An official 'Bachelor' Fantasy League now exists
Bach Nation finally has its own fantasy league.
ABC and sister company ESPN on Monday announced the "official ultimate fantasy game experience" for the upcoming season of The Bachelor.
The game, which is available on ABC's website and the ESPN Fantasy App, gives fans of the popular reality show franchise the opportunity to predict which four women will make it to the hometown dates and who will receive the final rose.
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Bios of the contestants -- as always -- are available on ABC's website.
Season 21 of The Bachelor, which debuts Jan. 2, stars Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise alum Nick Viall.
Many super fans have held Bachelor drafts of their own in the past -- but now ABC is offering an easier way to organize brackets. That's exactly why ABC tapped ESPN, a fellow Disney property, to help build an official Bachelor fantasy experience.
"There have already been so many of these fantasy games that people do with pencil and paper or put together their own little HTML websites for, so it's been a missed opportunity to date for us," Dan Bohm, a senior product manager for ESPN fantasy offerings, told Mashable.
Bohm said ESPN's base of fantasy products -- it offers leagues across a variety of sports -- made for a scalable base that was relatively easy to tweak for a non-sports subject.
"One goal with fantasy at ESPN is to broaden our horizons and expand beyond our core demographic," Bohm said. "We want to reach out to new audiences, either to introduce the concept of fantasy or to get an audience that's already playing fantasy to play it on our platform."
In the new Bachelor game, players can earn points for correct predictions and each point is an entry into the grand prize drawing.
The winner gets a trip for two to Los Angeles, two tickets to The Bachelorette: After the Final Rose and two tickets to Disneyland in summer 2017.
The League will also feature a weekly game, in which players can earn points for correct answers. Each point is an entry into that week's drawing for a dozen red roses (because of course) and the grand prize drawing.
So might we soon see similar non-sports fantasy offerings co-produced by ESPN and fellow Disney companies? Bohm didn't specify anything of the sort -- but didn't write off the idea, either.
"We’re always looking for strategic opportunities to expand our user base if it's the right opportunity and the right moment," he said.
Saba was a Los Angeles-based reporter who covers all things digital entertainment, including YouTube, streaming services and digital influencers. Prior to that, she spent two years at the Los Angeles Times covering entertainment for the Calendar and Company Town sections. Saba grew up in Santa Monica and graduated from Boston University with a B.S. in journalism and B.A. in political science. When not reporting, she is usually binge watching shows online or looking for new coffee shops to frequent.
