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A fantasy football tournament site employee has been fired after podcasters uncovered a cheating scandal during the postseason. The trio noticed some unusual scoring activity in the site’s most recent contest and began digging.
The players, who are featured on the Ship Chasing podcast, then made an earth-shattering discovery that called into question the integrity of the prominent tournament operator.
The National Fantasy Football Championship hosted a Playoff Hold ‘Em contest boasting more than 1,500 entries and a first prize of $150K. Entry into the tournament was $200 a pop, with the premise of the game being to field the best postseason roster.
Competitors set their lineups in the opening round, and as NFL teams get eliminated, new players are picked up. Replacements are then scooped up, and new lineups are locked in.
Only in this case, the lineups weren’t locked in.
The podcasters noticed one particular team whose final scoring wasn’t necessarily reflecting its preset lineup.
Come to find out, there were post-deadline changes being made after the games were being played on the field.
The most notable inconsistency involved a post-lock switch of Rashee Rice for Travis Kelce, who caught a pair of touchdowns in his most recent playoff game.
The podcasters had luckily taken a pregame screenshot of said player’s lineup, making it easy to see the change when the week wrapped up. And this wasn’t the first time!
Research showed similar activity dating back to the first round of the postseason.
The trio then used social media to sleuth further, finding a years-long relationship between the cheating player and a tournament administrator.
As it turns out, this same player won $20,000 in the 2019 edition of the Hold ‘Em contest. Shocking!
When the evidence was turned over to the NFFC site, the administrator was fired, and the player was banned.
“As a result of its internal investigation, an employee was terminated, and a contest participant has been banned from further play on our platforms.”
The Ship Chasers podcast broke down how they uncovered the fantasy football cheating scandal on their YouTube page this week.
You can never be too careful!