ESPN Fantasy Football to Be Bigger and Better Than Ever for 2017

ESPN Fantasy Football, the No. 1 most popular fantasy football game, begins its 22nd season with new content and game play features on the ESPN Fantasy App and ESPN.com, along with the most comprehensive collection of expert analysis, news, tools and statistical information in the fantasy sports industry across app, web, television and audio.

The ESPN Fantasy App, the No. 1 fantasy app on iOS and Android devices, will include enhancements that make playing ESPN Fantasy Football faster, more efficient and dependable for the 2017 season. Throughout the app, improvements to navigation make it easier to search for players, add free agents and share team moves and draft picks. The app will continue to provide award-winning fantasy analysis and access to video right from the app's home screen, as well as game logos, player headshots, sticker packs, and animations; draft and live scoring features; and personalized notifications tailored to fans' rosters.

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 their matchups with real-time scoring, see expert analysis and video, and view and post messages to other league members. The app also allows fans to play the entire suite of ESPN Fantasy games, including Fantasy Baseball, Basketball, Hockey, and Streak, ESPN's refreshed sports prediction game, all in the same application. All ESPN Fantasy games are free to play.

ESPN Fantasy Football on ESPN.com provides multiple tools for THE DRAFT including a Fantasy Football Draft Kit, which analyzes and projects more than 500 players. Cheat Sheet Central, rankings and strategy content are also included in the kit, as well as the 2017 editions of Matthew Berry's Draft Day Manifesto and his Love/Hate column, the first of which will be released prior to the ESPN Fantasy Football Marathon presented by DraftKings. Also, the ESPN Mock Draft Lobby runs nearly unlimited live practice drafting sessions for all ESPN fantasy football owners.

Kicking off preseason preparations for fantasy players as part of the ESPN Fantasy Football Marathon, Eric Karabell, Mike Clay and Daniel Dopp will lead a special edition of Mock Draft Mondays from the set of the Marathon on Monday, Aug. 14 from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET. Following the Marathon, ESPN.com will continue hosting Mock Draft Mondays every Monday in August from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET, giving fans the unique opportunity to ask questions and practice draft strategies against ESPN fantasy football analysts including Karabell, Field Yates, Clay, Tristan H. Cockcroft, KC Joyner and Matt Bowen, along with injury analyst Stephania Bell and various NFL Nation reporters, among others. Fans are also able to interact with ESPN experts and analysts via social media.

New scoring features for ESPN Fantasy Football this season include a change to the Defense/Special Teams scoring structure, which means points not surrendered by a defense or special teams will no longer count against that team's D/ST. For example, if a quarterback throws a "pick 6", the resulting score will not count against his team's D/ST. In addition, for individual defensive player leagues, ESPN has added the Edge Rusher position, in order to bring fantasy play in line with how modern NFL defenses actually impact games on the field.

Also, for newly created leagues this season, points-per-reception (PPR) scoring - a higher-scoring, more action-packed way to play fantasy football that rewards receivers for each catch - is now the default format, while traditional standard scoring remains an option for all leagues. New leagues will also default to decimal scoring, making matchups more accurate and competitive by recording scores in fractions of a point. These options and many others are available to all leagues and are fully customizable. Fans re-activating leagues from last year will retain the same scoring settings for this season, with the option to make changes if they choose.

Once the season is underway, fans can follow ESPN FantasyCast for free, real-time scoring of their weekly fantasy matchups, updated as the plays happen in real life. Embedded player profiles allow fans to get the latest statistics, news and injury information for players they own or are following, and easily add, drop or trade players to build a championship team.

Each league also features message boards, chats, polls and smack boards, and players can interact with ESPN Fantasy throughout the season on social platforms.

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