ESPN Fantasy Football: No. 1 Game More Fun, Easier to Play Than Ever

• The No. 1 most popular fantasy football game available on ESPN.com and ESPN Fantasy App
• Unmatched collection of game features, expert analysis, news, and statistical data and insight
• Access to exclusive content for ESPN+ subscribers, including in-app streaming of The Fantasy Show with Matthew Berry
• ESPN Fantasy App: Current No. 1 Sports App in App Store
• New Trade Assistant Powered by IBM Watson

ESPN Fantasy Football, the No. 1 most popular fantasy football game, begins the 2020 season with enhanced game play and expanded content that make playing fantasy football even more fun and enjoyable for new players and hardcore veterans alike. Available on both the ESPN Fantasy App and ESPN.com, ESPN Fantasy Football offers exclusive content for ESPN+ subscribers and the fantasy sports industry’s most comprehensive collection of expert analysis, news, statistical data and tools across app, web, television and audio.

The ESPN Fantasy App, the No. 1 fantasy app on iOS and Android devices, makes playing ESPN Fantasy Football fast, easy and fun, with more information and insight than ever before. For 2020, the ESPN Fantasy App is faster, with improvements that include more detailed player scoring breakdowns, an improved free agent screen for fans to easily compare available players against those already on their team, and a variety of enhancements that make it easier to create and fill leagues with friends. Fans can also stream all of ESPN’s Fantasy shows – Fantasy Football Now, Fantasy Focus Football Podcast, The Fantasy Show with Matthew Berry and more — along with their favorite live events directly in the Fantasy app.*

As always, the ESPN Fantasy App makes it easy for fans to sign up, create or join a league, customize their league and draft, make trades, add players, follow matchups with real-time scoring, and see expert analysis and video. The app also allows fans to play the entire suite of ESPN Fantasy games, including fantasy sports like Fantasy Baseball, Basketball, and Hockey, and free-to-play prediction games like Streak, UFC Pick’em, Pigskin Pick’em, and special contests for major sports events, all in a single app. All ESPN Fantasy games are free to play.

On ESPN.com, ESPN Fantasy Football players get a complete, customizable experience with improved tools for league commissioners.  An improved home screen makes it easier to invite friends to play, while providing more information about upcoming matchups and league activity during the season, and the ESPN Mock Draft Lobby runs nearly unlimited live practice drafting sessions for all ESPN Fantasy Football players.

Fantasy football content on ESPN.com provides multiple resources to ensure an easy, fun and successful draft, including the ESPN Fantasy Football Draft Kit, a collection of links to cheat sheets, mock drafts, projections, and more. In this year’s Draft Kit fans will find new editions of Matthew Berry’s Draft Day Manifesto and his Love/Hate column, Tristan Cockcroft’s best picks for each draft slot in rounds 1 and 2, and Field Yates’ 10 Simple Rules for Fantasy Football Draft Success for players who, as Yates puts it, find themselves “talking about something that you know you should know all about, but – without admitting it – you don’t.” The Draft Kit also includes compilations of vital information and analysis from the ESPN Fantasy staff, including the highly popular Sleepers/Busts/Breakouts and updated positional rankings for 2020.

For ESPN+ subscribers, ESPN Fantasy Football offers an array of tools and information to help fans win, including Adam Schefter’s personal “Friends and Family” cheat sheet, Mike Clay’s Ultimate Draft Board and Eric Karabell’s Do Draft and Do Not Draft lists, tiered position rankings and more. In addition to industry-leading analysis from ESPN’s team of fantasy experts, fans can utilize the ESPN+ Draft Value Generator, Lineup Recommender, and Free Agent Recommender tools on ESPN.com to put their best possible team on the field every week of the season.

Also, ESPN Fantasy continues its work with IBM, embedding Watson artificial intelligence into unique, in-depth projection and player comparison tools, including ESPN Fantasy Football player cards, that make playing ESPN Fantasy Football easier and more fun. New for the 2020 season is Trade Assistant with Watson, a matchmaking tool that helps fans find potential trades to propose and evaluates the fairness of those trades.

Insight and Analysis Throughout 2020
ESPN Fantasy delivers the most comprehensive news, analysis and insights on fantasy football throughout the season from the industry’s No. 1 roster of writers, analysts and media personalities. The unmatched depth and breadth of ESPN’s Fantasy coverage makes playing ESPN Fantasy Football easier and more fun for both experienced players and fans who are new to fantasy sports.

• Matthew Berry (a.k.a. “The Talented Mr. Roto”), Fantasy Sports Writers Association (FSWA) and Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA) Hall of Famer, will host The Fantasy Show with Matthew Berry on ESPN+, appear weekly on ESPN.com and the ESPN and ESPN Fantasy apps, as well as Monday Night Football during the NFL season. His weekly column will be published Thursdays on ESPN.com and the ESPN App.
• Field Yates will continue to co-host the daily Fantasy Focus Football Podcast with Berry, write his weekly free agent pickup column and contribute to ESPN.com fantasy rankings.
• Mike Clay will continue to drive ESPN’s season-long and weekly projections with his popular Fantasy 32 column every Tuesday, highlighting a fantasy fact or trend from each of the NFL’s 32 teams. He will also contribute to the Fantasy Focus Football Podcast, continue his industry-leading wide receiver/cornerback matchup analysis every week and explore “opportunity-adjusted fantasy points,” an evolution of the opportunity-adjusted touchdown statistic.
• NFL writer Matt Bowen, who spent seven years in the NFL as a safety, uses his X’s and O’s acumen to provide instant scouting insight to the on-field action in the Sunday fantasy reaction file, and teams up with analyst and historian Tristan H. Cockcroft to break down and contextualize the most important fantasy storylines of the day.
• In addition to working with Bowen on Sunday fantasy reactions, Cockcroft, an ESPN.com senior writer and FSWA Hall of Famer, will continue to compile ESPN’s exclusive Consistency Ratings, contribute to weekly rankings, and write his ESPN+ Matchups Map column on Thursdays, highlighting skill-position players with the best and worst matchups each week.
• com senior writer and FSWA Hall of Famer Eric Karabell will write daily, providing a first take on the coming week every Monday morning. His weekly rankings will be published Tuesdays, while his popular Flex Rankings will come out every Wednesday.
• Fantasy injury analyst and ESPN.com senior writer Stephania Bell, who in 2017 became the first woman inducted in the FSWA Hall of Fame, will continue to provide her injury analysis expertise on a variety of platforms, including the Fantasy Focus Football Podcast, Fantasy Football Now on ESPN2, and various columns and features on ESPN.com and the ESPN App.
• com’s NFL Nation will provide insights specific to all 32 teams in the league with at least two fantasy-dedicated pieces each week.
• Every Tuesday, ESPN will publish a compilation of analysts’ PPR and non-PPR rankings, which will also be integrated in the ESPN Fantasy App to help fans make well-informed start/sit and free agent pickup decisions within the game.

