Sky Fantasy Football – A brief review of bonus points

While FPL remains ever-increasing in popularity, more and more managers appear to be branching out into other game variations in order to quench their insatiable fantasy thirst. Following social media trends, one game that appears to be increasing in popularity and attracting a large number of first-time managers for the upcoming season (including myself, really) is Sky Fantasy Football. You can read the Scout’s introductory article “How to Play Sky Sports Fantasy Football – A Beginner’s Guide” here.

I say “really” because, although I did register a team last year, it was almost halfway through the season, purely with an eye on getting used to the bespoke layout of the site, point-scoring and transfer system ahead of having a “proper go” in the next 2020/21 season.

As a first-timer to the game myself, this pre-season I have been scrutinising some of the in-game statistics from the previous 2019/20 campaign, analysing and comparing them to the more-popular FPL equivalent, all the while paying particular attention to the bespoke Bonus Points system that differs greatly from the FPL’s infamous “BPS”, and constitutes a huge percentage of the available fantasy points on offer – more so than in FPL.

In Sky, players can earn bonus points based on the number of tackles, passes and shots they complete in any given game. Goalkeepers can also earn points for saves made.

Bonus Points are also split into two tiers. For example, Tier 1 Passing is achieved after 60 passes have been completed, which earns that individual player an extra 2 bonus points. Tier 2 Passing is achieved if that player reaches 70+ completed passes, earning him 3 bonus points. Without treading too much further into what was adequately covered in the afore-mentioned Beginner’s Guide, below is a table of the Tier Actions, and the thresholds players are required to reach to earn those all-important bonus points:

This unique bonus system – alongside the game’s very different transfer setup – are the key features that separate Sky from its fantasy football counterparts. Whereas new FPL managers may wonder why World Class players such as N’Golo Kante are almost worthless when it comes to FPL, under Sky’s rule-set, long-forgotten footballers (in the fantasy sphere), such as the Frenchman, can shine.

Take Rodri, for example. He’s a good player and a key component of Manchester City’s system. However, without the key goals and assists required to excel as a midfielder in FPL, he is almost non-existent as a consideration. On the flip-side, in the Sky game last season, Rodri (£8.3m) gained the 4th most Bonus Points (66) out of all available players last season and was second only to another case-in-point – teammate Fernandinho (£8.3m) (71) – in the Midfielder category. For comparison, Rodri gained just 5 points from FPL’s BPS system, while Fernandinho only earned a single measly bonus point.

So who else gains the most from Sky’s unique bonus scoring system?

Many an avid Sky Manager will tell you that Liverpool’s Virgil Van Dijk (£10.9m) should be the first name cemented into any draft, and far more so than FPL-darling teammate Trent Alexander-Arnold (£10.6m). Last season, the Dutch centre-back scored the most bonus points overall (81) – 10 clear of 2nd place (Fernandinho). Van Dijk’s bonus points contributed towards a huge 30.2% of his total points tally of 268, which was just 5 behind overall Sky MVP Kevin De Bruyne (£11.5m) (273).

As he has already been mentioned a number of times so far in this article, it is worth noting some additional statistics relating to Fernandinho. An unfashionable asset when it comes to FPL, the City DM-come-Centre Back earned a whopping 61.7% of his overall points total (115) through the Bonus points system (71). This makes him a comfortable leader in the “Bonus Points per Start” (criteria: a minimum of 10 starts) statistic with an average of 2.73 bonus points across his 26 Premier League starts. In this particular statistic, the Citizens absolutely dominate the field with the top 7 players all coming from Pep Guardiola’s side:

Of the 4 types of bonus action, Passing is the most abundant, with 712 individual bonuses issued throughout the season, representing 33% of the total bonuses handed out. Tackles and shots were quite interesting in that they are the next most frequent with 557 apiece, although tackling is potentially expected to increase over the 2020/21 season with the qualifying criteria eased from having to attain possession to simply removing the opposition of it. Save bonuses are of course much lower due to the limited players it can reach.

In terms of positions, Defenders and Midfielders take the lion’s share of the bonus points, taking 33% and 35% of the total points awarded respectively.

Only 2 Strikers appear in the Top 30 Bonus Points earners (Richarlison and Salah – joint 25th with 41 bonus points each).

However, when you take a look at the average number of points per individual winner, it’s the goalkeepers that accumulate the most, with around 30 points for every goalkeeper earning the bonus, due to the concentration of the player pool.

Another aspect I was keen to look at with regards to bonus stats was to ascertain the “All-Rounders” – players that qualified for all 3 of the outfield bonus tiers (Passing, Shooting and Tackling) at least once over the course of the season. This threw up some familiar, and some unexpected names, as you can see from the table below:

Hopefully some of the stats and tables displayed here will give you plenty of food for thought for targeting bonus points in your upcoming 2020/21 Sky Fantasy drafts. If you have any further observations on the stats, please leave a comment or send me a tweet – @M_RY_7 on Twitter. Happy drafting!