Fantasy football entails picking real players to create a fake team and earn points through their performance on the field. If your team scores more points than your competitors team, you win. There are public leagues, where anyone can join, and private leagues, where an invitation is required to participate.

You are in complete control of your team, so players can be dropped if they aren’t good, benched if their injured, or traded if another participant makes a good deal. When the fantasy season ends, the top scoring teams face off in an elimination tournament to decide the ‘champion.’ The winner may receive a trophy, cash, or just bragging rights.

These are most popular fantasy football league sites: ESPN (54 percent), Yahoo! Sports (40 percent) and CBS Sports (29 percent). According to Paul Charchian,  Founder of  LeagueSafe and Chairman of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association , “Our fastest growing demographic is under 18 [year-old] players…” In fact, only 13% of adults play compared to 20% of 12-17-year-olds.

Senior Pablo Rosero is a fantasy football fanatic, often writing about his experience on SportsRoutes, a sports blog of his.

“I’ve been playing fantasy football since I was in 7th grade and I’ve continued to play it ever since. I play [fantasy football] because It allows me to follow football and compete against friends,” Rosero said. “Since 8th grade I’ve been in a league with my brother and his friends and it’s been a blast. The  most fun part about fantasy football is the friendly trash talk and competition.”