I'm David Farrier in New Zealander accidentally marooned in America and I want to figure out what makes this country tick.

What's become very clear in flightless birds so far is that Americans love sports.

It's one of the few things besides religion. is that Americans love sports.

It's one of the few things besides religion that seems to bind people together here.

Sometimes it makes them fall apart as well, but mostly it brings them together.

We've done whole flightless bird episodes just around sports like pickleball.

It's like chess. It's just understanding how the game is played.

And baseball.

You sit no expectations. And when there's no expectations you can't get annoyed when something that you're expecting doesn't happen.

So if you go out there with no expectations, everything you get is a blessing.

But there's a whole other huge side to American sports, one that's entirely, well almost entirely made up.

Because around 19% of Americans over the age of 18 play fantasy sports. Not real sports but fantasy ones.

We become the owner of your own fantasy team made up of real players.

It's so big there's a whole TV show about it, seven seasons worth, called

The League.

Shit! Did you lose?

You shut your mouth! Every year I set this league up every year and I never win! This was the year!

There's a variety of fantasy sports, but 80% of Americans playing them are playing fantasy football, which is where we turn today.

Of course it's now a global phenomenon. I have friends in New Zealand that are obsessed with fantasy football,

but it was birthed in New York over 60 years ago.

Today, 50 million Americans play fantasy football each year.

So if I was to live here, I'd need to understand Fantasy Football's mysterious ways.

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