Yahoo Fantasy Games is a DFS and gaming service operated and maintained as part of the Yahoo fantasy sports section. It is available on Yahoo’s sub-domain: https://sports.yahoo.com/fantasy/.
Like other operators in the space, such as DraftKings and FanDuel, Yahoo fantasy games allow users to pick their teams or rosters based on real-world players with a limited cap, called a salary, available to each user. Real-world players are ranked based on their skill and matchup competence, which impacts their salary.
Yahoo fantasy games are offered for six main leagues/sports: NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, golf and soccer. The most popular league in Yahoo’s fantasy slate offering is the NFL, with several thousand users paying an entry fee to enter each contest for the opportunity to receive a larger payout, based on how their respective fantasy teams perform. Users can top up their Yahoo fantasy wallet in order to play these games. Yahoo also has a free-to-play model, where users can play against other users or friends to win the right to brag.
How does Yahoo Fantasy Work?
Yahoo has two forms of fantasy: DFS (Daily Fantasy Sports) and season-long fantasy, which runs through a season. Both are available on the Yahoo fantasy app. We’ll get to live fantasy in a bit. Season-long fantasy is the traditional format, where users pick their teams for an entire season. Picking these players is often carried out in a live fantasy draft format, where users can “draft” players. These players are picked based on various factors, ranging from form to matchup advantage.
These players then go on to accrue fantasy points based on their performance in a real-world event. For example, if a user drafts Tom Brady in their fantasy team, then points are picked up every time he throws a touchdown pass or gains yardage on the run. These points are then totalled against an opponent’s tally, with the winner decided based on the higher fantasy points tally.
Apart from the set standard, Yahoo has other formats, such as a pick‘em and Survival Football. Some of the best fantasy sports websites, including ESPN, have similar game types.
What is Yahoo Daily Fantasy?
Yahoo’s Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) version or Yahoo Fantasy Daily is a newer, more popular format for playing fantasy sports. This format was brought in to reduce the time investment for users to participate in a sport or league. It gained incredible popularity in North America when DraftKings and FanDuel began blitzscaling the market through large-scale marketing, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in investment. Be sure to review any Yahoo restricted states.
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Yahoo also entered the daily fantasy sports market with their own product offering. While Yahoo’s user base is not as large or ubiquitous as others in the market, their DFS product is still fairly large with a sizable market to address. Prizes for daily fantasy events on Yahoo run into the low multiples of a million dollars for several game weeks on the NFL calendar, like several other DFS sites.
Yahoo has divided their contests into various types, such as guaranteed contests, multiple entry and head to head. Yahoo’s Daily Fantasy Sports is their most popular format of playing fantasy sports. Understandably so too, considering users need not tweak their teams ahead of every week. There is also the additional attraction of larger payouts for entry fees as low as a dollar.
Esports offering
Does Yahoo offer fantasy esports? The answer for now is no. Yahoo have not yet ventured into the esports fantasy market for several reasons. But maybe it’s time they seriously consider it. Let’s take a look at why. DraftKings and FanDuel both benefited massively from owning a fantasy esports product at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
As sports completely ground to a halt, esports were the only sports that were able to function. That is because certain esports, like CS:GO and League of Legends, could transition seamlessly from LAN to an online event. That ability immensely reduces systemic risk, which makes esports a compelling opportunity for fantasy esports providers.
“Esports was really small for us until, you know, about 2 months ago,” DraftKings CEO Jason Robins said in an interview with CNBC in May last year when the pandemic started to take over sports across the world.
“Really, it was the only thing for a little while that people were still playing. Esports has stuck. Hard to say what it will look like once the traditional sports are back, but I think a lot of people are finding it fun.”
Esports also have consistency and repetition in events, with no traditional season like basketball, football or baseball. That results in esports events taking place almost every day during a year. That, in turn, increases the retention power of esports. It brings users back frequently for a way to make money or as a tool of engagement for operators.
At one point, esports was DraftKings’ quickest-growing sector as users found familiarity with players and leagues across the world. Therein lies a clue for Yahoo to make a serious consideration to expand into esports as part of their product offering. Yahoo fantasy esports could make many fans happy!
