Yahoo Sports, a leading destination for sports fans, today announced the debut of a short documentary produced by Yahoo about its All Blind Fantasy League (ABFL)— a group of sports fanatics who use assistive technology, like screen readers, with the Yahoo Fantasy app to connect with their passion for sports entertainment in a fully accessible way. The documentary will be released on November 10th on Yahoo Sports.
The short documentary captures the engaging stories of blind and visually impaired team owners, sharing their enthusiastic enjoyment of a game that millions of people love, but which was not always accessible to people with vision loss. The documentary also gives a glimpse into what it’s like on Draft Day—highlighting the ABFL’s picking process, biggest rivalries, and taunting nicknames, with all the typical good-hearted competitiveness and smack-talking that’s a key element of fantasy sports.
“We are all so proud to debut our short documentary on the powerful story of the All Blind Fantasy League.” said Joanna Lambert, President, Consumer for Yahoo. “Yahoo is one of the most immersive and accessible platforms on the internet and this is just another example of how committed we are to making Yahoo content and applications accessible to all users.”
Brian Fischler, the commissioner of the ABFL and a successful stand-up comedian, lost his sight as a young adult. He shares how Yahoo Fantasy changed his life: “As my vision deteriorated and I needed assistive technology, there weren’t many companies offering accessible solutions. I started working with Yahoo to test and give feedback on their features. Yahoo is one of the only companies to offer fully accessible season long fantasy football platforms – it’s hard to find other companies quite as advanced.”
Yahoo Fantasy’s native app has been designed and developed with significant input from blind users, with enhanced screen reader support, logical layout, and ease of use. It also provides options for high contrast, customizable font sizes, and other accessibility features, developed with and tested by blind Fantasy players.
Yahoo Fantasy’s built-in accessibility is just one example of a myriad of ways the company makes its content and applications accessible to all users. Earlier this year, Yahoo committed to closed captioning 100% of original and partners’ English-language videos available across all of its platforms and sites, for its nearly 900 million users. Yahoo Fantasy’s mission is to be the #1 fantasy app for all users who have a passion for football.
Yahoo recently donated $5M to disability advocacy organizations earlier this year to further the company’s commitment to being inclusive, accessible and a leader in the global effort to make all media and technology accessible. Yahoo is a member of the Valuable 500 and Disability:In and is a co-founder of the Teach Access and XR Access initiatives.
The documentary will also be shown at Sight Tech Global as part of a panel with Yahoo’s Head of Accessibility, Larry Goldberg. Sight Tech Global is the first virtual conference dedicated to discussing how technology will fundamentally alter the landscape of assistive technology and accessibility.
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