Even if you don’t play fantasy football, you have that friend who gets really into it. For the fantasy sports die-hards out there, the NFL is typically the focus of their energy. But college football fans have options, too. Yes, there is fantasy college football. It’s just a little bit harder to find.
Fantasy football is immensely popular. According to Statista, over 29 million people in the United States have a team and compete in leagues every fall. When you expand to all fantasy sports, the number balloons to over 50 million. Football is the king of fantasy, with the NFL having a schedule and TV package that are tailor-made to keep up with fantasy. It’s only once a week, compared to the daily nature of other sports. So why hasn’t college football found the same foothold in fantasy?
Is There Fantasy Football For College Football?
ESPN, Yahoo, and CBS Sports are typically the largest fantasy sports hubs, but none of them hosts college fantasy games anymore. College football has a few things working against it from a fantasy perspective. First, there are more than 130 teams. That’s a lot of players to keep track of. Second, besides the top-25 teams, college football gets regional coverage. In comparison, the NFL’s consistent national coverage makes it easy for fans to know more about what’s going on in the league.
Lastly, COVID-19 created a mess of a college football schedule for a couple of years. An unintended result of that was that already sparsely populated college football fantasy leagues became impossible to organize. As a result, the big fantasy sites like ESPN and Yahoo stopped hosting college football fantasy leagues for good.
Where Can You Play Fantasy College Football?
To be honest, there aren’t many options anymore. If you want a classic fantasy football experience in the college game, Fantrax might be your best bet. The site hosts fantasy leagues for about every sport. They have roster customization by league, which allows you to adjust the player pool. If you want to have a league of just Big Ten players, you can. Maybe just the power conferences? You can do whatever you want with the player pool to make it as large or small as you want.
However, Fantrax has pricing tiers. A lot of customization options are locked behind the paywall of a premium membership, which costs $129 to make your league a premium league. The free version will get you all of the basic options. The premium version might be worth it if you’re in an intense league with buy-in and payouts.
Finally, there is the Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) option. Sites like DraftKings and FanDuel have college football contests every weekend. However, those contests don’t cover a single season. They are on a single day and will only have a player pool from a specific number of games. Additionally, every contest has paid entry, so use your best judgment before jumping in.
Where do you like to play fantasy football? Let us know in comments!
