The Popularity of Fantasy Sports Games. Let us know “Does ESPN Have College Fantasy Football”?
The popularity of fantasy sports games are thriving, except college football. The primary reason that ESPN cannot provide College Fantasy Football in the traditional sense is that in March 2014 FanDuel and DraftKings entered into an agreement with the NCAA announcing they were no longer offering college fantasy football.
ESPN’s Accommodation Regarding College Fantasy Football
While there can be no gambling through FanDuel, DraftKings and other sports betting organizations due to NCAA gambling restrictions, ESPN does provide its own brand of college fantasy football entertainment.
How ESPN College Fantasy Football Works?
In ESPN’s version of college fantasy football, each team representing a team from a qualifying college athletic conference will have a fantasy football draft. The drafts must follow ESPN standard fantasy football rules.
Eligible Division I Athletic Conferences in the College Bowl Subdivision (FBS) in alphabetical order are: American Athletic Conference; Big Ten Conference; Big 12 Conference; Conference USA; Mid-America Conference; Mountain West Conference, Pacific-12 Conference; Southern Conference; Sun Belt Conference; and Independents: Army, Notre Dame, University of Connecticut and University of Massachusetts.
Eligible Division I Athletic Conferences in the Football Championship Subdivision (CFS) in alphabetical order are: Big Sky Conference; Big South Conference; Colonial Athletic Conference; the Ivy League; Mid-eastern Conference; Missouri Valley Conference; Northeast Conference; Ohio Valley Conference; Patriot League; Pioneer Football League; Southern Conference; Southland Conference; Southwestern Athletic Conference; Western Athletic Conference and Independent: Liberty and New Mexico State University.
FCS Independent Brigham Young University will become a member of the Big 12 Conference, a FBS Conference in the autumn of 2022. The difference between the FCS and FBS is the FCS conducts a 24-team playoff every year to determine its national champion while the FBS follows the traditional college bowl season with the top four schools playing in a four-team playoff to determine the national champion.
On its website, ESPN allows you to create your own league. The recommended league size is 10 teams, but leagues can have as many as 20 members. Participants can start their own private league amongst family and friends, join ESPN+, or they can join a public league, whichever they prefer.
If one chooses to participate in a public league, then you can choose your experience level – beginner or pro – and how the games are to be scored – either granting points per reception or not.
The Draft
As with all other fantasy sports, college football has a player draft to set the rosters for each team participating in each league. In ESPN standard leagues, each team receives 25 players during the draft. All players drafted must be unique. No two teams in any given league can have the same player(s).
If desired, the teams can choose to have larger rosters. Real life NFL team rosters are 53-players. Each college team is required to have at least 85 players by the NCAA. A college football team can have a maximum of 105 players on their rosters.
The mock draft follows the ESPN standard rules. The exact order of each teams’ selection can be determined in any number of ways. Veteran participants and older leagues usually follow the NFL’s example where the worst teams the previous season draft first in an attempt to make the league more competitive.
In the public league, the drafts can either be by the “snake” or “salary cap” method. Although this may soon be changing given recent court rulings, college football players are prohibited from being compensated for their athletic participation in college athletics by the NCAA. Thus, the salary cap option is essentially irrelevant to this conversation.
In any event, the chosen rules and order of the draft are followed throughout the process.
Helpful Devices To Help Choose The Best Players
ESPN and other companies have simulation software. You will have to do your own research concerning these software packages which are offered at various levels of sophistication. The higher level of expertise assumed by the participants, the more expensive they are.
Draft Tools Ordinarily Include The Following:
1) Draft Simulator
This is what is referenced in the previous paragraph. The draft is generally conducted in minutes without having to wait between picks. That said, draft simulators are not perfect and the draft may encounter glitches along the way.
2) Cheat Sheet Creator
College Cheat Sheet creators combine rankings from 100+ experts into one “cheat sheet.” Each device has different tiers, notes and “sleepers.” Knowing what the experts’ track record is key for a successful draft.
3) Draft Analyzer
This device allows the drafter to grade one-self’s draft prowess, along with projected standings and your teams’ strengths and weaknesses. If this is a new league, the strengths of the individual players are often analyzed.
4) Draft Assistant
Drafters can get “expert” pick suggestions by using “draft sync” to automatically cross reference the previous choices made and remove players off the team’s draft cheat sheet.
5) Mobile Apps
Mobile apps can access the best fantasy football draft tools on the go with iOS and Android apps.
What Happens After The Draft?
Once the mock draft is complete, the season schedule, format and system of scoring must be set. While there are software packages for this, experienced participants generally choose between three types of formatting leagues. They are as follows:
Head-to-Head Formats: This has probably been the most popular format over the years. However, there may be some glitches along the way. There will be some college teams starting and ending their regular seasons earlier than others and the tricky thing is how to handle the playoffs when the time comes. This could create problems with determining how to seed them in the playoffs.
Total Points Formats: Draft a team. Either submit a line-up each week, or just a “season” line-up. You must track each team’s total points for the whole season. This will translate into a scoring method which will determine team records and each team’s suitability for the playoffs.
Keeper Leagues: Here the leagues can use either format above. The euphemistic term “Keeper leagues” pertains to allowing teams to keep players on their rosters for more than one season. It certainly makes superstars during one season more valuable commodities heading into the next season. This also adds a new element to each teams’ drafting strategy.
The Season Begins
After the rosters are in place and the scoring system is set, the games will proceed as it normally would throughout the season. The players who have been selected will accumulate points according to the scoring system adopted and will determine the outcome of the season for your team.
ESPN tries to make things even more interesting with incentives for the best teams. The playoff contenders and eventual champions of each league could win a free one-year subscription to ESPN Insider.
According to my research, college fantasy football does not have as great a fan base as other fantasy sports. That said, ESPN has developed a platform for those who want to play college fantasy football.