Yahoo Fantasy Football Live

ABOUT THIS ENTRY

Yahoo Fantasy Football Live is a flagship show from Yahoo Sports that streams live every Thursday and Sunday before NFL kickoff. The program gives fans the latest news and analysis they need before setting their fantasy football lineups. Fantasy Football Live just wrapped its 20th season, making it one of the longest running fantasy football shows on the internet. How do you keep a 20-year-old show fresh? One way is through creative art direction. Ahead of the 2025 NFL season, the Yahoo Sports design team created a new visual package for the show. The refresh aimed to revitalize Fantasy Football Live by simplifying an overly busy design that distracted from expert analysis. The team removed muddy 3D backgrounds and cluttered elements, embracing minimalism and clarity. The result is a clean, compelling design package that helps Yahoo Fantasy players easily absorb insights and focus on winning their leagues. 

How does this represent "Excellence in Engagement"?

Engagement is about knowing your audience. The Fantasy Football Live audience comprises diehard fantasy football players who care about winning and want the best advice. The design for the show didn’t have to feel like a billion dollar production. It can be simple and high quality. It can allow the data to be the star of the show and free the analysts to speak right to their audience. Fantasy Football Live is now the best version of itself, engaging the audience in the way the audience wants and needs.

Objective

Yahoo Fantasy Football Live is a flagship show from Yahoo Sports that streams live every Thursday and Sunday before NFL kickoff. The program gives fans the latest news and analysis they need before setting their fantasy football lineups. 

Fantasy Football Live just wrapped its 20th season, making it one of the longest running fantasy football shows on the internet. Ahead of the 2025 NFL season, the Yahoo Sports design team was tasked to breathe new life into the show with fresh art direction.

The show’s previous design package was too busy. A surplus of visual elements distracted the viewer from the purpose of the program: to hear and absorb the analysis from expert Yahoo Fantasy analysts. For example, gray 3D moving backgrounds were muddy, loose player cutouts turned cumbersome, and floating numbers of data seemed uneven.

The Yahoo Sports design team aimed to clean up the visual identity of Fantasy Football Live through a more minimalistic design philosophy. This would enable viewers of the show to more easily digest the expert information provided by Yahoo Fantasy analysts and, ultimately, be better positioned to win their fantasy football championships.

Strategy & Execution

To create a fresher, more minimalistic art direction for Fantasy Football Live, the Yahoo Sports design team gathered inspiration from the worlds of sports, fashion, and UI/UX product design. This helped the team ideate what show logos or screens could look like. 

Following the inspiration phase, the work began. Two designers created five screens separately and took ideas from each. Rounds of feedback and revisions followed.

Across every screen are boxes. Every NFL logo, player photo, and statistic is unique. Bounding them within regulated boxes not only makes the production process easier, but also hits on the minimalism philosophy, allowing for simplicity at a high level. 

More than 30 unique new screen layouts were built and handed off to the motion design and production team.

Creating logos to fit the new look was key. Dozens of iterations were made before landing on a select few that would fit every scale, background, or other use case. 

Motion designers brought the designs to life through animation. A 3D intro featured these simple squares flying across the screen, leading to the new logo. Segment title screens became dynamic, with each design element naturally falling into place or disappearing in the same style. 

Organizations

• Yahoo Sports

Links

•   Website

Credits

Amber Matsumoto
Senior Director, Design
Yahoo Sports

Henry Russell
Designer
Yahoo Sports

Davis Long
Designer
Yahoo Sports

Mallory Bielecki
Senior Designer
Yahoo Sports

Gurkan Erdemli
Senior Motion Designer
Yahoo Sports

Shirley Hsia
Motion Designer
Yahoo Sports

Dan Harris
Producer
Yahoo Sports