please read
these mascots
are not ok.
someone
should
check on them.
are not ok.
someone
should
check on them.
dispatches from the sideline
Covering the Emotional Wreckage of Sports, One Mascot at a Time
Covering the Emotional Wreckage of Sports, One Mascot at a Time
The Official Rulebook
Draft mascots. Collect adversity. Win by losing the right way.
Every fantasy sports league drafts players. This one drafts mascots.
Standard fantasy rewards production — touchdowns, strikeouts, rebounds. Mascot Fantasy League rewards presence. The mascot who showed up for a sweep. The one who hasn't come down from his cat tree. The one who is, by all available evidence, not okay.
Scoring has two tracks. Standard scoring rewards weekly activity — your mascot's team winning, broadcast appearances, community events. Adversity premium is triggered when a Sad Mascots story is published about your mascot. The sadder the story, the more points it's worth.
This creates a strategic tension that no other fantasy league offers: do you want the mascot of a contender, whose team racks up wins but rarely generates coverage? Or the mascot of a team in freefall, who may be the subject of multiple dispatches before the trade deadline?
Neither is obviously correct. That is the draft.
Earned weekly based on your mascot's team schedule. Showing up is worth something around here.
| Category | Points | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Team win | +3 | Per game |
| Team loss | +1 | Showing up still counts |
| Broadcast appearance | +5 | Per verified game appearance |
| Community / charity appearance | +5 | Per documented event |
| Viral moment | +15 | Verified clip, 50k+ views within the scoring week |
Triggered by a published Sad Mascots dispatch. Stacks with Tier 1. This is the reason you're here.
| Sadness Level | Description | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mild embarrassment — things could be worse | +5 |
| 2 | Clearly struggling — putting on a brave face | +15 |
| 3 | Genuinely rough — coping mechanisms visible | +30 |
| 4 | Full unraveling — multiple incidents | +50 |
| 5 | Historic suffering — generational, unprecedented | +100 |
Wellness check bonus: +25 flat, applied any time a story carries a wellness check — standard language or a custom note. Stacks on top of the sadness level score.
Wellness update bonus: A follow-up wellness update story scores at its own sadness level, plus the wellness check bonus if present. A mascot can score Tier 2 points from a story and a same-week update independently.
Correction bonus: +10 any time a published correction is issued about your mascot. Documented chaos reaching editorial intervention is worth something.
Maximum single-story adversity week: Level 5 + wellness check + correction = 135 pts. This has not happened. It would be an event.
One-time scoring events tied to real-world franchise moments.
| Event | Points | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Playoff elimination | +20 | One-time, when your mascot's team is officially eliminated |
| Mid-season coaching change | +15 | Head coach only |
| Ownership / relocation drama | +20 | Must be reported by a credible sports outlet |
| Team loses 10+ consecutive games | +10 | Streak bonus, awarded once per streak |
| Championship win | −10 | Mascot is too happy. Adversity value temporarily depressed. |
7 total slots per team. Only the 5 active slots score.
| Slot | Eligible Mascots | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| NFL | Any NFL mascot | |
| MLB | Any MLB mascot | |
| NBA | Any NBA mascot | |
| NHL | Any NHL mascot | |
| FLEX | Any sport | Includes NCAA and international |
| BENCH ×2 | Any sport | No scoring — absorbs drops and adds |
One constraint applies across all slots: each real sports team may appear on only one roster in the league. No two managers own the same team's mascot.
The FLEX slot is where roster management actually happens. MLB runs 162 games (April–September) and generates steady weekly floor scoring. NFL has a shorter season but bigger adversity swings. Come September, a smart manager often pivots the FLEX slot from a second MLB mascot to an NFL mascot on a team in trouble. The calendar favors different builds at different times of year.
Sunday through Saturday. Stories published during the window apply to that week's score.
| Phase | Weeks | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Regular season | 1–13 | Head-to-head, one matchup per week |
| Semifinals | 14–15 | Top 4 seeds, best-of-two weeks (cumulative score) |
| Championship | 16 | Top 2 seeds, single week |
Tiebreaker for playoff seeding: total adversity premium points scored during the regular season. The team that found the most suffering wins the tiebreaker. This is intentional.
Some mascots have been officially retired by their franchise — removed from active duty, sometimes quietly, sometimes after an incident involving a fan named Linda.
These mascots are draftable. They carry history. And they can still generate adversity premium points if a story is published about them.
Legacy mascots are bench-eligible only. They cannot occupy an active slot (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, FLEX). If drafted or claimed via waiver, they automatically go to bench and receive the Legacy designation.
From bench, Legacy mascots score:
A Legacy mascot is a bet on coverage, not on the schedule. Whether it pays off depends on how much the past refuses to stay quiet.
Legacy mascots may not be traded — only dropped. If a franchise re-activates a retired mascot, the Legacy designation is removed and they return to the full scoring pool.