Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: What's fantasy football?
Fantasy football (less commonly referred to as fantasy association football worldwide but known as fantasy soccer in the United States) is a game in which participants assemble an imaginary team of real life footballers and score points based on those players' actual statistical performance or their perceived contribution on the field of play. Usually players are selected from one specific division in a particular country, although there are many variations. The original game was created in England by Bernie Donnelly on Saturday 14 August 1971 and is still going strong 45 years later. Fantasy football has evolved in recent years from a simple recreational activity into a significant business due to exposure via the internet.
The Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 and Public Law 89-800, which govern the antitrust exemptions given to the National Football League, prohibit the broadcasting of NFL games within 75 miles of any high school football game on Friday nights between September and early December. Because most populated areas of the United States have at least one high school football game within a 75-mile radius, and because broadcasting is an integral part of the NFL's business model (roughly half of the league's revenue comes from television contracts), this effectively prohibits the playing of NFL games in competition with high school football. (These rules do not apply during preseason, when Friday night games are common, nor does it apply at the end of the season, though the only time regular season games are played on Friday in the NFL is on Christmas.) Only recently have national sports television channels fully capitalized on this rule; since 2005, the ESPN family of networks (usually the sub-networks ESPN2, ESPNU and online broadcaster ESPN3, although the main channel also shows occasional games) has aired regular season matchups between nationally ranked teams under the "High School Showcase" banner. Fox Sports 1 also included high school football in its lineup when it launched in 2013.
At the beginning of each home football game, the school Indian, or student mascot, rides a horse across the field and throws a spear midfield. Although many think that the idea was borrowed from Florida State University, in fact it is opposite that, as accounted for by the former football coach and athletic director, Wyman Townsel. Ann Bowden, wife of Florida State University football coach, Bobby Bowden, attended a Choctaw football game in the 1970s, saw the horse run, and told her husband that it would be a good idea for FSU.
Several minor or developmental leagues, independent of the NFL, have come and gone, such as the recent United Football League and the Fall Experimental Football League, but none have lasted more than a few seasons.
On November 27, 2016, it was reported by CBS Sports that the NFL will present formal proposals for a developmental league or in-season academy (with Troy Vincent prepared to make recommendations) in 2017. Vincent stated "We are ready to socialize our findings to the respective committees at the Pro Bowl, Senior Bowl, and combine" he also stated "We have some viable potential options that are ready to share with the Competition Committee, the Coaches Subcommittee and with some of our active and former players", "Our goal is to create a platform that addresses the entire football community--coaches, officials, front office personnel and players--is essential to the long-term sustainability of our game."
Gridiron football does not operate on a league system. Different professional leagues play by very different sets of rules in different seasons (the NFL plays 11-a-side on a 100-yard field in autumn and early winter, the CFL uses 12-a-side on a 110-yard field in summer and early fall, while arena football and the minor indoor leagues each play 8-a-side on a 50-yard field in the spring and early summer). There have been attempts at forming true minor leagues for the professional game (most recently with 2017's The Spring League); none so far have been able to balance the major leagues' requests with the ability to maintain financial solvency.
The American Football League stands as the only professional football league to successfully compete against the NFL. When the two leagues merged in 1970, all ten AFL franchises and their statistics became part of the new NFL. Every other professional league that had competed against the NFL before the AFL–NFL merger had folded completely: the three previous leagues named "American Football League" and the All-America Football Conference. From an earlier AFL (1936–1937), only the Cleveland Rams (now the Los Angeles Rams) joined the NFL and are currently operating, as are the Cleveland Browns and the San Francisco 49ers from the AAFC. A third AAFC team, the Baltimore Colts (not related to the 1953–1983 Baltimore Colts or to the current Indianapolis Colts franchise), played only one year in the NFL, disbanding at the end of the 1950 season. The league resulting from the merger was a 26-team juggernaut (since expanded to 32) with television rights covering all of the Big Three television networks and teams in close proximity to almost all of the top 40 metropolitan areas, a fact that has precluded any other competing league from gaining traction since the merger; failed attempts to mimic the AFL's success included the World Football League (1974–75), United States Football League (1983–85), XFL (2001) and United Football League (2009–2012).
