--- title: Yahoo Fantasy Draft Together | 4th Hashtag Sports Awards description: The Hashtag Sports Awards recognize excellence in fan and consumer engagement across content, campaigns and creators. image: https://www.hashtagsports.com/hubfs/HubSpot%20-%20Featured%20Image%20-%20300%20x%20175%20(1)-1.svg --- ### 🎉 2022 Shortlist ##### YAHOO FANTASY DRAFT TOGETHER **Entrant: **Yahoo Fantasy Sports NOMINEE ✨ - Best New Fan Experience   ###### Share: [** ](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hashtagsports.com%2Fawards%2Fshortlist-2022%2Fyahoo-fantasy-draft-together) [** ](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hashtagsports.com%2Fawards%2Fshortlist-2022%2Fyahoo-fantasy-draft-together&text=Yahoo+Fantasy+Draft+Together+%7C+4th+Hashtag+Sports+Awards) [** ](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hashtagsports.com%2Fawards%2Fshortlist-2022%2Fyahoo-fantasy-draft-together) ![yahoo-fantasy-draft-together](https://www.hashtagsports.com/hs-fs/hubfs/awards/shortlist-2022/yahoo-fantasy-draft-together.jpg?width=2434&name=yahoo-fantasy-draft-together.jpg) ABOUT THIS ENTRY Draft Together allows fantasy players the chance to use video chat when drafting. With virtual communication becoming the new norm, using Draft Together is a way to bring the spirit of in-person drafting. League mates can chat and interact (and trash each other's draft choices, of course!) while picking their players ahead of another great fantasy season!  How does this represent “Excellence in Engagement”? Through the launch of Draft Together, we were able to launch the first of its kind embedded video chat experience within Fantasy drafts. Beyond the global pandemic, fantasy managers can now join the rest of their league virtually, if they aren’t able to make draft day in-person. This means that managers can stay connected with their league, from wherever they are. Draft Together is the first step towards creating more virtual experiences that allow sports fans to connect with each other from anywhere. Virtual and deeply connected experiences are here to stay, empowering sports fans to transcend borders and boundaries alike, while staying connected. **Objective: **At the height of the global pandemic during the summer of 2020, given the uncertainty of Sports resuming due to the impending health risks for athletes caused by covid-19, we saw a dip in registrations and engagement for our Yahoo Fantasy Sports product. With everyone stuck at home, and with video having become increasingly important as a means to connect with friends and family, we sought out to build a video experience, to re-engage sports fans once sports re-opened. For Fantasy, draft day is the single most important day for any league, which dictates the players each manager will have on their team, ready to take on the fantasy season in a bid to win. This means that drafting the best possible players for your team puts you in the best possible position to win your league. Thus, our goal was to leverage a fun and engaging video chat experience, to bring fantasy managers together during draft day to complete their draft, while creating a fun draft atmosphere. This led to the creation of the first embedded video chat experience within Fantasy drafts, called Draft Together. **Strategy & Execution: **The sports fan experience as we know it, drastically changed in the year 2020. Sports fans around the world found themselves still having to experience games and sporting events virtually in 2021, while having to find new ways of engaging with one another, and embracing the sports they love. We built Draft Together with our sports fans. By constantly listening to their challenges, and learning about their ever-changing needs caused by a shift in how they were left to experience sports during a global pandemic, we built a platform-agnostic video chat experience, seamlessly integrated with their drafts. This meant that sports fans could sit at their desk at home, or walk around their home, while enjoying a video draft experience with their leaguemates. As part of our global Yahoo Build It Forward virtual event in March 2021, we launched Draft Together for Baseball Drafts (desktop only), within the US-only. We made it easier for Fantasy Baseball managers to stay connected and trash talk during draft day, while drafting the best players for their team. We followed up with the launch of Draft Together for Football drafts (mobile & desktop) in the fall of 2021, partnering with the Pittsburgh Steelers’ wide receiver, Juju Smith-Schuster for the launch. We later launched the feature for Hockey and Basketball drafts. The feature was limited to private leagues with up to 12 fantasy managers in the league.   **Results: **With the launch of Draft Together, we saw fantasy managers joining their drafts and drafting with their league mates. We were able to engage over 400k unique fantasy managers drafting with their video on, along with their leaguemates. **Production** Fantasy Product, Fantasy Product Design, Fantasy engineering, Yahoo User Research, Sports Marketing, Yahoo Brand Creative, Yahoo Video team, Yahoo Legal team **Credits** [**Kwame Odame**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kwameyodame) Senior Product Manager Yahoo Fantasy Sports [**Ben Schlitter**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/benschlitter) Principal Product Designer Yahoo Fantasy Sports **[Wayne Greenwood](https://www.linkedin.com/in/waynegreenwood) **Sr Dir, Product Management Yahoo Streaming Video Products [**Dipesh Raichura**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dipeshraichura) Head of Yahoo Fantasy Product Yahoo Fantasy Sports [**Kat O’Neill**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/katmoneill7) User Experience & Consumer Insights Researcher **[Sam Jaroszewski](https://www.linkedin.com/in/samjaroszewski/) **User Experience Researcher Yahoo Fantasy Sports [**Dhara Bavishi**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dharabavishi) Software Apps Engineering Yahoo Fantasy Sports [**Brian Coe**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/coesurf) Princ Software Dev Engineer Yahoo **Joe Francis **Sr Mgr, Software Dev Engineering Yahoo Fantasy Sports **Erica Loh Jones** Director of Product Design Yahoo Fantasy Sports **Deepak Somashekhara** Sr Mgr, Software Dev Engineering Connected TV **Ramagopal Reddy Ambati **Sr Software QA Engineer Yahoo Fantasy Sports **Cary Stanley** Princ Software Dev Engineer Yahoo Fantasy Sports **Bruce Ng** Sr Mgr, Software Dev Engineering Yahoo Fantasy Sports **Arjun Govindaraju **Princ Technical Security EngineerCyber Resilience **Roger Urrabazo** Sr Dir, Software Dev Engineering Connected TV **David Chou** Sr Software Apps Engineer Yahoo Fantasy Sports **Bart Broad **Princ Software Apps Engineer Yahoo Fantasy Sports **James Wong** Princ Software Apps Engineer Yahoo **Erin Chuang** Sr Software Apps Engineer Yahoo **Gagan Basandra **Software Apps Engineer II Yahoo **Jarrett Freeman** Software Dev Engineer Fantasy Sports **Jinhyun Kim** Sr Software Apps Engineer Yahoo **Lakshmi Thamizhmani **Director, Technical Program Mgmt Yahoo **Lingyan Zhu** Distinguished Architect Yahoo **Mikul Bhatt** Dir, Software Apps Engineering Connected TV **Neha Dike **Mgr, Software Apps Engineering Connected TV **Rishika Dewan** Software Dev Engineer II Yahoo **Shivani Dave** Sr Software QA Engineer Yahoo Fantasy Sports **Edmund Lou **Sr Software Apps Engineer Yahoo Fantasy Sports #### Celebrate in Las Vegas Join us for the 4th Hashtag Sports Awards™ presented by Budweiser on the evening of July 12, 2022 at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas as we celebrate finalists and reveal the winners of this year's awards live during the show.   [![RESERVE SEATS](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/834568/c79439a7-e53f-4aa9-9d60-2b68caf80d89.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/834568/c79439a7-e53f-4aa9-9d60-2b68caf80d89)