Four of the biggest fantasy football websites in terms of both content and league-hosting announced Wednesday that they were making changes to their fantasy-related terminology with a goal of greater inclusion.
As specified by Yahoo Sports, among the changes is replacing “owner” with “manager.” Instead of saying a given player is “owned,” the player will now be described as “rostered.”
“Auction,” as a variety of league or draft, has been replaced by “Salary Cap.” An attempt to acquire a player in such a draft is now called an “offer,” instead of a “bid.”
Yahoo Sports, ESPN Fantasy, CBS Sports Fantasy and NFL Fantasy said in a joint statement provided to The Washington Post: “The changes made to our games are part of an ongoing effort to improve the industry’s top fantasy games in ways that are more inclusive and better reflect the sense of community at the heart of fantasy sports. The updates replace outdated terminology used in past fantasy games with more appropriate language to describe the functions of day-to-day game play.”
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Emphasizing that nothing will change about the way fantasy games are played at Yahoo Sports, Yahoo’s Andy Behrens wrote Wednesday, “we’ve simply eliminated language that suggests ownership or commodification of athletes.”
The list of terminology changes announced by Yahoo Sports goes as follows:
Auction [Leagues, Draft] | Salary Cap [Leagues, Draft] |
|---|---|
Owner /Ownership | |
Average Salary | |
Winning Bid/You Won | |
FAAB (Free Agent Acquisition Budget) | FAB (Free Agent Budget) |
“Our industry is made up of companies of various sizes, all competing for people playing our games, but we’re united by a desire to create and promote an inclusive community,” added Behrens, who is also the president of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association. “At Yahoo, and alongside our partners, we’re committed to developing platforms that are inviting and respectful to all.”
In 2017, ESPN apologized after garnering criticism for staging a mock fantasy football auction draft to look like a real-life auction, complete with a fast-talking auctioneer on a stage in front of a number of seated participants who were bidding on mostly Black athletes.
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“Auction drafts are a common part of fantasy football, and ESPN’s segments replicated an auction draft with a diverse slate of top professional football players,” ESPN said at the time. “Without that context, we understand the optics could be portrayed as offensive, and we apologize.”
Rotoworld is on board with this retirement of terms and has shifted toward the use of more inclusive language in our content moving forward. We stand with @YahooFantasy, the @NFL and all others from our industry who are taking similar steps. https://t.co/y0pPcrX4RC
— Rotoworld (@rotoworld) August 19, 2020“Over the years, fantasy enthusiasts have seen changes in nearly every aspect of the pastime from draft strategy to roster construction to the introduction of advanced analytics in evaluating and predicting player performance,” NFL Fantasy said Tuesday. “The next evolution in fantasy football will focus on how people talk about the game.”
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