Sixteen seasons of the Scott Fish Bowl. One charity, thousands of drafts.
From a 96-team reader league in 2010 to a 5,000-team charity tournament: champions, scoring changes, and Fantasy Cares.
How a reader league became the unofficial start of the season
Scott Fish has been building fantasy football since 1992. The bowl is what happens when a respected commissioner points that community at a good cause.
Scott Fish is a longtime fantasy football innovator, credited with creating the “Devy” (developmental dynasty) format back in the 1990s. He started playing in 1992 and launched the site FFOasis in 2007, earning a reputation as one of the format’s most trusted commissioners — a role he still fills today through his SafeLeagues commissioner service and his podcasts.
The tournament began in 2010 as the FFOasis Invitational (FFOI) — a reader league for the FFOasis website — built on one simple idea: use fantasy football’s popularity to raise money for charity. When FFOasis shut down, the event needed a new name and a new home. It was reborn as The Scott Fish Bowl, and around 2013 the modern themed era took hold.
The field grew quickly: roughly 96 teams in 2010, 120 in 2013, 480 by 2016, 1,440 in 2020, past 3,000 in 2022, and about 5,028 teams across 2025 and 2026 — all split into 12-team leagues. Because it drafts in early July, it’s widely called the unofficial start of the fantasy season.
High-Score Table
Every edition since 2010, newest first. SFB16 is still pending.
| Rank | Edition | Yr | Theme | Winner | Field |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | SFB16 | 2026 | Video Games | PENDING▮ | ~5,028 |
| 02 | SFB15 | 2025 | Sports | ▸Ben Condeelis · @TheExtraPointFF | ~5,028 |
| 03 | SFB14 | 2024 | Movies | ▸Chris Charles | ~3,396 |
| 04 | SFB13 | 2023 | Food & Drink | ▸Jed Barson | ~3,324 |
| 05 | SFB12 | 2022 | Locations | ▸Cody Armstrong | ~3,000 |
| 06 | SFB11 | 2021 | Music | ▸Isaac Sebourn | ~1,920 |
| 07 | SFBX (SFB10) | 2020 | Toys | ▸Jayme Cernicka | ~1,440 |
| 08 | SFB9 | 2019 | Video Games | ▸Gary Haddow | ~1,200 |
| 09 | SFB8 | 2018 | TV Shows | ▸Sam Lane | ~900 |
| 10 | SFB7 | 2017 | Disney | ▸Dan Sainio | ~720 |
| 11 | SFB6 | 2016 | Actors / Actresses | ▸Raymond Summerlin | ~480 |
| 12 | SFB5 | 2015 | Will Ferrell | ▸Derek Myers | ~360 |
| 13 | SFB4 | 2014 | Random | ▸Ryan McKee | ~240 |
| 14 | SFB3 | 2013 | Tecmo Bowl | ▸Ty Miller | ~120 |
| 15 | — | 2012 | Transition / rebrand year — no tournament held | — | |
| 16 | FFOI2 (SFB2) | 2011 | FFOasis Invitational era | ▸Bob Slaughter | ~60 |
| 17 | FFOI1 (SFB1) | 2010 | FFOasis Invitational era | ▸Mike Clay | ~96 |
Rank column is chronological standing, newest edition first. 2012 is preserved as a gap year — no tournament ran during the FFOasis-to-SFB transition. The SFB16 champion will be crowned after the early-July 2026 draft; we never fabricate a winner.
Scoring built to break the chalk
The bowl is famous for creative, ever-changing scoring designed to blow up 'standard' strategies. Two signatures endure; everything else is re-tuned every single year.
Tight End Premium
Tight ends earn extra points per reception — historically around +1 to +2. SFB14 ran roughly 1.5 PPR for TEs; SFB15 gave them about one extra point per reception on top of base PPR. The effect: elite tight ends become genuinely league-winning assets and completely reshape how the early rounds get drafted.
First-Down Bonuses
Points are awarded for rushing and receiving first downs — about 0.5 per first down in SFB14, rising to a full 1 point per non-passing first down in SFB15. Combined with points per target and per carry, the format has trended hard toward rewarding volume and involvement over raw efficiency.
“Volume is king.” SFB15 (2025) removed position minimums for the first time in two decades — fully position-less drafting where managers simply take the highest-projected players regardless of position. Rosters ran 22 deep (11 starters, 11 bench), drafted via snake with a third-round reversal.
Other wrinkles across the years: bonuses for long completions and big plays, penalties for incomplete passes or sacks, and non-standard roster construction. Because every theme year re-tunes the exact point values, participants must re-solve the optimal strategy annually — that deliberate churn is central to the bowl’s identity.
Who shows up to play
Analysts, creators, celebrities, and former players regularly join the field.
Per the official About page, the field broadly includes analysts from ESPN, PFF, and across the fantasy media landscape — the reason a Scott Fish Bowl draft is treated as a real test of skill against the sharpest players in the game.
The whole point of the bowl
Every draft is a fundraiser. The Scott Fish Bowl is the primary engine for Fantasy Cares, a registered 501(c)(3) charity.
The majority of funds raised buy toys for children at Christmas, donated through Toys for Tots. Beyond that, Fantasy Cares has supported hurricane relief (Harvey), food-security nonprofits (Feeding America, Every Meal, Go Pantry), the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Coats for Kids, dog rescue, ALS One, and the Equal Justice Initiative.
Sources consistently describe the SFB / Fantasy Cares effort as having raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity, though no single official cumulative total is published. Individual leagues also fundraise on their own — Matthew Berry auctions his league spot, and in 2025 (SFB15) his league set a record, raising nearly $15,000 for Fantasy Cares.
- 2018The Athletic — Person of the Year
- 2019 / 2020FSGA Humanitarian of the Year
- 2021Inaugural Matthew Berry Game Changer Award
Recognition earned specifically for the charitable impact of the bowl — the humanitarian award is sometimes cited as 2019 and sometimes as its January 2020 presentation.
Sources
Everything on this page is drawn from the following references. Figures are approximate where the sources are approximate.