Predicting Owner Tendencies in Fantasy Football Drafts

• Activity Number: 263
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 5, 2013 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics in Sports
• Author(s): Ivan Ramler*+ and Nobu Yamanashi
• Companies: St. Lawrence University and St. Lawrence University
• Keywords: Sports ; Logistic Regression ; Predictions ; Football

Abstract

Fantasy Football is an American phenomenon with millions of participants each year. Each participant, or owner, joins a league in which they manage a team of real NFL players that accrues points from statistics based on the actual NFL games. This project investigates the tendencies of one of the most important and exciting parts of any fantasy football league - the fantasy draft. The most common type of draft is a "snaking draft" where the order in every other round is reversed to help provide fairness in the league. Of particular importance for savvy owners is understanding when certain players will be available at each pick in the draft. This project uses mock drafts available from FantasyFootballCalculator.com to predict which NFL positions tend to be drafted at each point in the draft. The model is developed in such a way that, given what has already been drafted, the owner can predict the probability that a specific type of position will be available at their next pick. This in turn can then be used by the owner to anticipate what their opponents will pick before them and potentially alter their draft strategy to get the NFL player(s) they want.