Fantasy football punishment brings new billboard to North Buffalo

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — One Western New York fantasy football league took last place punishments to a whole new level by bringing a public billboard sign to North Buffalo calling out this year’s worst player.

When driving on Elmwood Avenue heading towards Kenmore, a sign can now be seen boldly declaring that “Josh sucks at fantasy.”

A group of Buffalo friends have been playing together for the last two years.

Despite Josh’s confidence on draft night, he said it’s a true tale that fantasy football can be unpredictable. Ups and downs throughout the season led Josh to the bottom of the standings and front and center on a billboard sign in North Buffalo.

“In my case I’ve got really bad luck because I ended up being put on a billboard,” he said. “Sometimes you try to draft the players you think are going to do well and they get hurt or they don’t perform as you would hope.”

For this group of friends, which consists of mostly University at Buffalo graduates, the rules are simple: The loser of last year’s fantasy football league gets to choose the punishment the following year.

“Last year I was dunked in a lake in the middle of winter,” said Luke Baxter, who lost last year. “I thought instead of 30 seconds of pain, I’d do a whole month. 30 days of pain.”

Despite the extremely public punishment, Josh’s friends were nice enough to not put his actual number on the sign. Instead, they are using Google voice to monitor the hundreds of text messages and voicemails left by fellow Western New Yorkers.

“Most of them are you know, ‘You suck’ — just a fairly light, fun, light-hearted roasting,” said Connor Keenan, who was the winner of the league this year. “A lot of them are talking about his 3-11 record, comparing him to the New York Giants and their similar record this year.”

Keenan said there have been supportive messages as well. Several people are wishing Josh luck next year and offering him advice on who to draft.

“It was a really big jokes to begin with, it’s still a big joke,” Baxter said. “It makes it that much better to know that we’re getting a lot of response for it. To be even on the news right now is pretty surreal.”

No matter who takes home the trophy or ends up on a billboard, the men say the real victory is getting to do this together every year.

“We’re just all really close and we have been throughout high school,” Keenan said. “I do truly feel blessed to be able to be such good friends with all of these guys.”

The billboard is located at the intersection of Elmwood Avenue and Kenmore Avenue. It will be up until March 2.

You can send Josh a text at (716) 249-2128.

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Trina Catterson joined the News 4 team in 2024. She previously worked at WETM-TV in Elmira, a sister station of WIVB. See more of her work here.

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