How to Have Fun Playing Fantasy Premier League
We generally refer to the United States as the home of top-notch fantasy games. Many people all over the county enjoy cherry-picking their squads for various professional sports. Since North America (including the United States and Canada) is home to the best athletes in the world in American football (NFL), baseball (MLB), basketball (NBA), and hockey (NHL), it is easy to understand why the appeal for fantasy games has been so large over the years.
However, we’ve recently witnessed a huge increase in the popularity of a fantasy game whose core is not in the United States. Fantasy Premier League has earned millions of new fans and players in the last couple of years and the numbers constantly keep growing. Most projected analyses made by bettingtips4you.com, expect more than 10 million active players at the start of the 2022/23 Premier League season. With the kick-off to the new season just around the corner, we figured this is the best time to discuss this game in particular and see where the appeal derives from.
Why do people love fantasy games?
To be able to understand the constant growth in popularity of these games, a beginner needs to learn the basics. So, in any fantasy game out there you get to select your squad of players (professional athletes who play week in and week out during the season). The number of players you can choose for your team is different from one sport to another, but the main principle is the same. Each player in your squad earns you points based on his actual performances in the real match.
Let’s take basketball as an example. You can pick LeBron James to your squad in the NBA Fantasy game. You can thus watch his team (LA Lakers) play and cheer for James to have as good statistics as possible. Everything counts, including his points, rebounds, assists, blocks, steals, and even turnovers. Similarly, you can follow every other player in your selected squad (of six or seven players for example) every single night throughout the regular season and the playoffs. The goal is to select a group of players that would get you the highest amount of points. Of course, you can’t choose all the best players in the game because of the budget limits.
There are bountiful strategies and ways to play the game, but as we said above, the principle is the same. If you have never played a fantasy game before, we hope this article will help you understand the appeal. Watching games is so much fun while you cheer for your specific players to get as many points as possible for your fantasy roster, especially if you are not emotionally invested in the matches. Last but not least, when you have millions of players as your rivals and big prizes for the winners, you can easily see where the competitiveness comes from.
What is so special with FPL?
No other European fantasy game has come anywhere near the levels of Fantasy Premier League in terms of popularity. There are several reasons for this. First of all, English Premier League is the strongest soccer competition in the world. With all due respect to Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga, or Italian Serie A, English Premier League has the best players and the largest fan base across the planet.
Now, Fantasy Premier League as a game is straightforward which immediately increases the appeal to larger masses. Unlike the case with some other fantasy games, you should only focus on several parameters, including your players’ goals, assists, yellow cards, red cards, own goals, and clean sheets for defenders/goalkeepers. This is all.
So, let’s say you pick Erling Haaland, the newest acquisition of English champions Manchester City. To be fair, we all expect him to thrive under Pep Guardiola there having done miracles so far for Borussia Dortmund and the Norwegian national team. His every goal would net you four points and in most cases when he does get his name on the scoresheet, you will also likely see additional bonus points (up to three).
When you have such a high-profile pool of players to select between, including Haaland, Mohamed Salah, Kevin De Bruyne, Harry Kane, Heung-Min Son, Cristiano Ronaldo, Bruno Fernandes, Trent Alexander-Arnold, etc., it is easy to understand why the game attracts large masses all over the globe.
How to increase entertainment and fun while playing?
We promise, that as soon as you get into Fantasy Premier League, you will become a huge fan of the game. This is valid even for those who do not find soccer attractive as a game. You even do not have to watch matches to be successful because there are numerous statistical tools and expected goals/assists models to help you beat your rivals even without watching the actual matches.
Of course, you will have much more fun watching the games and cheering for your players and their teams to thrive on the pitch (just like in the LeBron James example above). You can also create or join plenty of mini leagues and compete with your friends, colleagues, family members, or other players from all over the globe. The choice is all yours. This is where the competitiveness comes from as the battle for bragging rights in your nearest circle begins as soon as the referee blows the inaugural whistle.
On another note, we must warn you that Fantasy Premier League can also affect your overall feelings. Many dedicated players claim that the results of Premier League matches can significantly influence their mood over the weekend. Again, we can relate here and it is easy to understand how such things occur because you have to be mad when your player misses a penalty, while your friend’s player scores a hat-trick on the other side. However, if you ever get to this stage, we would recommend you take a short break and reevaluate things because at the end of the day this is just a game.