Fantasy football is a game where players create teams of real football players, either college or pro, and earn points based on their players statistics accumulated each week. Teams are organized into leagues and there are several different formats and rules depending on the type of league chosen. Different leagues can also use different scoring methods and have different roster regulations. It can get a bit confusing, but ultimately you want to arrange your roster so the players that score the most touchdowns and accumulate the most yards are on your team. For more information, check out the Mahalo page Fantasy Football.

Fantasy football originally stemmed from the ideas of Wilfred Winkenbach back in the mid to late 1950s. http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall03/Abrotsky/history.html Winkenbach originally started the concept with fantasy golf and later he applied the concept to baseball. Ultimately, in 1962, he applied the concept to football. http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall03/Abrotsky/history.html While there were a few leagues created here and there, the concept didn’t truly take off until some 30 years later with the advent of the Internet. It was just too cumbersome to manage all of the statistics and rosters by hand, mail, and over the phone. The Internet revolutionized the concept and allowed players to easily track statistics and quickly make roster updates.

It would be an understatement to say fantasy football has come a long way since then. It was estimated by Colin Cowherd of ESPN that more than 27 million players played fantasy football before in 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_football_%28American%29 With popularity increasing nearly every year, fantasy football is quickly becoming one of the most popular activities in the world.

In this tutorial, we will give a quick rundown on some of the options you will have, some of the rules and organizational formats, and ultimately we will show you How to Create a Fantasy Football League.

With the popularity of fantasy football, many big names have entered the arena of fantasy football as league providers; names such as ESPN, Yahoo, NFL, Fox Sports, and many more. So the first step will be to determine where you will want to setup your fantasy football league. There are a lot of options out there with both free and pay leagues. One of the better league providers in my opinion is Yahoo Sports. It is free to play, but you have the option of purchasing some add-ons if you want – although they’re by no means necessary. Yahoo also has a free iPhone App for fantasy football that makes keeping up with your league on the go a breeze.

If you’re new to the game, it may be a good idea to join as many leagues as you can to get a feel for each one. While the same general concept applies to all leagues, the layout and feel on each site can vary greatly. Plus, one of the bigger events for the entire year is the Live Draft, and each site will have a different feel and functionality in their draft room. Some sites may go heavy on the advertising, while others don’t do much at all. It really all decides on your preferences and which one feels most comfortable. Once you decide on the league provider, the next step is to create your league and configure it to your liking.

Now that you have selected the league provider, the next step is to configure the league and set any rules you may want. If you have a group of friends that will be playing in your league, you may want to talk to them beforehand about any rules or settings you want to implement to avoid any issues down the road. Ultimately though, you will be the league commissioner so you will have the final say. If it becomes too much of a hassle, you can always just set your league to public and let anyone join your league. Many of the leading league providers have made it very easy to create your own fantasy football league with step by step instructions. There should be plenty of documentation available letting you know what is customizable and what is not.

Some of the more important settings will be whether you want to do a live draft or not, how big the rosters will be, how many transactions each team can do during the season, how many teams can make the playoffs, and what type of scoring system to use in your league. There can be many other options; it just depends on who you choose to host your league.

Now that you have chosen your league provider and setup your fantasy football league, the third and final step is to invite your friends to your league. If you intend for your league to be an invite-only league, you will want to make sure you set a password in the previous step and send the details to your friends. If you create a public league, you will wait to watch it fill up. Once your league is full, you should welcome the participants to your league and start to prepare for the upcoming draft. With many, if not all leagues, you will want to pre-order your draft queue in case you miss the draft for whatever reason. Hopefully you don’t miss your draft though, because this can be one of the most exciting and crucial events for the entire season.

After your draft, it is on to the season. And as commissioner, you will want to keep it fun be posting periodic messages on the discussion boards or forums. This is where you want to spice things up a bit with some smack talk or with weekly challenges. It’s all up to you. But above all else, remember it is a game and you ultimately just want to have fun. Although, winning and the ensuing bragging rights always make the game a bit more fun.