Your Ultimate Guide on How to Set up a Fantasy Football League

Your Ultimate Guide on How to Set up a Fantasy Football League

Curious about how to set up a fantasy football league? Learn everything you need to know in our ultimate guide.

Fantasy football is so popular that it costs employers almost $17 billion in productivity every fall as employees’ minds wander. There are days when the office is positively buzzing with nothing but fantasy talk. If you don’t play, it gets lonely being on the outside looking in.

But it’s not too late to learn fantasy football, even if you’ve never played before. You can even be the commissioner of your own league.

We’ve created the ultimate guide on how to set up a fantasy football league for beginners. We’ll lead you step-by-step through every part of the process leading up to the first game of the season.

Let’s kick this thing off.

Choose Your Number of Teams

Before you can create a fantasy football league, you need people to play with. You can create a league with as many or as few teams as you like. But anything below 10 teams tends not to be particularly competitive, and leagues with more than 14 teams can be frustrating due to the lack of top-tier talent.

Choose a Draft Day

You’re not doing this because you really want to own a football team. You’re doing it to hang with, and smack talk, your friends. Your draft day party should get people excited about the season.

Determine Buy-Ins and Payouts

You could play for bragging rights alone, but you’re more likely to retain interest if your owners have at least a little skin in the game. A $50 buy-in is a nice place to start, as it makes for a pot that’s a few hundred dollars.

You can play winner-take-all, or you can spread the wealth by awarding the top three finishers. You can even get fancy with hardware. There are rings and trophies that kick the fantasy football game up a notch.

Pick a Platform

We’re guessing you don’t want to keep track of points and standings by hand.

There are a plethora of free fantasy football platforms. Yahoo!, CBS, and ESPN are a few of the most popular. They each have subtle differences, so do some research before committing to one.

The Most Important Part of Learning How to Set Up a Fantasy Football League: Making Rules

This is the most involved part of league creation, and it can either be fun or a nightmare. Consult the fellow team owners in your league to make sure everyone’s happy with the rules before you all start playing by them. You’ll need to have a plan in place for the following aspects of the game.

Scoring

Here, you assign point values to on-field actions, such as touchdowns, receptions, yardage, field goals, etc.

Waiver Wire

This is where you’ll determine how waiver claims work. This includes the waiver wire order, limits to the number of weekly pickups, and the bidding process if you’re in an auction league. It’s also where weekly power rankings come in handy during the season.

Trades

You want to keep your league competitive, so it’s wise to determine whether or not owners can veto trades. If so, how many votes are necessary for a veto.

Playoff Structure

How long do you want your playoffs to be? How many teams will make the playoffs? Which weeks of the NFL season do you want to coincide with your playoffs?

Answer these questions, and your league should be ready to commence!

Kick Off With a Draft Party

You can ensure the all-important draft party is a success with a few key ingredients.

Can everyone attend? Do you have a dedicated, undisturbed area for the draft to take place? Do you have plenty of refreshments?

As long as you’ve covered these, your draft party can’t fail. But if you want to get especially creative, you can use a slideshow maker to create fancy introductions to the first few rounds of the draft. That’s going above and beyond.

Get on the Virtual Gridiron

Now that you know how to set up a fantasy football league, all you have to do is beat the ever-loving crap out of your pals. We hope we’ve given you the tools to make that process as fun and easy as possible.

Check out our app for more fantasy football tips and tricks throughout the season.

ATTN Dynasty Commissioners: Do you want to do something cool for your league? How about a 1-hour live show dedicated to YOUR league? Team-by-team breakdowns, rankings, and more. For details and to book a show, visit: GoingFor2.com/plp.