantasy league will employ players from a single football league, such as the NFL or an NCAA division. Leagues can be arranged in which the winner is the team with the most total points at the end of the season, or in a head-to-head format (which mirrors the actual NFL) in which each team plays against a single opponent each week. At the end of the year, win-loss records determine league rankings or qualification into a playoff bracket. Most leagues set aside the last weeks of the regular season for their own playoffs. Three major fantasy football sport providers are CBS, ESPN, and Yahoo!. There are also many mini games to go along with the major one.
History
The game originated in 1962 from an idea of Bill Winkenbach, then a limited partner in the Oakland Raiders, with assistance from Bill Tunnell, the Raiders' public relations man, Scotty Stirling, the beat writer from the Oakland Tribune, and George Ross, the Tribune's sports editor, as well as Philip Carmona, Winkenbach's friend. The idea emerged during a three-week road trip the Raiders took to the East Coast. Winkenbach and the others fleshed out the idea during the trip, and upon their return, formed the first fantasy football league, the GOPPPL (Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League).[1]. With the rise of personal computers and the Internet in the late 1990's, the participation in and popularity of fantasy football increased exponentially to the level of prominence it holds today.
Competition Format
The two main types of competition formats are 1) Head-to-head, with weekly games played against specific opponents (much like in the NFL), and 2) total points, in which cumulative points during the season determine winners (or playoff teams).
League Types
Leagues normally consist of 8-16 teams. There are three major types: redraft, "keeper" leagues, and dynasty leagues. In a redraft, each owner starts with no players at the beginning of each season and drafts an entire fantasy team. Each owner in a keeper league is allowed to retain a small number of players they owned during the previous season, eliminating these players from the draft, while each owner in a dynasty league is allowed to retain as many players as desired from the previous season, with the draft encompassing only rookies and other unowned (or un-retained) players.
Draft Formats
Players are drafted on a team in three main formats. One of these is the serpentine draft, in which the draft order from the first round is reversed in the second round, then reversed again in every round thereafter, thus creating a snakelike progression. Another is the "standard" draft system, in which draft order is maintained throughout. The last is an auction system, in which owners bid on players using a predetermined budget.
Salary Cap Leagues
The salary cap football league is a particular type of dynasty league which adds another factor of realism similar to the NFL: the salary cap. Just like in the NFL, this means each player has an associated salary and the total spent on all the players on a team has a maximum - the "salary cap." This can have many levels of complexity, e.g. a player may be signed for multiple years, etc.
New League Types
A new style of fantasy football is modeled after the popular "survivor pool" or "knock out pool" style of weekly NFL wagering that allows each pool member to pick one NFL team to win each week, but he or she can only pick that team once all year.
Similarly, survivor fantasy leagues allow owners to draft a fresh team of seven players each week, with each player only available to each owner one week per year. This added level of strategy places an emphasis on weekly NFL matchups, while at the same time diminishing the negative consequences of injuries.
Another type of league, that allows for year round fantasy football is called Simulation Football. Simulation Football uses a computer to simulate the games with simulated players, instead of relying on the NFL for its players and stats. The most basic type is a GM league, where all the player has to do is put together a team and the computer does most of the work. A much more involved type of simulation football is called a "Create-a-Player" or CAP league. In a CAP league, top players vie for the chance to be a GM and put together a team using players that are created by other people. There are different types of scoring for determining who is a "top player" but the people are charged with making their player as good as possible using the league's scoring system.
The Draft
Just like in real football, each year fantasy football leagues have a draft (note: in dynasty leagues, this normally consists of NFL rookies only), in which each team drafts NFL players. These players are kept unless "dropped" (aka become free agents) or are traded. In most leagues, no player may be owned by more than one team, (although some leagues do allow for this).
There are essentially two types of drafts. In a traditional "serpentine" (aka "snake") draft, owners take turns drafting players in a "serpentine" method, i.e. the owner who picks 1st in the odd rounds picks last in the even rounds, in the interests of fairness. In an auction draft, each owner has an (imaginary) budget which he must use to purchase all his players in an auction format, ie players are nominated and bid on, and the owner who bids the highest on each player receives that player (reducing their remaining budget accordingly).
It is widely accepted that the draft is the single most important day in the fantasy football season, despite the fact that no games are played.
Destination drafts have now become routine as many fantasy football managers have moved to different locations over time, but still enjoy competing against the same managers. With the internet sites moving fantasy football to a virtual event, many still crave the excitement of being all together during a draft. Locations usually involve a restaurant, casino, or large meeting space and some leagues conduct large, extravagant drafts that last multiple days.
