Luck vs. Skill (The missing Link):

What is the relationship between skill and luck in fantasy football?

Below is a graph of 67 opinions:

Maybe the first thing I notice in this graph is how varying everyone’s answers are. Interestingly, responses from our own league closely represent this larger data. So why do people disagree so much on this answer?

My first belief was that these answers correlated perfectly to fantasy football success. Surely people with more wins are likely to attribute that to their decisions, and losers are prone to exaggerating the uncontrollable factors that lead to the outcome. However, the data from our league doesn’t necessarily support that:

Within our Millbrook Fantasy Football League (2020), which we have already mentioned closely reflects the opinions of the masses, win percentage does not highly correlate to how luck and skill are distributed (Correlation Coefficient = 0.36). Well, maybe except for the three biggest losers of our league (@Kelly, @Michael, @Dominic), but nobody values what they think anyways.

If it isn’t bias, then what is the reason for such contrasting answers? After lots of research and some late night conversations, I think I have summed up the confusion to a simple misinterpretation of the question.

Let’s break it down real simple by listing out areas of luck and skill within the game:

Ok, so this isn’t an exhaustive list, but it does have the key factors that make up most arguments for either stance. When organized like this, it seems clear that skill is the overwhelming winner. Minor aspects can be debated (for example, the level of unpredictability for injuries), but it is clear that skill still wins.

A study from MIT was able to ‘prove’ this. They found that experienced fantasy players are more successful on average than purely random decision-making. That isn’t a very tough thing to do (I doubt Ian is thinking that his competition is a coinflip when he argues that Fantasy Football is 85% Skill), but it does show convincing evidence that fantasy football is legitimately a ‘game of skill’.

But...

why do so many people – myself included – argue that Fantasy Football is predominantly a game of luck?

It comes down to accessibility. Nowadays, fantasy lovers get constant access to interviews, injury updates, highlights, and loads of statistics for every single player. Not to mention, people have made it their full-time job to analyze all of this and explain how it should affect our drafts and weekly line-ups. This should theoretically only give us more agency, but since everybody is using the same resources to compare and adjust their views, our decisions become a nearly identical version of the same views that everyone else is watching.

When it comes to the average dedicated fantasy player, there is little that separates one person from another. We are all viewing the same data and generally coming to the same conclusions. Sure, some players move up and down a few spots, but that difference is not enough to calculate for an overwhelming amount of skill.

Even for the most dedicated analysts that create their own rankings, decisions are based off of other draft rankings, and they end up following a very similar trend to the consensus adp (average draft position) rankings.

That is the missing link that ‘luck supporters’ aren’t thinking to mention. Given that all the competition has a similar floor based on helpful public data, luck becomes the more influential part of the game.

If you’re stubborn and still believe that skill is the predominant attribute in fantasy football. Explain how there are so many auto-drafted teams that win their respected leagues. May I remind you that ‘the better team’ auto-drafted in the first year of this league and still holds the record for most consecutive wins (12).

Hopefully this helps to clarify the missing link of why Fantasy Football is both a game of skill, and why many believe luck is the main reason why David is able to brag about his fantasy championship.

If this seems disappointing to you, don’t worry. It don’t even schmatter.