There have been proposals to expand the regular season schedule to 17 or 18 games per team. Current Commissioner Roger Goodell has said he favors expanding it to 18 games. However, a longer regular season proposal was defeated in the 2011 labor negotiations between the owners and the players association. One of the proposals for the 17th and 18th games is to have every team play at least one game abroad every year. Another idea being put forth by Houston Texans owner Bob McNair is to move the traditional regional rivalries that are currently played in the preseason (such as the Governor's Cups) into a permanent annual part of each NFL team's schedule. The NFL Players' Association opposes extending the season, largely because of injury concerns, and extending the season would require that such an extension be included in the next collective bargaining agreement. The collective bargaining agreement signed in 2011 maintained the sixteen game regular season schedule.
The National Football League (commonly known as the NFL) was an association football league competition in India between 1996 and 2007 which was organised into three divisions. The league is now transformed into the I-League and continues with that name. The "Premier Division" of the league was first introduced in 1996, though the country already had a long history in the sport thanks to the likes of the IFA Shield and the Federation Cup. In fact, the Santosh Trophy (started in 1941) was the top football competition in the country before the then National Football League started.
In American football each team has 11 players on the field at one time. The specific role that a player takes on the field is called their "position". Under the modern rules of American football, teams are allowed unlimited substitutions; that is, teams may change any number of players after any play. This has resulted in the development of three "platoons" of players: the offense (the team with the ball, which is trying to score), the defense (the team trying to prevent the other team from scoring, and to take the ball from them), and the special teams (who play in kicking situations). Within those platoons, various specific positions exist depending on what each player's main job is.
In Australia, Saturday Night Footy (formerly as Saturday Night Football) is the broadcasting of Australian Football League (AFL) Saturday night matches on television. "Saturday Night Footy" is generally considered to be one of the biggest stages and generates publicity for the clubs involved. It is for this reason that clubs involved generally want to perform at their best to avoid large-scale criticism from the media. The Seven Network have the broadcast rights for the AFL starting from the 2012 season.
Due to relatively short seasons through most of college football history, the list of undefeated Division I football teams includes dozens of teams. The highest level of college football, the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (introduced as Division I-A in 1978), did not use a playoff to determine a champion prior to the introduction of the four-team College Football Playoff (CFP) in 2014. The system replaced by the CFP relied on a combination of polls and computer rankings to choose two teams to play one title game in a system known as the Bowl Championship Series. Prior to 1992, no attempt was made to match up the top two teams in a championship game, further increasing the chances of multiple teams achieving a perfect season. The record for most wins in an undefeated FBS season is 15-0 accomplished in the 2018/19 season by Clemson Tigers Football Team. Following that the record is 14–0, accomplished in 2002 by Ohio State, twice in 2009 by Boise State and Alabama, in 2010 by Auburn, and in 2013 by Florida State.
The NFL has not operated any developmental leagues since the folding of the NFL Europe League in 2007, and as of 2017 no independent minor professional leagues exist. From the time of NFL Europe's exit from the U.S. market in 1992 until the founding of the Stars Football League in 2011, there were no minor American football leagues anywhere in the country (the SFL ceased operations after its 2013 season; the Fall Experimental Football League played two seasons in 2014 and 2015).
The Indian Super League, a tournament just recently recognized by AFC or FIFA, was founded in 2013 in an effort to make football a top sport in India and to make Indian football a major player worldwide. The league operates along the lines of the Twenty20 cricket Indian Premier League, and Major League Soccer of the United States. Unlike the vast majority of football leagues around the world, the ISL does not use the promotion and relegation system. Instead, it uses an American style franchise system in which ten teams were specifically created to participate in the league. Each team in the ISL is composed of players from I league or state league, apart from the foreigners who may or may not be a part of the I league. Recently it was recognised as the second national league in India, which means ISL champions from 2017–2018 leagues will be eligible for an AFC Cup qualifying slot
The rival American Football League arose in 1960 and challenged the NFL's dominance. The AFL began in relative obscurity but eventually thrived, with an initial television contract with the ABC network. The AFL's existence forced the conservative NFL to expand to Dallas and Minnesota in an attempt to destroy the new league. Meanwhile, the AFL introduced many new features to Professional Football in the United States: official time on the scoreboard clock, rather than on a watch in the referee's pocket, as the NFL did; optional two-point conversions by pass or run after touchdowns; names on the jerseys of players; and several others, including expansion of the role of minority players, actively recruited by the league in contrast to the NFL. The AFL also signed several star college players that had also been drafted by NFL teams. Competition for players heated up in 1965, when the AFL New York Jets signed rookie Joe Namath to a then-record US$437,000 contract. A five-year, $40 million NBC television contract followed, which helped to sustain the young league. The bidding war for players ended in 1966, when NFL owners approached the AFL regarding a merger, and the two leagues agreed on one that would take full effect in 1970. This agreement provided for a common draft that would take place each year, and it instituted an annual World Championship game to be played between the champions of each league. That game began play at the end of the 1966 season. Once the merger was completed, it was no longer a championship game between two leagues, and reverted to the NFL championship game, which came to be known as the Super Bowl.