Free Agents and Trades
Free agents and trades are integral components to maintaining a competitive roster throughout the duration of a season. Free agents exist in fantasy leagues that do not allow multiple teams to have any one professional athlete. In these leagues, free agents are professional players that are not currently on any league members' rosters.
Team Rosters
This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (December 2007)
Each team is allowed a pre-determined number of players on its team, as well as a specified number at each position that can or must be used in each game (the "starters"). Owners for each team then determine each week which players will start (within the rules) and which will be "benched". Just like in real football, bench players can become starters for various reasons: due to other players' injury, poor performance, or if another player's team has a bye.
Each week, owners choose their starters for a game before a certain deadline. Whether to sit or start a player is usually based on strategic considerations including the player's past and expected performance, defensive matchups, and so on.
Starters
Each team owner must designate which players from the team roster will be starters each week - i.e. the only players who will "score" any points. The following example is similar to many common formats required for a starting lineup:
1 Quarterback (QB)
2 Running Backs (RB)
3 Wide Receivers (WR)
1 Tight End (TE)
1 Kicker (K)
1 Team Defense/Special Teams (DST)
There are of course many variants on this. Some leagues use individual defensive players (IDPs) (and in some cases a punter) instead of a combined Team Defense/Special Teams. Another variant is the "flex" position, which can be filled by a player in one of several positions. Some other leagues use separate Defense and Special Teams. Flex positions are often limited to "WR/TE", "RB/WR", or "RB/WR/TE". Traditionally, this flex was required to be a RB, WR, or TE, however, some leagues allow any position to fill this flex slot as an "OP" (any Offensive Player). Although rare, some leagues do also have a 2 quarterback requirement for a starting lineup, yet providing another twist into the complexity of different scoring systems and lineups.
Scoring
Players earn their team points based on their performance in their weekly games; for example, each touchdown counts as 6 points, a certain number of yards gained counts for points, and so on. In almost all cases, players earn points for passing, rushing, and receiving yards. Passing yards (sometimes touchdowns as well) typically earn about half as many points as rushing/receiving yards, since QBs normally get many more. Negative points are also usually given for turnovers, and kickers earn points for field goals and extra points (sometimes negative points for missed kicks). Bonuses can also be given for exceptionally good performances, like a QB throwing for over 300 yards, or a kicker making a long field goal. Team defenses earn points for things like sacks, turnovers, safeties, etc. Individual defensive players typically do not earn points for team-wide stats such as keeping the opponent under a certain score or yardage total, but rather for tackles or turnovers made.
A typical scoring format follows. Again, there are many variations used:
1 point for 25 passing yards
1 point for 10 rushing and receiving yards
4 points for a passing touchdown
6 points for a rushing or receiving touchdown
-2 points for every interception thrown or fumble lost
1 point for each extra point made
3 points for each field goal made (additional points are sometimes awarded for long kicks, i.e. over 40 yards)
2 points per turnover gained by defense
1 points per sack by the defense
2 points for a safety by defense
6 points for each touchdown scored by defense
2 points for each blocked kick
An alternate scoring format is the "pure yardage" league, in which touchdowns are ignored, and each player's passing, rushing and receiving yards are totaled. Some yardage leagues also convert defensive stats into yards (ex., 50 yards for an interception, 20 yards for a sack), whether for a team's defense, or individual players. Another scoring system counts only touchdowns, touchdown passes, and field goals for points.
Individual Defensive Players
Many leagues have now incorporated Individual Defensive Player (IDP) play into their scoring systems. IDP play typically has roster space for three groups of defensive players: defensive linemen (DL), linebackers (LB) and defensive backs (DB).
One possible scoring system:
2 points per solo tackle
1 point per assist
6 points per defensive touchdown
2 points per safety
1 point per pass defended
2 points per half sack
2 points per fumble recovered
2 points per forced fumble
2 points per interception
Strategy
This article or section is missing citations or needs footnotes.
Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (August 2007)
Many Fantasy Football players are passionate about their hobby and are always looking for ways to gain an advantage over their competition. Magazines, websites, books, and software are available that provide fantasy players with the information they need to make better decisions.
