The integrity of a high-stakes fantasy football contest was brought into question this week following a scandal that led to the firing of an employee.
The National Fantasy Football Championship’s postseason NFL competition was marred after an employee changed a contestant’s lineup after games began in back-to-back weeks, according to an ESPN report.
The employee of parent company SportsHub was “terminated" with cause while the contestant was disqualified from the competition that has $150,000 going to the winner and banned from the platform, NFFC founder Greg Ambrosius confirmed in a post on the company’s website.
“Recently, with help from reporting by a public source, we successfully revealed a post-deadline move in one of our NFFC Post-Season Hold ’Em contests that was detected and quickly confirmed, resulting in SportsHub being able to take immediate action to resolve the issue without any impact to the results of the contest,” Ambrosius wrote. “Due to pending legal matters, SportsHub cannot comment on the specific details or the responsible individual. While it may not be possible to stop all problematic activities, detection and swift resolution are key to maintaining the integrity of the games.”
How did this happen?
Lineups are required to be locked and can only be changed through internal controls. The scandal was discovered by members of the fantasy podcast "Ship Chasing," and sources explained to ESPN what changes were made.
On Wild Card Weekend, the employee switched Miami’s Raheem Mostert for Green Bay’s Aaron Jones, who rushed for 118 yards and three touchdowns against Dallas, after Mostert had played the previous day and Jones had rushed for his first score.
In the NFL Divisional Round, Kansas City’s Travis Kelce replaced teammate Rashee Rice after the tight end had caught a touchdown pass against the Buffalo Bills.
The contest had 1,521 entries at $200 per entry. NFCC does not know why the employee helped this contestant.
What’s next for NFCC?
The incident sheds light on how high-stakes fantasy football can be manipulated and could call into question more regulation. More and more U.S. states that have and haven’t legalized sports betting are tackling fantasy sports through legislation.
The NFCC scandal could certainly heighten that awareness and question how these sites operate.
“I think this is incredibly damaging (to the fantasy industry),” Paul Overzet, a member of the podcast that discovered the issue, told ESPN. “We’re in an era where people want to jump to conspiracy theories. Now, not only do you know that it can occur, but it did occur, I think that’s going to spread the seeds of distrust."
Ambrosius announced that the site has hired U.S. Integrity, a firm that monitors and alerts suspicious behavior to regulators, sportsbooks, NCAA conferences, and pro sports leagues.
Meanwhile, the NFCC contest continues, despite Ambrosius trying to calm integrity fears.
“NOTHING is more important than the integrity of our contests. NOTHING,” Ambrosius wrote. “Nobody trusts us with their money if anything can happen. I'm sad. I'm disappointed. I'm shocked. I'm mad. I'm so mad. But we can never let something like this happen and we now have safeguards in place to alert multiple people if this ever happened again. Which it won't.”
