Fantasy football game and method of playing same

Abstract

A fantasy football game, a method, an apparatus and an article of manufacture for playing fantasy football. The fantasy football game can be played by participants who select coaching staffs from actual football teams such that statistical results or related performance indicia achieved during on-field play by one or more respective actual football teams are used to represent each participant in a virtual football game against at least one other participant. Wins and losses for the fantasy football games occur by calculating a total of each individual fantasy player's points and comparing them either in head-to-head or total point total formats. Metrics of the actual weekly on-field performance by a corresponding team can be used to gauge participant success, where such metric is based generally on a quantified value of coaching contributions to that team's on-field success. A more particular form of the metric involves using an adjustment to yards per pass attempt to take into consideration coaching play designs.

Description

[0001]This application claims the benefit of the filing date of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61 / 174,135, filed Apr. 30, 2009.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention generally relates to a method and apparatus for participating in a fantasy league of virtual football teams where participant success is determined by quantifying coaching attendant to the results of actual football games.[0003]The popularity of collegiate and professional sports has led to a broad range of secondary competitions based on the outcome of particular games or related contests, as well as individual player performances within such game or contest. Fantasy sports leagues, especially those relating to football and baseball, are a common version of such secondary competition, where participants accrue points based on the actual on-field performance of such players. Fantasy leagues are typically made up of anywhere from a few to as many as dozens of teams. In fantasy football leagues, each of ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0016]The fantasy team coaching staff method may be made up of one or more of a fantasy team offensive staff that corresponds to an offensive coaching staff of an actual professional football team and a fantasy defensive coaching staff that corresponds to a defensive coaching staff of an actual professional football team. Further, the correlating performance indicia comprises correlating performance indicia of both the offensive and defensive coaching staffs, where the defensive coaching staff performance indicia comprises YPA achieved by a team opposing an actual team that is representative of the defensive coaching staff in the one or more actual football games. The method may additionally include comparing a fantasy team score for each of the various participants whose respective fantasy team coaching staffs are matched up against each other in the actual football game or games, and then awarding a victory to the participant with a higher the fantasy team score. Participating in a fantasy football league may include playing a virtual football game among participants in a fantasy football league. Such league may substantially mimic that of an actual league (such as the NFL) in terms of coaching staffs, players, or other parts of one or more actual teams upon which the various fantasy teams are based.

[0017]Moreover, each participant can operate on a computer network system, telephonic system (including mobile or cellular phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs)) or related communication interface. In this way, each participant uses a client or other remote communication means to access information to, or take action on, the participant's fantasy team. More particularly, the participant can use the system to play a fantasy (i.e., virtual) game run by a league commissioner or related administrator that is operating the controller on the network. The system may include a host or central computer-based controller, a data input, a data output, a communications link and a computer usable medium onto which software or a related algorithm pertaining to a fantasy football team or league can be placed or operated. A data storage medium (for example, a statistical database) can be accessed by the host computer, either by direct integral cooperation between them (in the case where the medium is memory that is part of the computer, for example), or by remote connection, such as between the host computer and a separate (for example, fee-based) data storage and retrieval service. In either case, the medium can store player, coaching staff and related game performance statistics that can then be used to correlate actual on-field performance to the score values used by the fantasy participant.

[0018]According to still another aspect of the invention, an article of manufacture comprising a computer usable medium having computer readable program code embodied therein for causing a processor-controlled system to perform a method for operating a fantasy football league is disclosed. Teams within the league are based upon actual professional football team coaching staffs, while relevant performance statistics are derived from the on-field execution of the plays that are designed by such actual coaching staffs. A virtual football game according to this aspect of the invention can be played by two or more participants (such as those participating in a common fantasy football league). Each participant is represented in the virtual football game by a fantasy coaching staff that is in turn representative of an actual coaching staff for an actual underlying football game such that statistics achieved by a

Problems solved by technology

Particular types of breakdowns that are especially disruptive of the coaching contribution include turnovers and special teams play.

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