One area of strategy that has only recently been gaining attention is handcuffing. Handcuffing is the drafting of two players from the same team in the same position to protect the investment in the top player. For example, if you draft a star quarterback, it may make sense to also draft his backup if the star quarterback performs well because of the team dynamic. The team may have a stellar offense that would allow any decent quarterback to excel in the starting position. This also allows you to protect your team in case an injury happens to your running back or other key position players.
Some "owners" will assess their competition's needs and acquire players that somebody else might end up playing against them otherwise.
Another strategy consist on starting a QB or WR to matchup against the competition. For example; If someone is playing against Randy Moss, it would be smart to play Tom Brady so that anytime Moss scores, for example a passing touchdown, so does Brady.
A final strategy consists of drafting QB to WR combo's. This is good for players like Randy Moss and Tom Brady of the New England Patriots, or Terrell Owens and Tony Romo of the Dallas Cowboys. Anytime one of the player scores, the points scored on the play in question double for your team.
Effect on Spectatorship
The explosive popularity of fantasy sports, coupled with the availability of venues showcasing numerous live football games via satellite, has had significant effects on football viewing and rooting habits among participants. Fantasy sports players watch more game telecasts, buy more tickets and spend money at stadiums at a much higher rate than general sports fans. For example, 55 percent of fantasy sports players report watching more sports on television since they started playing fantasy sports. [2] The NFL entered into a reported five-year, $600 million deal in 2006 with Sprint that was driven at least in part because of fantasy sports, allowing subscribers to draft and monitor their teams with their cellphones. [3]
Critics charge that rather than supporting a favorite team in any one game, some fantasy owners may instead support the players on their fantasy rosters. Players are mixed on the impact on the effects of fantasy football on fans' habits and preferences. In interviews with ESPN, retired NFL QB Jake Plummer stated, "I think it's ruined the game." And, as retired New York Giants RB Tiki Barber noted about fantasy fans, "there's an incongruity in the wants."[1]. However, Washington Redskins tight end Chris Cooley plays in four fantasy football leagues himself. [4]
For instance, a fantasy owner might have the quarterback from one team and the running back from the opposing team on his roster, and end up hoping both teams score frequently. However, he will only cheer passing scores from the first team and running scores from the second. As another example, if a team is up by many touchdowns, the "owner" of a running back on the losing team may be upset since the losing team will prefer passing instead of rushing.
Often, a fantasy owner may end up watching a game he would otherwise have had no interest in, simply because he "owns" one or more of the players involved.
Fantasy football has had a net positive benefit in increased knowledge of players at all positions, not just the traditionally regarded "skill positions."[neutrality disputed] For example, there is a premium placed on knowing who the starting tight end is for every team in the league, or the backup running backs, or even available placekickers who may be picked up by a playoff contender. This has helped increase the popularity of the league, and given status to fantasy football fans who take the time to learn the sport.
Fantasy basketball was inspired by fantasy baseball. Originally played by keeping track of stats by hand, it was popularized during the 1990s after the advent of the Internet. Those who play this game are sometimes referred to as General Managers, who draft actual NBA players and compute their basketball statistics. The game was popularized by ESPN Fantasy Sports, NBA.com, and Yahoo! Fantasy Sports. Other sports websites provided the same format keeping the game interesting with participants actually owning specific players.
League Settings
There are many rule variations when playing fantasy basketball. The rules used in a particular league are determined by the rule settings. Some common rule variations are discussed below.
Categories
Commonly, fantasy basketball leagues may track as few as three or as many as nine categories. Three-category leagues usually account for only points, rebounds, and assists. Five-category leagues generally add blocks and steals. Eight-category leagues usually add field goal percentage, free throw percentage, and either three-point field goals made or three-point field goal percentage. Nine-category leagues usually add the category of turnovers. Rarely, other statistics such as fouls are counted.
Some leagues allow the league "commissioner" to determine which categories will be tracked. If these categories are chosen poorly, the league may be unfairly weighted for or against certain positions. For example, a league that tracks points, rebounds, assists, steals, and three-point field goals would be weighted toward guards, who typically have higher numbers in many of these categories, and against power forwards and centers, who typically have higher numbers in the block and field goal percentage categories, which are not counted.
Number of teams
In public leagues, the number of teams in a league is typically ten or twelve. In private leagues, which are invitation-only and usually utilized by players who want to compete against a group of people they know, the number of teams will vary substantially.
Fantasy drafts
There are two types of drafting used to select players – the snake draft and the straight draft. In a snake draft, the first round is drafted in order. In the second round, the draft order is reversed so that the manager who made the last pick in the first round gets the first pick in the second round. The order is reversed at the end of each round so that the manager with the first overall pick does not maintain this advantage in every round. In a straight, or non-snake, draft, the initial draft order is maintained through each round.
