by Peter Funt on October 23, 2024

In a memorable "Saturday Night Live" football sketch from 2016, Vanessa Bayer toils in the kitchen preparing Totino's Pizza Rolls while her six "hungry guys" lounge in the living room watching "the big game." It's hilarious -- but no longer remotely accurate in portraying the audience for NFL games and, specifically, fantasy football.

Nearly 14 million women now play fantasy football, representing roughly 25 percent of the nation's 55 million total participants, according to research compiled for my new book, "Inside Fantasy Football: America's Favorite Non-Contact Sport."

NBC's Matthew Berry, one of fantasy football's top analysts, says the games used to operate in "a fairly insular world." He recalls fantasy conferences not long ago where, "You'd go there and there were three women and two people of color. It was a lot of white men between 30 and 50."

Now, Berry told me, he sees a lot more women getting involved. "I get recognized these days by........

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