From cash prizes and unique trophies to exciting perks for future seasons, dive in and find the perfect reward for your fantasy football league’s champion.

Fantasy football should always be fun, but like most games, there is a clear winner in the end. At Sleeper, we think it's important to recognize and reward the effort, strategy and (little) bit of luck required to win a fantasy football league championship. 

Having the right prize structure for your fantasy football league is also paramount to keeping a competitive and engaging atmosphere all season.

6 Best Ideas for Fantasy Football Prizes

Here are some ways to set up your league so that the winner gets its due after a hard-earned triumph.

1. Cash is King

Cold hard cash is the most simple, effective and popular way to reward a fantasy football league winner. A common cash prize structure is 60% of league entry fees to the winner, 30% to second place and 10% to third.

However, some fantasy leagues opt for a more exhilarating ride and will give the entirety of the league’s entry fees to first place — winner take all. Others may opt to leave a slice for the regular season champion or the team with the most fantasy points. Ultimately, that’s down to your league and your commissioner to decide.

Note: Cash is frequently included with the other prizes and awards listed below.

2. The Lombardi Trophy

The Vince Lombardi Trophy is awarded to the NFL’s best team each year. We believe the fantasy football championship is nearly as high-pressure — and important — of an event as the Super Bowl, so we suggest a replica Lombardi Trophy to the first-place team. In addition to the winner’s name, we recommend adding the final score from the fantasy championship to further personalize the trophy.

3. Future League Benefits

The best fantasy football leagues endure year after year, and some leagues give the winner a slight advantage the following season. Three common ways to handle this are:

  1. Winner chooses next year’s draft position
  2. Winner gains the top spot for Week 1’s waiver wire priority
  3. Winner is the only person allowed to bring a computer to next year’s draft — pen and paper notes for everyone else!

4. Championship Ring

One downside to a fantasy football trophy is visibility, and sometimes they end up hidden on an old bookshelf. A championship ring, however, can be prominently worn all offseason as a reminder of the winner’s pure and utter dominance. For those that favor customization, the small surface area of the ring creates some limitations but a concise engraving should do the trick.

5. Championship Belt

There’s something primal about hoisting a championship belt overhead while making eye contact with the plebes surrounding you.

Fantasy football is a strategy game that requires hours of research and nerves of steel on Sunday mornings during start-sit decisions. You deserve a custom championship belt upon victory.

6. Sore winner

O.K., this one’s a little off the beaten path, and it should be given in conjunction with one of the above awards. Sometimes the biggest smack talkers end up winning the fantasy league, and they simply won’t stop talking about their accomplishment. 

As a twist, the other leaguemates can pitch in a few dollars to give the winner a small medical kit, for being a “sore” winner. Get it? A collection of ice packs, gauze and other bandages should work just fine. Make sure it’s enough to take care of the sore winner, whose muscles and heart must be aching from going into overdrive during the celebration.

Further guides on #FantasyEtiquette

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you make the end-of-season celebration special for the league winner?

Before the fantasy season starts, come up with a prize structure as a league that has everyone motivated and excited for the upcoming football season. If the winner’s prize doesn’t get everyone excited, there's an increased risk that fantasy managers will check out and stop setting their lineups or spending time on start-sit decisions each week. The right incentive — award or end-of-season celebration — keeps everyone engaged from September through December.

How do you win big in fantasy football?

There are unfortunately no get-rich-quick methods in season-long fantasy football. However, we’d argue this makes the game even more fun year after year. There are many ways to win at an above-average rate, including preseason mock drafts on Sleeper, showing up on draft day with a set of rankings you trust and consuming waiver wire and start-sit content each week during the season.

Another way to gain an edge during the fantasy season is by playing Sleeper Picks, a daily fantasy football game. You select more or less for different player’s weekly yardage and touchdowns. These more/less projections are a great tool when making start-sit decisions. If you’re deciding between two running backs, and one has an total of 38.5 rushing yards while the other is at 53.5, the player with the higher yardage projection is the higher percentage player to start.

And if season-long fantasy isn’t your thing, you can try Sleeper’s Daily Draft, a paid-entry DFS game where you draft a new team for each week of the NFL season and play against others for cash prizes. If your season-long team is a dud and the odds of a surge up the standings are long, it at least gives you a weekly alternative and another avenue to victory.

How can I make my fantasy football league more competitive?

Competitive leagues properly reward the winner while also discouraging tanking with a last-place punishment. If your league has an entry fee, make sure it’s within everyone’s budget, but not too low. As an extreme and illustrative example, a fantasy football league with a $1 buy-in, $5 to the winner and no last-place punishment is unlikely to foster genuine competition. 

What if two teams tie in the fantasy football championship?

It’s possible that two teams will have identical final scores in the fantasy football championship game. When this happens, a common tiebreaker is giving the victory to the team with the highest-scoring individual player. If both teams’ top-scoring player recorded 22 fantasy points, then it would pass along to the second-highest scoring player, and so on, until a winner is declared.

What is the ideal number of teams for fantasy football?

There is no ideal number, but 12-team leagues are the most common, followed by 10-team leagues. We wouldn’t recommend fewer than eight or more than 14 teams in the same league unless there are unique scoring settings factored in.

Gotta Play to Win

Rewarding the fantasy football winner properly ensures an engaging and competitive atmosphere during the football season. We hope your league was inspired by at least one of our six prize suggestions.

Ready to play in a fantasy football league and vie for that top prize? Join Sleeper, either by signing up on their website or downloading the app, to start competing today. There are many ways to customize your league settings in less than two minutes, along with special features like the league history feature, which shows historic data on leagues’ winners from every year.