Fantasy football is growing more and more popular by
second. It seems like everywhere you look you see another ad for a fantasy football related product or service and everyone is talking about this great game. But what is fantasy football, and more importantly, how do you play?At most basic level, fantasy football is a statistic-based game. You select real-world NFL players that will make up your fantasy team roster and score points based on how they perform in real-world NFL games. If your fantasy team scores more points than other fantasy teams in your league, you win.
With just this basic idea, there's an unlimited amount of variations on how to play fantasy football, and many fanatics have spent countless hours creating their own specific and detailed rules.
Sound interesting? Then here are some general steps and advice to starting your own fantasy football league.
Pick a commissioner
The first and most important step in starting your own fantasy football league is to pick a league commissioner. The commissioner will be leader of your league. They'll be responsible for defining and enforcing your league rules. The commissioner is also in charge of organizing league events, calculating team scores, and keeping all teams informed and involved throughout season.
As you can see, this is a very important decision. A good commissioner can make for a great fantasy football experience but a weak commissioner will quickly sap all fun out of your league. Make sure to select someone who is willing to put in required work, who is diplomatic and fair with others, and who is detailed oriented.
Note: For more information about selecting a commissioner and what's involved in job I recommend you read article The Army had Patton ... You Have a Fantasy League Commissioner by Joseph Legler at http://www.draftwizard.com .
Get a group of people to play
Once you've got a quality commissioner in place, your next step is to get a group of people together who want to play. Most leagues are made up of 12 teams, but with a little creativity in your scheduling, you can play with just about any number of people.
Fantasy football may be a statistic-based game, but real addiction behind game is community that it's played around so try to find other players that enjoy football at or around same level that you do. Statistic lovers will enjoy fantasy football more if they are playing against other statistic lovers, casual NFL fans will enjoy playing with other casual NFL fans more than any other level of player. If you're a hardcore NFL fan that knows everything there is to know about football, you can easily crush casual NFL fan in a fantasy football league, but chances are you won't have much fun doing it.
Set up your rules
So you've got a commissioner and a group of players, now it's time to set up your rules. It's important to set up strict and well-defined rules for your league, but try not to sap all fun out of game with restricting rules. Your rules should be used more as guidelines than as laws. Be flexible enough to allow for change when a rule is shown to be inaccurate or majority of your league demands such. Your rules are there to add structure to game play. Remember that in end, game is supposed to be about fun.
