Fantasy Football for Good
Fantasy Football has a tendency to bring out the worst in people - present company excluded, of course. It can feed your ego, and it can ruin your Sunday. It’s so easy to become overly-invested in an otherwise inconsequential football game - before we know it, we’re cursing out Mike Vrabel because “why wouldn’t he give the damn ball to Derrick Henry on 3rd and 4??? C’mon!” The highs and lows of fantasy football is what makes it so freaking fun. To those who’ve hoisted a league championship trophy in the past, I think you’ll agree that the prize money is nice - but it’s all about the bragging rights. Nothing fires us up more than strong competition, and to those of us who are privileged enough to participate in buy-in leagues, I’m here to tell you that we have a unique opportunity to leverage our competitive nature in a charitable fashion. We can use Fantasy Football as a vehicle for good.
I’m far from the first to pitch Fantasy Football as a charitable engine. NFL Writer Michael Gehlken famously went on twitter in 2017 and recommended that fantasy owners donate a portion of their winnings to charities publicly endorsed by players on their roster. There’s also the industry-renowned Scott Fish Bowl, which pits 1,200 teams against one another (split into 100 12-team leagues/divisions) in a massive fantasy showdown where buy-ins and donations get funneled to Fantasy Cares. There are plenty of examples to choose from, and it just goes to show that when we pitch our resources together, good things can come of it. While it’s a noble idea, I’m not going to ask that you donate all of your league winnings to charity. Instead, I’d like to recommend a few ideas that you can potentially introduce to your league, without jeopardizing the winner’s bounty.
$ Per Point Scored
At season’s end, most teams that participate in 0.5 PPR leagues end up with roughly 1,500 points scored. If a 12-team league commits to donating something as small as $0.01 per point scored, you’re looking at roughly $15 per team, $180 total. Following Week 16, when the league champion has been crowned - on top of receiving their own financial prize consisting of everyone’s buy-in fee, he/she will get to donate that $180 figure to the charity of their choice. Not bad, right?
$ Per Transaction
At the beginning of the year, upon completion of your league’s fantasy draft, each team commits to donating $X per recorded transaction. That means every trade and every free agent acquisition costs $X. Obviously, some leagues are more active than others so that variance needs to be kept in mind when deciding upon the fixed cost. In my highly competitive hometown league, each team averaged 27 transactions on the season. If each team had committed $0.50 per transaction, we’d be looking at roughly $13.50 per team, $162 total. Again, the league winner would get the opportunity to donate that sum to a cause of his/her choice.
Sliding Donations based off Season Standings
This format is my personal favorite, as it really plays into the competitive nature of fantasy football. I’ve floated this idea before as a means to increase league interest and ultimately fatten the pot a little bit - but I like it even more from a charitable perspective. Before the season starts, the whole league agrees that donations will be determined upon final standings. Bear with me, as these numbers are just hypothetical. Let’s say that the last place finisher pays an additional $60 on top of the league buy-in amount, 11th place pays $55, 10th place pays $50, 9th place pays $45, and so on, all the way down to $5 from the 2nd place finisher. The league winner gets to enjoy their prize money, and they’d also get to donate $390 to a cause he/she cares about. The beauty of this format is that it incentivizes under-performing teams to remain engaged in an effort to forfeit less money.
Before I go, it’s imperative to acknowledge that each of us have different financial situations. So please, if you’d like to introduce one of these ideas to your league (and I hope you do), make sure that everyone is on board with the format. Fantasy Football should never be about money. It’s about healthy competition, reconnecting with old friends, and most importantly, bragging rights. If you’re in a situation where you can afford to accept one of these challenges, why not try to kick your friends’ ass and make the world a better place while you’re at it?