ESPN Fantasy Football on TV
ESPN will provide fantasy players with insights, information and analysis on its television networks for the 2020 season, including:

• Fantasy Football Now:The award-winning show debuts Sunday, Sept. 13, at 10 a.m. ET on ESPN2 The three-hour show is packed with insights from ESPN Fantasy analysts and includes the latest injury reports, live updates from ESPN’s reporters at NFL stadiums, and answers to fan questions. Field Yates will host, with Matthew Berry and Stephania Bell in studio, along with Mike Clay contributing from his home studio and reports from NFL analysts and reporters at NFL games.
• ESPN Fantasy Football Marathon: Last week’s fifth annual ESPN Fantasy Football Marathon was a success, producing the two biggest days for signups this season. This year’s Marathon included Yates presenting his Eight Make or Break Rules for a fantasy football draft and Berry’s tips on how to Dominate Your Draft.

All ESPN networks are available to stream live on the ESPN app.*  Schedule subject to change.

The Fantasy Show with Matthew Berry on ESPN+
The Fantasy Show with Matthew Berry has returned to ESPN+ for another season of Berry’s insights, irreverent style and cast of unconventional characters. Presented with a daily mix of news, analysis and special guests to help fantasy players win their leagues, The Fantasy Show takes deep statistical dives into key players each week, with a few twists and sidekicks joining Berry, Daniel Dopp, their puppets, and a new robot this season, delivering all the fun. The Fantasy Show gives fans information not available on other ESPN platforms on who to start, who to sit, who to trade, and who to pick up, all in the name of making everyone a smarter fantasy player.

Special 2020 preseason episodes available to stream now on ESPN+ cover 20 Burning Questions, Sleepers and Breakouts, Running Backs, Wide Receivers, Quarterbacks, Berry’s Love/Hate Special, and more.

ESPN Fantasy Football on Audio
Fantasy Football content on ESPN Audio will include expanded programming and new content for the 2020 season.

• ESPN’s Fantasy Focus Football Podcast, the No. 1 fantasy sports podcast, enters its 13th season, delivering fans robust player-based discussions, game overviews and draft strategies. Each show features hosts Matthew Berry, Field Yates, Stephania Bell and producer Daniel Dopp, along Mike Clay as a regular contributor. During the regular season, listeners can look forward to game recaps on Mondays, Yates’ waiver-wire advice on Tuesdays, in-depth rankings discussions on Wednesdays, Clay’s WR/CB matchups on Thursdays and game previews on Fridays, featuring Berry’s Loves and Hates and Bell’s injury analysis. In addition, there will be a second episode on Thursdays where Dopp and Clay look ahead to the weekend for Daily Fantasy players. The show will stream live from a new studio at 10 a.m. Monday through Friday on the ESPN App, the ESPN Fantasy App, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
• ESPN Radio – ESPN Radio covers fantasy football throughout the season and especially on Sundays with a full slate of NFL-specific weekend shows. A rotating team of fantasy experts also provide key insight and updates across all of ESPN Radio’s NFL weekday programming.

*In-app streaming of ESPN+ content requires an ESPN+ subscription. Fans can subscribe to ESPN+ within the ESPN Fantasy App or on ESPN.com, as well as the ESPN App across mobile and TV-connected devices. In-app streaming of content on ESPN television networks requires an authenticated MVPD subscription.

About ESPN Fantasy
Part of Disney’s Direct-to-Consumer and International (DTCI) segment, ESPN Fantasy is the No. 1 provider in fantasy sports with a comprehensive portfolio of award-winning games and content serving more than 20 million fantasy players across the web, mobile, audio, linear TV, and streaming video. Drawing on resources from nearly every aspect of the division, ESPN Fantasy continues to innovate, expand and reach new and younger audiences with every initiative.

About ESPN+
ESPN+ is the leading direct-to-consumer sports streaming service from Disney’s Direct-to-Consumer and International (DTCI) segment and ESPN. Launched in April 2018, ESPN+ has grown quickly to 8.5 million subscribers in less than two years, offering fans thousands of live events, original programming not available on ESPN’s linear TV or digital networks, as well as premium editorial content.

Fans subscribe to ESPN+ for just $5.99 a month (or $49.99 per year) through the ESPN App, (on mobile and connected devices), ESPN.com or ESPNplus.com. It is also available as part of a bundle offer that gives subscribers access to Disney+, Hulu (ad-supported), and ESPN+ ­— all for just $12.99/month.

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