How to Play Real Time Fantasy Sports: A Complete Guide

Posted: May 22, 2020

Updated: May 22, 2020

The industry of fantasy sports has been booming these years. Some people might be skeptical about creating teams and rooting for them. However, fantasy sports allow you to look at the traditional game of football, baseball, and other games from a totally new perspective. Today, we are going to take a look at how and where to play real-time fantasy sports.

How to play real-time fantasy sports: fantasy sports explained

Basically, fantasy sports is a game where players create and manage virtual teams. The teams can be assembled from real-life athletes, and the score is counted based on the performance of the team members. Although fantasy sports have been around for a long time, the invention of the Internet created a huge boom in the industry and it became much more popular. There are numerous variations of fantasy sports - fantasy football, baseball, basketball, golf, and so on. However, today we will take a look at fantasy football and fantasy baseball, as these two types are the most popular.

Fantasy football: creating teams

There are multiple types of fantasy football, but usually, it is tied to the National Football League or NFL events. Most of the time, there are around 12 teams in a fantasy football league. Before the NFL starts, users create their teams and use the real NFL players as reference. Everything starts with picking the players or drafting. There are two types of drafting - auctions and snake drafting. In snake drafting each team takes one player per round, one by one. The last team in the first round is the first team in the second round and vice versa. Sometimes, some users prefer to build teams auction-style - they set up a certain amount of money and bid on the players until the team’s registry has enough members. The registry can also consist of a different amount of players. Though, the minimum amount of players is 13 - a quarterback, 2 running backs, 2 receivers, a kicker, a tight end, and team defense.

Time to play

After the registry is full, the season begins. The most popular version of the game is Rotisserie. In Rotisserie, each team plays against all of the teams of the given season. The aim of the game is to get to the top of the leaderboard. Another type of fantasy football is Head-to-head. Here, each team competes with another team round by round. The goal of the game is to beat the opponent in as many categories as possible. As we mentioned before, fantasy football is tied up with the NFL. As far as the real-life NFL player scores, the team receives a certain amount of points. And as the fantasy football teams usually have mixed up players from different real-life teams, the season’s outcome can’t be predicted. Besides, league commissioners are following each NFL game in order to track every player on the field.

Team management

If you are a team owner, you will be responsible for adding new players and removing the least successful ones. Moreover, you can even exchange players with other team owners. Thus, the team’s success will also depend on your strategic decisions. As you can see, fantasy football isn’t just another made-up online game. Real-time fantasy football allows you to customize your own football team. Similarly to real-life football, a lot of people are involved in the production and maintenance of the teams. Additionally, you can even bet on the fantasy football teams on online gambling sites in the UK.

Fantasy Baseball: an overview

Fantasy baseball has been around since 1980. At that time, fans tried to create a new way of interacting with the favorite game. Interesting fact - a famous American novelist Jack Kerouac also played a form of fantasy baseball. However, his version wasn’t based on a real-life game. Nowadays, fantasy baseball is a big industry with a lot of fans all around the world.

How to Play Real Time Fantasy Sports — Fantasy Baseball is the most popular form of fantasy sports

Similar to fantasy football, fantasy baseball players create and manage teams made from real-life players. These teams compete with each other by tracking scores from real-life games. However, unlike in real baseball, you can use your creativity and managing skills in order to lead your team to victory.

Other types of fantasy baseball

Like in fantasy football, teams need to fill their roaster by either a snake drafting or an auction. In order to start the game, you will need at least 8 players and then, the main part starts. Apart from Rotisseries and Head-to-Head scenarios, players can compete in Round-robin and Single-elimination types of the game. In Round-robin, the team with the best win-loss ratio throughout the season wins. And in Single-elimination, the teams play a “knockout game”, where the losing team leaves the contest. Lastly, you can also check out the daily fantasy baseball option. Here, you will need to pick players from the team that is playing on a given day. As you can see, fantasy baseball is a totally new kind of experience, which adds another level of interaction into the classic game.

Where to play fantasy sports?

Now, when you know how to play real-time fantasy sports, it's time to find a good platform for it. FanTeam is a platform that offers various daily fantasy sports, including fantasy football, fantasy baseball, and eSports. Moreover, each new player will receive a 200% max. €500 bonus for the first deposit. The platform also offers weekly bonuses, such as free tournament tickets and a 25% cashback. Besides, FanTeam has been providing fantasy sports services for more than 7 years. And if you want to learn more about fantasy sports available on the platform, check out our review about the FanTeam.