How to play Yahoo Fantasy Football: Joining or creating a league

Now’s the time to sign up for Fantasy Football!
Now’s the time to sign up for Fantasy Football!

Fantasy Football is right around the corner, and it’s easier to play now than ever before. Newcomer? Veteran? Whatever your experience with Fantasy Football is, we’re here to help you along the way.

[Now’s the time to sign up for Fantasy Football! Join for free]

There are two options for getting started this year: Joining a league or starting your own, either of which can be done on our award-winning mobile app for iOS or Android as well as on desktop.

How easy is it to start your own league? Before we get into the details, we’ll outline a quick five-step process.

Step 1:You click “Create a league.” You’re in control.

Step 2: Change (or don’t change) your settings. This includes league name, draft date and all of the basics.

Step 3: Want to play with just your friends? You can make your league private; you control who plays. Want to play with the public? Anyone else can join.

Step 4: You can change scoring settings to your heart’s desire. Want to award big plays? Lots of catches? Go ahead.

Step 5: Once you’re all set up, you click finish .You can then invite your friends via email or wait for the public to join. Viola! You own a fantasy league. It’s that simple.

Here’s how you can get started — whether joining or creating — on your quest to fantasy glory.

Joining a league

Yahoo Free League

This is the quickest and easiest way to get started. Simply click on “Join a league” on the Fantasy Football homepage. From there, you can choose what type of league you’d like to join such as standard scoring, a point-per reception or somewhere in between. Free leagues allow you to choose a draft time and type that suits you best. Standard drafts are simple snake drafts in which you get one selection per round. Auction drafts give you a certain amount of money to “buy” players for your team and each league participant can bid on players to assemble their team. And auto-draft, as the name would suggest, automatically drafts your team for you.

Yahoo Pro League

Then there are Pro Leagues. Think you have the Fantasy Football acumen to make some serious money? The Pro League is for you. Enter how much money you’re willing to buy-in for and how and when you’d like to draft and you’re all set. Pro Leagues are public leagues commissioned by Yahoo, so you won’t choose who you’ll be playing against. These are some of the most competitive leagues around. Test your skills against the best! Here’s more info.

Custom and Cash Leagues

Custom leagues are leagues created by other Yahoo fantasy users. They may have different rules — we’ll cover that later — and can be either free leagues or cash leagues. You can check out all of your options on the page below, which allows you to examine the details of every league by just clicking on the league name.

Create a league

Want to play with friends, family and/or co-workers? Want to play with your own rules? Creating a league puts you in charge of everything from top to bottom. Scroll over the information icon next to “League Type,” “Invite Permissions” and “Draft” to see your options.

If you want to play with standard rules, you’re all set and can click “Finish.”

If you want to make your own custom rules, though, you’ll want to select “Customize settings.” Here, you can change your league’s logistics (like when the playoffs start, if there are divisions, league size, etc.), your league’s team roster size and your league’s scoring settings (customized scoring preferences include extra points for long plays, surpassing certain yardage milestones or for receptions).

Once you click “Finish,” your league is automatically created. All that’s left for you to do is wait for people to join (if it’s a public league) or invite people via email (below) and start preparing for your draft. Happy fantasy football season!