Roster size and composition
"Roster size" refers to the number of players that may be assigned to any given team. The roster size is the same for all teams in the league. "Roster composition" refers to the number of players from each position (point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, and center) that a given team may use.
Some leagues require as few as five players per team (one from each position), challenging the player to assemble the best starting lineup from week to week. Other leagues may allow as many as twelve or fifteen players per team. These leagues usually designate one or more "bench" positions. Statistics accumulated by players assigned to the bench do not count for the team, but no other team may claim a player on another team's bench for their own team. Leagues with larger roster sizes challenge players to manage their rosters internally.
Scoring Types
Rotisserie
In rotisserie scoring, the real-life statistics accumulated by the players on a team are aggregated and ranked against the same statistics for the other teams in the league. Fantasy points are earned based on these rankings. For example, in a twelve-team league, the team with the highest number of rebounds over the course of the season to date would be awarded twelve fantasy points. The team with the next highest number of rebounds would be awarded eleven fantasy points, and so on, with the team with the fewest number of rebounds being awarded a single fantasy point. For negative categories like fouls or turnovers, the team with the fewest statistics are awarded the most fantasy points. This is done for all categories counted by the particular league. The team with the highest number of fantasy points at the end of the season is the winner.
Rotisserie scoring encourages balance on the team's roster. Winning the rebounds category by one rebound or by one thousand rebounds counts the same, while winning the steals category by one steal and the assists category by one assist is worth twice as many points as winning the single rebounding category by one thousand rebounds. Successful teams must fare well in several categories to win in rotisserie leagues.
Head-to-head (H2H)
In head-to-head scoring, teams are scheduled to "play" each other over the course of a week. During that week, the real-life statistics of the players on each team are accumulated.
There are two styles of head-to-head scoring:
Most categories is a win — whichever team has the more favorable statistics in the categories chosen (most points, fewest turnovers, highest free throw percentage, etc.) is awarded a point for that category. One can also weight each category, for example: winning scoring earns you three points, winning rebounds wins you two points, winning steals wins you one point. The team with the most points wins that game.
Each category is a win — whichever team has the more favorable statistics in a category (most points, fewest turnovers, highest free throw percentage, etc.) is awarded a "win" for that category. The other team is tagged with a "loss". The results of these weekly matchups are accumulated to provide a seasonal win-loss record.
Head-to-head leagues often employ a "playoff" system, with seeding based on the seasonal win-loss record. Matchups are determined via a bracket, with the winners of each matchup advancing and the losers being eliminated until a winner is determined.
Fantasy points
In fantasy point scoring, the commissioner determines the number of fantasy points that a particular statistic is worth. For example, the commissioner may determine that a steal is worth two fantasy points, where a rebound is only worth one, and a turnover is worth negative one. Fantasy points are accumulated nightly based on the real-life performance of the players on each team, and the team with the most fantasy points at the end of the season wins.
As when choosing categories, care must be paid in assigning fantasy point values to categories. Failure to achieve balance will result in weighting the league for or against players at certain positions.
Fantasy basketball tips and information
Rick Kamla, an NBA expert for NBA TV, has pioneered fantasy basketball with his show, NBA Fantasy Hoops. NBA Fantasy Hoops is a half hour long informational show dedicated to fantasy basketball. Mr. Kamla's show airs daily on NBA TV, during the NBA season.
NBA.com's Premier Fantasy Championship
Starting in 2006, NBA.com fantasy has instituted a global competition known as the Premier Fantasy Championship. Self proclaimed as "The World's Most Exclusive Fantasy Competition", the PFC mirrors the real NBA in having 30 teams managed by 30 experts selected from over 9000 applications worldwide. The PFC is a H2H league of the standard eight categories with weekly transactions. Each team has a total roster of eight players of which six are starters in the positions of point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, center, and utility. Each team has $100 of free agent bidding dollar for the entire season to sign free agents in an auction format. The twist of the league is that for the first three months of the season, every team with a losing record in that month will be subject to an internet public vote where the general managers with the most votes will be replaced by another general manager from NBA.com's PFC Developmental League. The winner of the competition will be the enshrined in the NBA.com Fantasy Basketball Hall of Fame and enjoy a lifetime's worth of bragging right as the top fantasy basketball players in the world.