Wishing everyone a fantastic new year! This is the final week of play, and here’s what you need to know as we wrap up this fantasy season and head into 2026.
Playoff Leagues Available
The fun doesn’t have to end! Playoff leagues have been available for purchase in the lobby now for a few weeks. These leagues run during the NFL playoffs and are a lot of fun!
They are six-team total-points leagues with no management during the week. Every player you draft contributes to your point total every week, as deep as they go into the playoffs. Draft good players from good teams (or lucky players on lucky teams) to get the most points! Prizes are paid to the top 2 teams in each league.
We run email drafts, live draft, and live auctions. Live drafts are quick for these leagues, taking only about 45 minutes, and email drafts use a shortened timer of only 6 hours.
If you missed our playoff leagues strategy article, check it out here!
Mailing Personal Checks
You can avoid deposit fees by mailing a personal check.
If you want to deposit money by personal check for playoff leagues, it’s best to postmark your letter by Tuesday, December 30, to give the check time to clear. That’s because this is a particularly tight schedule this year, with the playoffs starting earlier than usual.
Personal checks for renewals can be sent at any time.
You can see instructions for mailing personal checks by clicking on DEPOSIT FUNDS BY PERSONAL CHECK from your My Account page.
If you’re a repeat customer and you miss the deadline to send a personal check, don’t sweat it. Just email us first; we can usually work with you.
The Regular Season Ends After Tonight’s Game
ALL regular-season leagues end after week 17. We’ll close the leagues tomorrow (Tuesday, December 30) and audit the results, and then assuming all looks well, we’ll open things up for you to claim your winnings on Thursday, January 1st.
We know you’re anxious, but we cannot do payouts until after the calendar year ends! This is necessary in order to show taxable winnings for the tax year 2026 rather than 2025.
You can see the prize money on the Prizes page or on your league’s Playoff Brackets page. All winners will receive an email with further instructions, but you’ll get your money by visiting your My Account page and clicking on CLAIM PRIZE WINNINGS.
You can immediately withdraw prize winnings! Or, of course, you can use your claimed prize winnings for playoff leagues, for renewals, or save the money in your account for next year’s leagues.
1099 Filings
Prizes for the season that just ended will be paid out in 2026, and any 1099 you receive for this season will be received in January, 2027.
We will send out 1099 emails for winnings received in 2025 (leagues from the 2024-2025 season) about halfway through January, and you’ll be able to download them from your My Account page.
As usual, if your winnings, less your entry fees, exceed $600, you will get a 1099 from us.
We hear this may be increasing from $600 to $2,000 for 2026! We will confirm this next year to make sure we are following tax law correctly. It’s about time, right?
Electronic Withdrawal is Available
We continue to offer paper checks via the post office, but remember that electronic withdrawals present a faster, safer, and often cheaper, way to withdraw! The processing charge is just 1% plus 99 cents. We strongly recommend linking your bank account for both deposits and withdrawals. It’s just so much faster than paper for withdrawals, and cheaper than credit cards for deposits.
Withdrawals by paper check or by ACH (direct to your bank account) is available to reputable U.S. banks from your My Account page below.
Auto-Renewal Option
As prizes are awarded, auto-renewal of multi-year leagues occurs for those team owners who want it. Auto-renewal immediately opens up access to your team in 2026, so you can begin trading right away for next season. If you’d like to enable auto-renewal, visit your My Leagues page where you can turn on this feature for select teams. Deposit money before the end of the year if you don’t think your prize winnings will cover the cost of renewal.
There will be no change in prices or payouts for 2026, but there is a change for new dynasty start-ups: If you want to join a new start-up multi-year league, we will now require a nominal pre-payment for 2027–just enough to make sure you are serious about sticking around for two years or more.
Required Renewals
Note that some of your dynasty or keepers teams may be set to REQUIRED for auto-renewal. This means you agreed to auto-renew at some point during the year in order to trade away future-year picks. See the rulebook for more information. If you did not wind up trading away picks for years 2025 or 2026, or you made additional trades to restore picks in those rounds, feel free to contact us to remove the auto-renew requirement. It’s best to do this before new-year leagues are created after the start of the year!
It’s a common occurrence for required renewals to send your account balance negative if you don’t have enough money in your account after claiming prizes. This is not a serious condition: your team will be available as soon as you bring your account current in 2026.
Negative-balance accounts will result only from forced renewals, not optional auto-renews.
Renewal Deadline
If you’re not yet ready to renew, no worries! The renewal deadline isn’t until early May.
Once that deadline passes, all unrenewed teams go on the annual orphan auction.
🏈 Leagues Forming Now at DataForce Fantasy Football! 🏈
Ready to draft? We offer the widest variety with the best prize payouts anywhere!
Come check out what we have available in our lobby and Orphan Marketplace.
Join the fun and draft your winning team today at DataForceFF.com!
Lee Harmon
Commissioner