Fantasy Football Site Fires Employee Involved In Major Cheating Scandal During Six-Figure Contest

Published|Updated

An employee of a major fantasy football website has been fired after it was discovered that they had taken part in a cheating scandal during one of the biggest NFL playoffs tournaments around, and the cheater wasn't exactly subtle about it.

The National Football Fantasy Football Championship, whose parent company is SportsHub, announced that the now-former employee used internal controls to make advantageous changes to a contestant's roster. These moves weren't made before games kicked off, but after games had already started. The person even swapped a player into a lineup who had already scored a touchdown.

An hour into the second of two wild-card games on January 20, the user switched Dolphins running back Raheem Mostert for Packers running back Aaron Jones. In the first game, Mostert was a non-factor in Miami's loss in Kansas City while Jones got off to a hot start against Dallas before ultimately scoring three touchdowns. Jones went for over 100 yards against San Francisco the next week as well.

The antics reportedly continued during the divisional round as well. The same contestant switched out Chiefs receiver Rashee Rice for tight end Travis Kelce, but only after Kelce had already found the endzone against the Bills.

This type of behavior wouldn't be accepted in the friendliest of fantasy football leagues, but when you add the fact that this took place in a 1,521-person contest where the winner took home $150k, it's a humongous deal.

According to ESPN, the incident was first noticed by a group of contestants featured on the 'Ship Chasing' podcast. Pete Orverze said the group found the problem while trying to make a roster different than the contestant in question.

"It wouldn't have stood out unless you were intimately familiar with how that contest works," Overzet said..."We're in an era where people want to jump to conspiracy theories. Now, not only do you know that It can occur, but it did occur, I think that's going to spread the seeds of distrust."

The contestant caught up in the scandal was disqualified, but the event is still carrying on.

Tags
Written by

Mark covers all sports at OutKick while keeping a close eye on the world of professional golf. He graduated from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga before earning his master's degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee. He somehow survived living in Knoxville despite ‘Rocky Top’ being his least favorite song ever written. Before joining OutKick, he wrote for various outlets including SB Nation, The Spun, and BroBible. Mark was also a writer for the Chicago Cubs Double-A affiliate in 2016 when the team won the World Series. He's still waiting for his championship ring to arrive. Follow him on Twitter @itismarkharris.