ARMONK, N.Y., Sept. 24, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — IBM (NYSE: IBM) and ESPN are once again teaming up to enhance and improve the fantasy football experience with AI technology from IBM’s watsonx. This season, the ESPN Fantasy Football app debuts the new weekly Fantasy Insights Built with IBM watsonx, giving the platform’s more than 14 million fantasy football players personalized, AI-powered recommendations derived from over 36 billion insights throughout the season.
Fantasy Insights Built With IBM watsonx appears on the home page of ESPN Fantasy Football, giving fantasy managers a quick, AI-generated overview of players that are of particular interest on any given week. It uses a set of series of data-driven categories, each with specific criteria, to identify those players. These build on the suite of AI-powered IBM Player Insights, which include Waiver Grades, Trade Grades, Boom and Bust probabilities, and the Trade Analyzer, all designed to transform massive volumes and varieties of data into actionable insights for fantasy managers.
“Fantasy football is all about optimizing decision making, and AI is helping fans make them with deeper insights,” said Jonathan Adashek, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications, IBM. “With Fantasy Insights Built With IBM watsonx, we’re putting the power of watsonx into the hands of millions of people on the ESPN Fantasy Football app, helping them make smarter, more informed decisions while also showcasing the same capabilities businesses around the world use to scale AI.”
A series of categories within IBM Player Insights build on “boom/bust” and other data points, then aggregate them into actionable insights helping fantasy managers make more informed roster decisions. Notable for 2025:
Buy Low Sell High: Players whose recent opponent defenses were strong, but whose upcoming opponents are in the bottom 25th percentile.
Diamond in the Rough: Players rostered by less than 85% of leagues who boomed by scoring in the 85th percentile for two consecutive weeks.
Trade Bait: Players who have underperformed for two straight weeks and are rostered by a majority of leagues.
The feature uses AI models built with watsonx to identify players across several other categories, including:
Predicted Top Boom: Players predicted to over-perform for the upcoming week.
Predicted Top Bust: Players predicted to under-perform for the upcoming week.
Hot in the Media: Players who are the most popular in media discussions.
Media Darlings: Players whose positive media sentiment has increased by 10x and are rostered by less than 50% of leagues.
Risky Business: Players with a high scoring projection, coming back from injury, and rostered by a majority of leagues.
Sure Thing: Players with a stable floor when contrasted to their projection.
Game Breaker: Players that have a high chance of outperforming their scoring projection.