Fanball Review

Originally a site for traditional fantasy sports, Fanball has been revitalized and re-invented into a DFS platform. FSTA President Paul Charchian and original Fanball co-founder Rob Phythian have put their extensive industry knowledge into the development of a DFS site that aims to level the playing field for its members.

Using player ranking scores, Fanball matches players against players of equal skill level. As players participate in contests, the skill level ranking changes based on performance, impacting the players you’ll play against. It’s an interesting concept that helps new players experience DFS without risk of having their entire bankroll eaten up before they have a chance.

Sign Up Process

DFS players with knowledge of competitive video games may be familiar with the term “MMR” – matchmaking rating (or ratio, ranking). Whatever the acronym is for you, the concept is the same: it serves as a system to match players of similar skill rating against each other. Movement between skill levels is based on performance – if you win, you rank up, if you lose, you de-rank. By separating players into tiers, it prevents experts from feeding on novices and instead tries to enact parity on the player population by pitting you against competitors with a similar MMR score as you.

Fanball uses this concept to protect newer and less experienced players from highly skilled pros. Once you create your Fanball account you are asked a series of questions about your experience in daily fantasy such as how often you play and what your typical stake levels are. Once you’ve completed the survey, you’re assigned your Fanball number (your “MMR score”). These numbers determine who you will be matched up against. Lower ranked players are more than welcome to take a shot with elite DFS competitors, however the reverse is not allowed – high Fanball number players are not allowed to splash around in the novice pool – they can only compete with players of similar skill ranking.

Each contest on Fanball has a Fanball number limit – if you have too high a number, you won’t be allowed to enter. Your Fanball number changes depending on your performance over time, ensuring that you’re playing in contests that are suitable for your skill level.

Deposit Bonus and Promo Code

While we don’t yet offer a unique deposit bonus or promo code for Fanball, we hope to come up with an exciting promo to help RotoGrinders members get extra value from signing up with us. Stay tuned!

Contest Formats and Scoring

Fanball currently offers the familiar salary format for daily fantasy football. Players have a $55,000 salary and build their best lineup consisting of the following positions:

QB
RB
RB
WR
WR
WR/TE
TE
FLEX
DST

Currently only football is available, though we expect other sports to make their debut in the near future.

Conclusion

It’s interesting to see Fanball take such a pro-active stance on player skill level fairness. Many members of the DFS community list professional players and sharks as their main concerns when playing DFS and an approach like Fanball has taken could be the answer to those pressing issues. While the site is still in its early days of DFS, it’s great to see more and more sites enter the space and offer their unique take on what makes the industry so appealing to players, as well as proposed solutions to some of the potential hurdles for new players looking to sign up and play.