NFL

Nearly 75M people will play fantasy football this year

Are you ready for some fantasy football?

As the NFL season kickoff comes Thursday night, roughly a quarter of the US population, including millions of women, are getting ready to play fantasy football, according to American Express.

The company’s latest Spending & Saving Tracker said 74.7 million Americans plan to participate in fantasy football this year, spending $4.6 billion, company spokeswoman Jane Di Leo said.

“We don’t have a point of comparison, but I think you have to assume that fantasy football will continue to grow,” Di Leo said.

The Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA) said that nearly 57 million people age 12 and above in the US and Canada played fantasy sports in 2014. Participation has grown dramatically over the past few years, according to FSTA.

Why do people love drafting and running a football team?

Di Leo — who is also a fantasy football participant and said her views are not necessarily those of her employer — speculates that there is a social component.

“People come together to play fantasy football,” she said. “They visit each other’s homes.”

And those fantasy participants are mostly playing for keeps. That’s because most Americans participating in fantasy football are playing for money.

They are projected to spend an average of $107 each on fantasy leagues. A total of 58 percent of players expect to spend an additional average of $64 on food, while 48 percent plan to spend an average of $50 on nonalcoholic beverages and 47 percent say they’ll spend an average of $60 on booze.

Only 29 percent will not wager.

What kind of players do bettors most commonly want?

Quarterbacks (57 percent), running backs (32 percent) and wide receivers (9 percent) were the most popular, American Express said.

Men are more likely to play fantasy football than women. However, millions of women are also a part of the action — American Express said almost 1 in 5 women is playing.

About 40 percent of the players will participate in more than one fantasy league.

Where will they go to play?

American Express listed the most popular fantasy football league portals. They are:

  • ESPN (54 percent)
  • Yahoo! Sports (40 percent)
  •  CBS Sports (29 percent)

The American Express Spending & Saving Tracker research was completed among a random sample of 2,127 adults, including the general US population, an affluent demographic defined by a minimum annual household income of $100,000, parents of grade-school children and parents of college students.