Every year, thousands of football fans participate in fantasy football leagues. Fans draft players onto their very own team and each week earn points for how their players do. Most leagues have head to head matchups that contribute to an overall record which determines final places. A common tradition in many fantasy football leagues is that the loser of the league has a punishment. Some groups say that the end of the regular season decides the loser, while others go into the playoffs to duke it out. This punishment is agreed upon by everyone at the start of the season and must be accomplished.
Every year fans always come up with new punishments, but there are some classics that will never get old. The “Milk Mile” is probably the most popular punishment. Many well-documented attempts have been posted on social media, contributing to the popularity. During the Milk Mile, losers run four laps around a track, while drinking a quart of milk between each lap. Some might say that it doesn’t sound that bad, but just you wait. Despite its popularity, the Milk Mile is nowhere near the worst punishment.
Another common punishment is spending 24 hours in a restaurant of the league’s choosing. The conditions are that they must stay inside the restaurant for 24 hours but if they eat a certain food it subtracts one hour. For example, many people choose Waffle House because it is open for 24 hours and every waffle eaten would be an hour subtracted. This one also might not seem bad on the surface but 12 waffles is a lot of food. One Waffle House waffle is about 180 calories so if someone ate 12 waffles they would consume 2160 calories. To put that into perspective, an average person needs 2000 to 2500 calories per day. Also, who wants to sit in a restaurant for a whole day?
Another punishment that has gained popularity this season has been filming a month of videos. Each day or week, the loser has to post a video to a social media platform like Instagram on a public account. These videos usually entail the person embarrassing themself or doing a cringey dance. Many clips have gone viral on social media, gaining hundreds of thousands of views which only adds to the embarrassment. The possibility of thousands of people watching your embarrassment makes this one of the worst punishments this year.
Some punishments are altered slightly by those who do them and this next one is no exception. Dubbed by many just as the “Dog Cage”, this punishment entails the loser being put inside of a dog cage for a set amount of time and having the rest of the league pour/dump things of them. Most people ban living things or substances that can harm the person in the cage but it can still get crazy. This is probably one of the worst fates that a fantasy football loser can suffer.
Overall, punishments for fantasy are part of what makes leagues with friends so competitive and fun. The absence of a punishment is almost worse than anything that leagues come up with (with some exceptions) since without one, there isn’t any drive to win or desperate trades being made.