The 1999–2000 National Football League, also known as the Coca-Cola National Football League for sponsorship reasons, was the fourth season of National Football League, the top Indian league for association football clubs, since its inception in 1996.
NBC broadcast the first televised National Football League (NFL) game when they carried the 22 October 1939 game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Brooklyn Dodgers. The same year, the first nationwide radio broadcast of an NFL championship game was carried on the Mutual Broadcasting System. While the NFL had weak television deals that ranked behind college football and even the Canadian Football League in the 1950s, the broadcast rights of the NFL would go on to become an important property following the 1958 NFL Championship and the later establishment of the American Football League in 1960. "Monday Night Football", "NFL on Fox", and "NBC Sunday Night Football" have changed the landscape of American football broadcasts, including the scheduling of the Super Bowl, transforming it from an afternoon broadcast into a primetime spectacle. The price for the NFL's broadcast rights has increased steadily over the past several decades, in part because of bidding wars between the numerous networks and the fear of losing stature due to the loss of NFL programming; as of the most recent contract the league nets annual fees of over $6 billion, or half of the league's overall revenue, from television rights alone. Four of the five major sports television units in the United States, and the four companies that control all of the major broadcast networks, currently own some NFL rights.
The 2019 NFL season will be the 100th season of the National Football League (NFL). The season will tentatively begin on September 5, 2019, in the home stadium of the Super Bowl LIII champion (either Los Angeles Rams or New England). The season will conclude with Super Bowl LIV, the league's championship game, tentatively scheduled for February 2, 2020, at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida.
The 2019 NFL Draft will be held from April 25–27 in Nashville, Tennessee.
With the August 2013 launches of national sports networks Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2, FX no longer serves as a regular pay-TV outlet for Fox Sports. However, UFC 185 preliminary fights aired on FX due to FS1 showing college basketball. Also on March 5, 2016 FX aired a Bundesliga match between that league's top two teams Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund to provide wider distribution of the fixture, as Fox, FS1, and FS2 all had sporting commitments of their own at the time of the match and the match was to air on the little-distributed Fox Soccer Plus (which does not have carriage on numerous TV providers). Because this was Fox's first year of coverage of Germany's top soccer league and Bayern and Borussia are the two most successful Bundesliga teams (and have an intense rivalry known as Der Klassiker), Fox wanted to give the game wider distribution, and so the game was moved to FX in a last-minute decision. In June 2016, FX continued its broadcast of sports with the airing of three games from the Copa América Centenario in order to gain a wider viewing audience for the selected teams.
National Football League, established in 1996 by governing body All India Football Federation (AIFF) was the first "semi-professional" football league in India. 
The League was renamed and restructured and the I-League was founded in 2006 after India's former top league the National Football League disbanded in a successful effort aimed at increasing the game in India. Links with clubs that were not in the I-League were maintained, and each season the bottom two clubs are relegated from the I-League and replaced by two from the I-League 2nd Division. The I-League is currently contested between 11 clubs. The Kolkata Derby in the I League (and other tournaments) played between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal is one of the most fierce rivalries in the world (featured in FIFA website) and one of the oldest derbies in the world (90 years). An average 80, 000 to 100, 000 supporters throng the stadium in this special fixture.
