This is it. Our Fantasy League! Established back in 2000, we are a 10-man, live drafting, trophy, keeper league who play for camaraderie and the love of football. Our league is played at ESPN and our history is here at crunchtimefantasy.com.
Formation
Flashback to December 31, 1999 where we were waiting for the clock to count down to a shiny new millennium. A time that should have been exciting; full of anticipation and promise. But not this New Year’s Eve. Everyone was on edge, for the world as everyone knew it was about to descend into total chaos.
Y2K (Doomsday 2000) was nearing.
Mass system failures and people wondering whether their bank accounts would be wiped out. All because of some cost-saving measures placed in computer programming.
But, the world did not end. Machines were spared and people rejoiced. More importantly, ten brave sports fanatics came forward that coming year to form the Crunchtime Fantasy Football League. …well, 9 dudes that knew each other and some guy named Houghton who ghosted us.
The Evolution
Our Inaugural Season began as a simple pre-ranked auto-draft on Yahoo. Scoring back in 2000 was TD-heavy. We would stick with this traditional scoring method for quite a few years.
We stepped it up in season 2 and gathered for a live draft using a draft board from DraftKit.com. The live draft was a hit and became the main staple for kicking off the fantasy season. Money was also pooled together this year to purchase the newly coveted trophy. With ownership rights to it for a year and the champion engraved, the title would mean so much more.
The league dropped Yahoo in favor of Fanball in 2003. It allowed for more customizable settings, with the most notable being multi-week playoff rounds! No more one-and-done playoff games. Teams would now battle for 2 weeks, with their combined 2-week score determining the winner.
Just a year later another huge addition hit the league. Keepers. The league agreed to allow for 1 player to be kept from the previous season. The player must have been drafted after the 3rd round and never dropped the season before. A tier system was put in place so that the keeper would require to be drafted 1-5 rounds earlier.
Fanball showed signs of decline (and eventually went under), so the the league jumped over to the most customizable fantasy site out there; myfantasyleague. This would prove to be a solid host from 2009-2018.
2017 marked a large change in the league. We moved to a more current standard scoring. This change would help increase the value of yards gained. Touchdowns were definitely king in our league. So, this helped round out the league and make those hard fought yards mean more.
With over 20 years now under our belt, Crunchtime looks to continue on and provide some fun (maddening) fantasy action.