Every football season, millions of fans crowd around the TV ready to support their home team. But football games have evolved into something more than just rooting for your team of choice.

For some people fantasy football is just a fun and competitive activity to do during football season but for others it could turn a household into a battlefield. If you want to know how intense it can get just ask the people who finish at the bottom of their league. The yearly losers of the most severe leagues could end up doing punishments such as getting a weird tattoo or public embarrassment. Some people take fantasy football to a whole other level of competition.

Last weekend I was talking to my cousin about our family league. Every year my family competes against each other for a trophy at the end of the season. As far as I know my cousin doesn’t care about football at all but she loves the competition against the family. She loves winning  and the way she picks her players is by looking at their smiles and eyes. She says “If they don’t have kind eyes I don’t let them on my team.”

So far this random way of picking her players is working out for her as she’s third in the league. On the other hand, my uncle spends forever looking at statistics and over analyzing every player before he picks them or trades them away but his season currently isn’t looking so good.

So far I haven’t heard of any potential punishments within our family league but it seems like a high price to pay when some of my family doesn’t even care about football. Sunday mornings the family group chat is filled with messages talking about how to pick their lineups based on players performances in previous weeks. Fantasy football is a super fun (and competitive) way to communicate with family more, especially when some of them may live far away.

Many people within the school participate in fantasy football and I often see people arguing about it in the halls. Its a competitive and fun activity to participate in. It’s super exciting to crowd around the TV because fantasy football involves more than just football. It creates competition around sports for more than just the actual players and their teams.

Football has changed so much over the years. Watching football now is so different than before. Back many years ago if you were to watch a game, there would be no score at the bottom of the TV, or TV channel either. Now, at the bottom of the screen there is even a fantasy tracker that shows players current statistics so people don’t have to check their phones mid-game.

TV companies and the NFL have profited greatly by this as fantasy football draws in new viewers who previously maybe didn’t care about football.