The NFL is so popular mainly because of bone-crushing hits and exciting stars, and because of fantasy football. Since fantasy sports have taken off in the past 10 years, the NFL has skyrocketed into the top spot of the most watched sports in America, and it isn’t even close. A whopping 35 percent of people call football their favorite professional sport. Fantasy sports make a huge impact on professional sports, especially financially.

Professional athletes such as Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Jeremy Maclin have some bold words. “I don’t give a **** about your fantasy team. News flash for y’all ******.” The point was raised that he makes millions of dollars because of the large number of fans watching, and a lot of them watch because of fantasy football. Even then, Maclin did not care.

To be fair to Maclin, who will never even see this, no NFL players care about anyone’s fantasy team. But to ignore the financial impact of the online phenomenon is ignoring a big portion of the NFL’s fans.

Fantasy football is being played by more than 75 MILLION Americans this year, making it the most popular form of fantasy sports on the Internet. The impact of the game can not be denied. Even if 10 percent of those fans are casual fans who become more invested in the game, that’s a lot of new fans, and new revenue for the NFL.

That revenue goes partially into the salary cap for players, which allows for bigger contracts. As the years have gone on in all professional sports, the cap has gone up, along with fantasy participants.

Fantasy Sports have been recognized as important by TV companies as well. Companies now tailor packages toward the average fantasy player.

Features such as NFL Redzone, which shows nothing but scoring plays, NBA All Access, and NFL Sunday Ticket allow you to watch every ongoing game you want. These types of features are huge cash cows for TV companies. Not only are these in people’s homes, they’re in the stadiums, too.

The Jacksonville Jaguars stadium features Redzone on TV’s across the stadium. In case someone’s fantasy fix hasn’t been entirely filled, fantasy companies are also building lounges in stadiums for checking scores.

Not only do season long leagues raise heaps of cash, daily leagues do, too. Daily leagues like Fanduel and DraftKings have sponsorships with 28 teams, worth about six or seven million dollars to the teams. NFL owners would not invest in something that does not benefit them.

Athletes such as Jeremy Maclin are not wrong. NFL football will always matter more than fantasy football, but the fact is that the more people playing fantasy sports, the more money goes into the NFL, and the more money these already wealthy professional athletes can make.