The National Football League (NFL) regular season begins on the weekend following the first Monday of September (i.e, the weekend following the Labor Day holiday) and ends in December or early January. It consists of 256 games, where each team (32 total) plays 16 games during a 17-week period. Since 2012, the NFL schedule generally has games in one of five time slots during the week. The first game of the week is played on Thursday night, kicking off at 8:20 PM (ET). The majority of games are played on Sunday, most kicking off at 1:00 PM (ET), some late afternoon games starting at 4:05 or 4:25 PM (ET). Additionally, one Sunday night game is played every week at 8:20 PM (ET). One Monday night game then starts at 8:15 PM (ET) every week with the exception of the first week of the regular season, in which two Monday night games are played back-to-back (the second game always occurring on the West coast), as well as the last week of the season, in which no Monday night game is held. In addition to these regularly scheduled games, there are occasionally games at other times, such as a Saturday afternoon or evening, or the annual Thanksgiving Day games in which three games are played. During the final week of the regular season, all games are held on Sunday.
In American football since the 1950s, most upper level teams use a three-platoon system, each with its own starting lineup. The starting lineups for offense and defense, each with eleven players, typically get the most attention. The starting lineups are defined as the eleven players who take the first offensive or defensive play from scrimmage of a given game. (An offensive player does not have to be on the team that gets possession first to be considered a starter, nor does a defensive player have to be on the team that does not; the first play from scrimmage after the first change of possession counts as well.) The third platoon, special teams, in modern times is composed mostly of backup and reserve players from the offensive or defensive platoons, with the exception of the placekicker or punter; the players who, for instance, take part in the opening kickoff are typically not considered starters.
One of the largest sources of revenue in fantasy football is ad revenue. Driven mostly by sports sites, revenue generated by ads on fantasy football programming is estimated at $2 to $5 billion annually. Ad rates vary greatly, and many content providers aren’t willing to give specific details on what they charge, but sites can charge an estimated $2–$10 per thousand page views. The advertising revenue can be especially lucrative because fantasy team managers are such heavy internet users. They create, on average, 4 times more page views than those that don’t play fantasy sports. Advertising isn’t limited to just sports sites and television. Demand for fantasy football information has spread to mobile applications, which carry banner ads at the bottom or top of each screen.
The first national fantasy football competition, Pigskin Playoff, was developed in 1989 by Lee Marc, Robert Barbiere and Brad Wendkos of Phoneworks who teamed with a West Coast Ad Agency (Wakeman & deForest) to launch the game in 1990 in a number of newspapers throughout the country including the Detroit Free Press, Los Angeles Times, Arizona Republic, Press Democrat. Archives of Pigskin Playoff are available online and in most public libraries . Pigskin Playoff is what current Daily Fantasy Sports are modeled after in that it was the first game to allow significantly large numbers of participants to compete against one another for prizes and more importantly converted football statistics into a simple scoring system. Participants created a team of NFL players, earned stats for those players based on actual performance, traded those players on a daily basis, and accrued points in an effort to compete against one another to win prizes. The group filed and was awarded US Patents 5,018,736A and 5,263,723A, for Interactive Game System and Method; Interactive Contest System.
The explosive popularity of fantasy sports, coupled with the availability of venues showcasing numerous live football games via satellite, has had significant effects on football viewing and rooting habits among participants. Fantasy sports players watch more game telecasts, buy more tickets and spend money at stadiums at a much higher rate than general sports fans. For example, 55 percent of fantasy sports players report watching more sports on television since they started playing fantasy sports. Fantasy participants also are reported to attend 0.22 to 0.57 more NFL games in person per season. The NFL entered into a reported five-year, $600 million deal in 2006 with Sprint that was driven at least in part because of fantasy sports, allowing subscribers to draft and monitor their teams with their cellphones. Many sports and football-related sports news shows discuss fantasy-related topics. Besides the fictional "The League", multiple TV programs that focus on fantasy football news exist; examples include ESPN's "Fantasy Football Now" and CBS's "Fantasy Football Today".
Some Fantasy Football leagues wager things other than money, such as the loser of the league has to get a tattoo, and that tattoo has to be of what the winner of the league wants. The only thing that the loser gets any say in is the location of the tattoo. The owners of the teams have to sign a contract before the season to agree to the punishment if they lose. Other high-stakes leagues offer prizes of US$250,000 to the ultimate champion.