Top 5 Fantasy Football Websites

Fantasy football is a popular game in which fantasy managers compete to draft the highest-performing real-world NFL players to their fantasy teams. With lots of rules, trading, and complexity, the game of fantasy football has largely moved online with the advent of the internet. Here are the best websites for playing fantasy football.

What Are the Most Popular Fantasy Football Websites?

1. Yahoo!
2. ESPN
3. NFL.com
4. CBS Sports
5. Sleeper

1. Yahoo!

• Founded: 1997
• Website: https://sports.yahoo.com/fantasy

Yahoo was one of the first platforms ever to host free fantasy football leagues, and because of this, it has remained one of the most popular fantasy football leagues over the years. The brand first launched its first fantasy football league in 1998 and has continued to grow. The main benefit of using this brand today is that Yahoo! has real-time stat tracking. The Yahoo! fantasy football platform is highly user-friendly and easy to use while still allowing fans to customize their leagues to their choosing.

Yahoo! Fantasy is still the most popular fantasy website today. It's very accessible to new players, with in-depth tutorials for every section of the web page. It's very easy to get started on Yahoo! Fantasy and get connected with others who want to play just as much as you do. Yahoo! Fantasy also has a very simple overlay that is easy to read. Drafting, the trade block, and even the waiver wire are very easy to find and maneuver with the simple user interface.

2. ESPN

• Founded: 1996
• Website: https://www.espn.com/fantasy/football/

ESPN is famously known as the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” and has also earned its status as one of the top websites for fantasy football. Its platform also allows users to customize their league and experience but is not as simple to operate as Yahoo’s site. However, ESPN brings another level of analytics to its fans by hosting podcasts, in-app analysis, and even a sports show centered solely on fantasy football.

ESPN allows for more engagement among its fans as well as a more lively league message board and customized weekly rankings that always include some lively trash talk.

ESPN.com Fantasy is less popular due to being less accessible to new players. It's made more for experienced players of fantasy football. As a result, the website can sometimes be hard to navigate if you don't know what you're looking for.

The upside of this is that everything on ESPN.com Fantasy is very customizable. There are a multitude of different league types and custom settings that can be set, including features that you won’t find on any other website. Another plus to ESPN.com Fantasy is how in-depth their analysis shows and statistics pages are. Since the website is made for sports fans, the number of statistics on the website is endless. It's possible to go back years at a time to find stats on a player who is no longer in the NFL.

3. NFL.com

• Founded: 2010
• Website: https://fantasy.nfl.com/fantasyfootball

The NFL has been able to capitalize on the popularity of fantasy football and is one of the biggest websites within the industry. NFL.com is the official fantasy football site of the NFL and mandates that all stadiums display fantasy stats for spectators.

NFL.com is also a free platform that allows users to customize their league. Their app and website are very user-friendly and easy to navigate as well. The NFL will continue to promote its own platform and, because of this, will always have a dominant spot in fantasy football.

4. CBS Sports

• Founded: 1997
• Website: https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/football/

CBS Sports is another top brand within the community of fantasy football. However, CBS sports is designed for more intensive fans because it allows for extra customization and control, which comes with a price. It costs $180 to host and manage your own league on CBS’s platform for a season, including membership for up to 30 members.

They also offer free leagues that are great for beginners, but keep in mind that these leagues won’t allow you to customize settings. Given that CBS broadcasts many NFL games on their networks each year, the company has the opportunity to promote their fantasy platform as much as possible. CBS sports is a great brand for hardcore fantasy football fans who want a customizable and extensive experience.

5. Sleeper

• Founded: 2018
• Website: https://sleeper.com/

Sleeper is a relatively new fantasy football platform, but that certainly doesn’t diminish just how great of a platform they provide. Most notably, Sleeper prides itself on providing premier research tools and data for its users to make highly educated decisions and set the best lineups possible. Additionally, they also offer a unique messaging system within their platform that allows league members to communicate without having to turn to emails, text messages, or third-party apps.

The platform also prides itself in providing an ad-free experience and a wide range of scoring customization options. All in all, while it may not have the same notoriety as some other platforms, Sleeper is a great option for anyone looking to form a fantasy football league.

Honorable Mentions

My Fantasy League

• Founded: Early 1990s
• Website: http://home.myfantasyleague.com/

My Fantasy League is a highly-customizable and in-depth fantasy football website. While not as easily navigable as some fantasy websites, it makes up for that with several distinct features like draft tools and fantasy rankings. While they have a free draft-only league option, most league options come at a price. They offer different levels of fantasy leagues, with the lowest-priced available for $79.95.

One feature that sets My Fantasy League apart from other paid websites is the fact that they offer a free trial of their site with no credit card required. League members can enjoy a no-commitment experience from the preseason up until week 4 of the NFL regular season. If you like the service, you can pay to continue playing for the rest of the season!

Fantrax

• Founded: 2006
• Website: https://www.fantrax.com/

Fantrax is an independent, fan-built platform for fantasy football. Fantrax focuses on the league commissioner experience, but they offer plenty of public leagues as well. Fantrax is an excellent platform for an established league that has been operating for years as well as single fans looking for some fantasy action.

Fantrax offers free public and private leagues for NFL and NCAA fantasy football, as well as other popular sports, such as MLB, NHL, PGA, NASCAR, Premier League soccer, and NCAA and NBA basketball. Even though Fantrax is a smaller company, the platform offers all the features of the larger fantasy brands, such as customizable lineups, multi-team trades, league manager and treasurer features, and excellent email customer support.

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