By the 1980s, fantasy football was a national activity

The first fantasy football league began in Oakland, California

Winkenbach organized the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League, the first fantasy football league. The game allowed team owners to draft players from both the NFL and the AFL, then separate leagues, and create an impossibly epic roster.

One fantasy football league has been running for over four decades

The Fantasy Football League began in 1980, before fantasy football was available online. The group, which began in Northern California, originally used a touchdown-only format because it was easier to score in the preinternet era.

The inventor of fantasy football first experimented with two other sports

In the mid-1950s, Wilfred “Bill” Winkenbach, a part-owner of the Oakland Raiders, concocted two fantasy sports games: one for Major League Baseball and one for the Professional Golfers’ Association. In 1962, he invented fantasy football alongside two writers from the Oakland Tribune.

George Blanda was the first fantasy football draft pick

The first pick in the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League was future Hall of Famer George Blanda, then an Oakland Raider. Blanda played quarterback and kicker. Because of his dual role, the GOPPPL allowed him to be drafted twice, by two separate competitors.

Fantasy football is now a $10B industry

Curious about how fantasy football grew into a global empire? This video breaks down how a losing Oakland Raiders team led to the first form of fantasy football, long before the internet and smartphones made it a worldwide phenomenon.

As fantasy football grew more popular, the NFL began adapting

By the late 1990s, CBS, ESPN, and Yahoo had all launched their fantasy platforms, allowing the game to grow even more popular. By 2009, the NFL took note and began offering coverage that explicitly focused on fantasy metrics, including “RedZone,” a popular Sunday show that allows viewers to tune into the most crucial moments from around the league—or across their fantasy rosters.

An estimated 49 million people played fantasy football in 2022

The number, estimated by the Fantasy Sports and Gaming Association, has grown exponentially since the start of the century. While fantasy sports in general are popular, football is the most popular, with an estimated 79% of fantasy participants playing fantasy football.

Fantasy sports began in the 1860s

“Sebring Parlor Base Ball,” a tabletop board game in which players flicked a coin as if they were hitters is believed to be the first game that allowed players to imagine themselves as athletes without actually taking part in physical activities.

Fantasy sports can also offer community

Fantasy leagues often carry over from year to year, allowing people to hang on to (or forge) connections with others. Matthew Berry, a fantasy football analyst for NBC Sports, argues, “the truth is it’s all about the people. It’s not the draft, it’s not the trash talk or the punishments … It’s the people who make the draft and the trash talk and the punishments and the winning what it is.”

1440: The National Football League

Explore the best resources we found on the NFL

A 2024 cheating scandal cast doubt on the industry

In 2024, National Fantasy Football Championship, a fantasy league with big payouts, fired one of its employees for manipulating data. The episode cast doubt on the relatively unregulated industry, despite the league coming down hard on the nefarious worker.

For years, Black players were tacitly banned from professional football leagues

In 1902, Charles Follis was the first Black player to play in a professional football game, and Black players were allowed in years after other leagues banned them. A "gentleman’s agreement” led to the league banning Black players in 1933, until four Black men reintegrated pro football in 1946.

The World Football League, the most disastrous sports league ever

In the mid-1970s, a group of investors attempted to compete with the dominant National Football League. This short video highlights the league's intriguing innovations and speedy downfall. The investors dubbed their project the World Football...

Explaining the rise in adult sports leagues

Community sports leagues shifted from publicly supported entities to privatized ones in the 1990s, as tech advances streamlined registration processes. Millennial interest drove significant growth in social sports leagues for adults, growing much faster than other kinds of sports. A few industry leaders have benefited from this shift.

Pete Rozelle made football an American obsession

There have been eight NFL commissioners in the league’s 100-plus year history, but none of them changed the league quite like Pete Rozelle. This 1984 New York Times Magazine profile looks back at the substantial changes Rozelle brought to the league since he took the job in 1960, as well as the challenges he faced while in office.

John Madden influenced generations of NFL players, coaches, and fans

John Madden coached the Oakland Raiders from 1969 through 1978, never had a losing record, and won Super Bowl XI. But his post-coaching career as a broadcaster and video game brand solidified his stardom.

Fanfiction proliferated on fan-made sites in the 1990s

As the internet became more accessible in the '90s, fanfiction writers created websites dedicated to publishing stories about their favorite characters. Still, the hobby was far from mainstream. As one writer from that time said, "Going to Star Trek/comic book conventions in the '80s and '90s was something nerds did. Telling people you read or wrote fan fiction put you in the super geek category."

A Bay Area lab was supplying MLB players with steroids

The Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, also known as BALCO, began as a modest vitamin shop, but by the 1990s it was at the center of a doping scheme that rocked Major League Baseball and other professional sports.

College football rivalry trophies range from historic prizes to bizarre oddities

From the Paul Bunyan Trophy and the Golden Hat to the Old Brass Spittoon and the Bronze Pig, rivalry games feature prizes that mix tradition, regional pride, and a dash of eccentricity.

The impact of FC Barcelona on Catalan pride

FC Barcelona is one of the most decorated soccer clubs in the world and has also become a source of Catalan pride. It all started in 1899 with a Swiss-German accountant and journalist, a newspaper advertisement, and 11 talented soccer players. Read this article to learn about the team’s humble beginnings and how its history overlaps with the Catalan resistance to Spanish rule.

Parents criticized 'Dungeons & Dragons' during the 'Satanic Panic'

The role-playing game became popular enough to attract the ire of special interest groups, like Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons (or BADD) during the so-called "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s and 1990s, when parents believed the game was corrupting children.

Modern prediction markets started in Iowa in 1988

The University of Iowa's Iowa Electronic Markets were introduced during the 1988 US presidential election. The beginning of their origin story almost sounds like a joke: Three economists walked into a bar.

Breaking down the WNBA's expansion plans

The 2026 season features two new teams, the Portland Fire and the Toronto Tempo, with plans for franchises in San Francisco, Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia by 2030. This ESPN explainer unpacks what that means for fans.

One NHL team tosses salmon to its fans

Detroit Red Wings fans have thrown octopuses on the ice since 1952, and fans of other teams have tried their own hand at tossing things in the rink ever since. It's now become a calling card for the Seattle Kraken, whose fans nod to the city's Pike Place Market by tossing salmon onto the ice.

The first private equity fund was launched in 1960

At the time, the industry—and the public's understanding of it—was rather limited, and few private equity firms existed until the 1980s. The first leveraged buyout is thought to have taken place in 1955.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

Elk Cloner, the first computer virus to spread in public, was written as a practical joke by Richard Skrenta, a Pittsburgh high school student.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

44% of Americans say they pray at least once a day—discover how your state's religiosity stacks up against the rest of the country.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Poison ivy was sent to Europe in the 1600s as an exotic, ornamental oddity, where it was purposefully grown in the English royal gardens at Kew, the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, and a few other locations.

Fireworks-related ER visits are on the rise—in 2024, they increased by 52% as compared to the prior year.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

The power and influence of the American presidency have expanded significantly over time—far beyond what the founders envisioned.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight