Fantasy football is the virtual NFL roster game that traces to Bill Winkenbach's August 1963 Oakland draft, and Google Search interest for fantasy football sits at 51 of 100 for the week of August 29 2026. That reading is up 37.84% from 37 on August 22 and up 325.0% from 12 on August 1, per Trends MCP get_growth on google search pulled August 30 2026. The 261-week get_time_series on the same source runs from September 4 2021 (first print 61) through August 29 2026 and peaked at 100 on September 6 2025. Same-week 2025 printed 96. App Store Top Free had ESPN Fantasy Sports and More at rank 6 as of August 30 2026 12:01 UTC, with Sleeper absent from the top 25. This week is the draft ramp, not the ceiling.
About fantasy football
Fantasy football is a game in which owners draft virtual NFL players and score points from real weekly box scores, typically in redraft, keeper, dynasty, or daily formats, and that 1963 Oakland living-room draft is why the query still spikes every August. Wikipedia traces the modern rules to Wilfred Bill Winkenbach, an Oakland businessman and Raiders limited partner, who with Bill Tunnel and Scotty Stirling wrote the first league in a New York hotel in 1962. The Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League held its first draft at Winkenbach's home in August 1963. As of 2022 the Fantasy Sports and Gaming Association counted 62.5 million fantasy-sports players in the United States and Canada, about four in five playing fantasy football. NFL.com's schedule release sets Kickoff for Wednesday September 9 2026, Seahawks versus Patriots at Lumen Field at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC, Peacock, and NFL+. Drafts fill the two to three weeks before that opener. ESPN Fantasy and Sleeper fantasy are the product queries on the same board.
What the time series shows
Google Search interest for fantasy football printed 51 the week of August 29 2026, up from 37 on August 22 and 12 on August 1, a late-summer draft ramp that still sits 49 points under the September 6 2025 peak of 100. The 261-week series opened at 61 on September 4 2021. Last eight weekly prints are 6, 6, 10, 12, 18, 31, 37, and 51. Closest 30-day point is 12 on August 1 (+325.0%). Closest 90-day point is 5 on May 30 (+920.0%). Same-week 2025 printed 96, 2024 printed 70, and 2023 printed 64. Last year ran 63, 96 on August 30, then 100 on September 6, then 34 once drafts finished. Absolute change from August 1 to August 29 is 39 points, more than twice the prior 30-day move from 5 on June 27 to 12. Week-over-week percent-change sample standard deviation on the last 52 weeks is 24.65%. The chart window starts August 24 2024.
Why the page charts Google Search
A live store rank is not a keyword series, and the App Store Top Free rank 6 for ESPN Fantasy Sports and More fetched August 30 2026 12:01 UTC still has to sit beside the 261-week Google Search curve rather than replace it, because a free-app board position is not a 0-100 weekly index. This page already stores google search, and that source still prints +37.84% over 7 days (37 to 51) and +325.0% over 30 days (12 to 51), with 261 weekly points and a 24.65% last-52 week-over-week sample standard deviation. Mixing an App Store rank with the Search 51 would invent a story the APIs do not tell.
Same-day Google Search neighbors on the 30-day window: college gameday 60 (+1100.0% from 5), gofan 100 (+1011.11% from 9), espn fantasy 50 (+455.56% from 9), yahoo fantasy 40 (+400.0% from 8), sleeper fantasy 45 (+350.0% from 10), nfl 19 (+111.11% from 9), nba 2k 96 (+57.38% from 61). Topic pages: NFL. Source context: Google Search data.
get_time_series with source google search and keyword fantasy football is the call behind the chart: 261 weekly points from 2021-09-04 through 2026-08-29, stored as {date, value} with no smoothing. get_growth on the same pair, windows 7D and 30D, is the headline math: 37 to 51 (+37.84%) and 12 to 51 (+325.0%).
A copy-paste pair for Claude or Cursor:
get_time_series source="google search" keyword="fantasy football"
get_growth source="google search" keyword="fantasy football" percent_growth=["7D","30D"]
REST is the same body at https://api.trendsmcp.ai/api with Authorization: Bearer and mode set to get_time_series or get_growth.