At a young age, Junior Caroline Hulsey was introduced to fantasy football when she joined her family’s draft.
“I think the first time I played fantasy football I was really little and my family just liked to do it,” Hulsey said.
Since she was first introduced to fantasy football, Hulsey said she loves sharing her love for it as a way to make new friends and strengthen existing bonds.
“This year in band, the saxophones were doing a fantasy football league, so I joined that for fun because I like football,” Hulsey said. “And then I suggested that we should do a league at work, so we did that too.”
Hulsey is not alone in her love of fantasy football. ESPN reported over 14 million users in 2025, its fourth consecutive year of record growth, with high engagement on its app and social media.
Making New Friends
Like Hulsey, U.S. history teacher Chris Laigaard said fantasy football has been with him for a long time and has helped him connect with people since he was in high school
Laigaard said fantasy football has evolved with technology, it’s easier than ever to start up a league.
“From the actual operation of fantasy [football], I think apps have definitely helped a lot. There’s not an excuse for people to forget to set a lineup. All you have to do is just get on the app and check your phone.”
Hulsey said she was also shocked how easy it was to start a league.
“It’s not hard to get started because even if you don’t really know what you’re doing,” Husley said. “The apps tell you exactly what to do. If you need to change your players, it’s very easy. Also, it’s not like you don’t have to do a whole lot of options—people need other people in a league, so it’s very easy to get started.”
Charan Annangudi, marching band member and junior, said he strengthened bonds with other band members when he was asked to join his section’s fantasy football league.
“Last year, some of our section leaders in marching band thought it would be a fun way to bond with the section, so they started a league and I was asked to join it,” Annangudi said. “It’s just a new talking point for us all to discuss, and if any of us are bored, we can always talk about football because now we’re all involved.”
Laigaard said another reason fantasy football has become more engaging is that player predictions have become more accurate, increasing fan engagement.
Laigaard said, “ESPN will predict how many points each of your players are gonna get, and that used to be wildly inaccurate. I mean, people are going to outperform predictions, but I think they’ve gotten a little bit better over the last few years. I think some of those predictive things have gotten a little bit better or at least more available to people.”
Annangudi said better predictions have increased his engagement and interest in fantasy football, leading him to converse with people he otherwise might not talk to.
“I became friends with some kids in my math class, and they like to talk to me about fantasy (football),” Annangudi said. “I can talk to them and they give me recommendations, so I’m happy about that. We get to talk about them and be happy that we all got points.”
Ultimately, Annangudi said joining fantasy football leagues has deepened his sense of belonging.
Annangudi said, “I think it has positively impacted my sense of belonging, and it’s an experience that I really enjoyed. It’s like a way to make sports accessible for some people that may not be able to participate in them.”
Friendly Competition
While many people find that fantasy football has a positive impact on social relationships, some still question how damaging the competitive aspect may be, according to Yahoo. Their recent survey indicated an 85% majority of the people interviewed would rather give up “something serious” in order to have the first pick in their draft, and one in four would rather win their fantasy football league than see their favorite team win the Super Bowl.
Laigaard said overcompetitiveness was something crucial to consider, but not something pertinent to fantasy football in his experience.
“You obviously worry about some of the people who take it too far,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s going on in fantasy football necessarily, but I know there’s articles on ESPN all the time about college players in particular who get these threatening messages from people who lost a bet because the player didn’t do well. You know, I haven’t seen anything about that happening because of a fantasy football issue, but that’s something you always worry about too, you know. People getting an unhealthy investment in it.”
Similarly, Hulsey said, “It gives you something to talk about and it is very competitive. I’m definitely very competitive, so I always like to talk trash with people, and it’s just a conversation starter. You can be like, ‘Oh, how’s your fantasy football team doing?’ or like, ‘Haha I beat you last week.’ It’s not harmful, it’s all in good fun and all jokes and stuff. I wouldn’t end a friendship over football. I mean, I’m pretty sure I’ve yelled at people over it, but not in a bad way.”
To fuel friendly competition, many leagues adopt “punishments” for last place finishers, with data stipulating that almost 68% of leagues incorporate some form of humorous penalty. Some of the most popular punishments include public humiliation, endurance challenges, or taking the SAT/ACT.
Hulsey said the punishments are in playful fun, and no one should get their feelings hurt.
“What makes it more fun is that usually if you win, you get to pick a punishment for the loser,” she said. “So for the band league, whoever loses, the winner gets to pick the outfit that they have to wear to school. So you can kind of add fun stuff that comes out of it, where you can make people do stuff like that. It’s just a fun experience that everyone gets to share, where they publicly humiliate someone else. But it’s all in good fun, everybody knows and agrees on the punishments going in.”
Laigaard said, “Whoever has the most wins at the end of the year gets to pick the lunch that we have.
So it’s pretty low stakes.”
Keeping connections alive
Fantasy football is not solely a method of developing new connections, Hulsey said, but also the means of strengthening old ones.
She said, “It’s a good way to start conversations and it’s a way to stay connected with people if you don’t talk to them all. At my work, every single person quit a little bit ago but I’m still in a fantasy football league with them, so we can still stay connected through that. I also like talking to my brother about it since he lives in North Carolina, that’s a good thing to talk about with him.”
According to Yahoo, 83% of people interviewed said fantasy football helps them keep in touch with friends they wouldn’t otherwise see, and more than 50% said that without fantasy football, they probably would not remain friends with the members in their league. Comparably, 63% said that fantasy football is one of the most important aspects of their family bonding.
Laigaard said fantasy football not only keeps him connected to cousins that he rarely visits on his wife’s side of the family, but also friends from college.
He said, “It definitely keeps us more connected and talking. I’m in a league with my wife’s side of the family, and there’s some cousins that I don’t see very often, and obviously I didn’t grow up with them, so it kind of gives you something to talk about. It’s also kept a lot of my college friends and I in touch over the years. And there’s some of them, who, the only time I actually see them, just because they live in different states or cities, is when we do our draft. I continue to kind of talk with them and stay connected with them throughout, not just the football season, but throughout the year as well. So it definitely has provided another avenue for us to keep in touch that maybe we wouldn’t have had otherwise.”