#13ths

MYTH #1: You need Fantasy Football experience to run a Fantasy Football League

False! Let’s get this whopper of a lie out of the way up front. You do not need to have FFL experience to run a League of your own. You don’t even need to know much about football, the game. All you need is an email address, basic literacy, and a couple of buddies (preferably buddies who know less about football and math, so you can crush them in the regular season and take home the trophy come playoff time). A few cases of beer and some nachos aren’t bad either.

MYTH #2: It takes a lot of time to set up a Fantasy Football League

False! We’ve started successful Fantasy Football Leagues (with great post-season parties, mind you) with as little as 48 hours notice for the draft. If you’ve got a lot of friends who are game, you can kickstart your League even faster; if you have fewer friends chomping at the Fantasy Football bit, maybe give yourself an extra couple of days or even a week to round up your owners on Facebook, Twitter, or Tinder.

The NFL’s official NFL Fantasy Football is the official Fantasy Football League host of the 13th Man (because it’s dead simple, and you know it’s gonna have that NFL authenticity because it comes straight from the NFL itself!), but there are plenty of other popular Fantasy Football League hosting options, including Yahoo! Sports and ESPN (the most trusted name in news).

MYTH #3: You need to plan early for your Fantasy Football League

False! It takes very little preparation to set up a Fantasy Football League. Don’t want to mess with League structures, draft type, or scoring rules? Just use the default; they’re their for a reason, 13THs!

Here’s the real list of things you need to “plan” for your league:

Who will play? Whoever you can get to join.

How many teams? See “Who will play?” above. Stuck with an uneven number of owners (people who control a team in the Leauge)? Just boot your least favorite friend, or enlist the help of Rando Ballrissian to round out your crew. (We’ll have an in-depth tutorial for Rando Ballrissian in a future post. Expect it!)

Who will bring the beer? Not you, Mr. or Mz. Commissioner!

What’s a good draft date? Whenever’s good for you. Through the magic of distributed cloud computing, any bozos in your league who can’t make it will get auto-draft picks, which in our experience are at least as good as (if not significantly better than) what those juggalos on your Facebook would pick themselves.

MYTH #4: You have to learn from a Master

False! According to famed Fantasy Sports website FantasyPros.com, the best prognosticator of Fantasy Football picks for the 2015–2016 season only delivered picks with an accuracy of less than 60 per cent! Get a coin and flip it, you’ll do about as well!

MYTH #5: Fantasy Football is for nerds

FALSE!!! Look, I know all the jocks, Excel “experts,” and other meatknuckles at your work love Fantasy Football, Friday Night Lights, and The League, but that’s no reason for you to miss out on the fun, excitement, and profits (oh yes, we’ll have more on profits in the coming weeks, dear 13THs!) of Fantasy Football. There are even entire Fantasy Football Leagues with female commissioners and all-female ownership. How many ladies would you call a “meathead jock” to their face?