Ratings
Every rating, and where it came from
The $20 Draft hides its ratings until the end of a draft, which is what makes the auction work. This section is the reference copy: all 5388 entries in the game, every one with its 40 to 99 rating and the specific reason it has that rating.
The one rule
Everything in the game is rated on the same 40 to 99 scale, and every rating carries a basis line saying where it came from. Where a real, published number exists, it is used: a Madden or NBA 2K overall, championship points, fantasy production, a Letterboxd average and a Metacritic score, a Spotify play count, a 0-60 time. Where no such number exists, or where the number does not measure the thing that matters, the rating is an editorial call and says so rather than dressing itself up as data. A centre-back is not rated on goals. A daily driver is not rated on how fast it is.
The second rule follows from the first: almost everything is ranked inside its own pool rather than against the whole game. A film is ranked within its genre, a song within its genre and decade, a car within its class and decade. Without that, horror would sit below comedy because critics grade it harder, every pre-streaming song would bunch in the forties, and no off-roader would ever beat a hypercar at anything. Ranking inside the pool is what makes a 1974 Land Cruiser and a 2024 Rimac both capable of being a 99 in a draft.
Sports
Five sports, rated from the games and the box scores wherever a real number exists: Madden and NBA 2K overalls, championship points, per-game and per-90 production. Where the numbers cannot measure the job, the rating says it is an editorial call instead of pretending. 1845 entries across 5 categories.
NFL
Every NFL player in the game, position by position, on 2026 rosters after the offseason moves. 467 entries.
NBA
2026-27 rosters after one of the strangest offseasons the league has had, split by position, plus head coaches, who are their own small and very opinionated pool. 383 entries.
MLB
Nine separate pools, which is more than any other sport here, because baseball positions genuinely are different jobs. 529 entries.
Soccer
The top leagues after the 2026 window and the World Cup, in six pools that map onto a 4-3-3. 375 entries.
Formula 1
The full 2026 grid, twenty-two drivers and eleven constructors, plus the legends and the great teams. 91 entries.
Movies
Five genres, each film blending the Letterboxd audience average with the Metacritic critic score, ranked inside its own genre so horror is not punished for being reviewed like horror. 925 entries across 5 categories.
Action
Die Hard to John Wick, by decade or across the lot. 185 entries.
Horror
Slashers, ghosts, possessions and the things in the dark, from The Shining to Sinners. 180 entries.
Sci-fi
Blade Runner to Dune, and everything that argued about robots, time or space in between. 185 entries.
Comedy
Airplane! to Barbie. 188 entries.
Romance
Meet-cutes, weepies and slow burns, from When Harry Met Sally to Past Lives. 187 entries.
Characters
Superheroes, anime, cartoons and video game characters. Every rating here is an editorial call, made on a stated scale, and published so you can tell us exactly how wrong it is. 920 entries across 4 categories.
Superheroes and villains
Marvel, DC, Invincible and The Boys, plus an "others" pool for the characters with no universe of their own: Star Wars, Harry Potter, the Transformers, the Ninja Turtles, Spawn and the horror icons. 302 entries.
Anime
Seven series, good guys and bad guys mixed into one pool each, from Naruto and Dragon Ball Z through to Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer. 230 entries.
Cartoons
Looney Tunes, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and PBS Kids. 177 entries.
Video games
Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo and the fighting games, one pool per platform. 211 entries.
Songs
Four genres rated on one hard number, the lifetime Spotify play count, ranked inside genre and decade so a 1978 song and a 2024 song can both be a 99. 850 entries across 4 categories.
Pop
Superstition to Espresso, six decades of it. 220 entries.
Country
Jolene to A Bar Song, and the whole run of honky-tonk, outlaw, pop-country and whatever the 2020s are doing in between. 220 entries.
Hip-hop and rap
Straight Outta Compton to Not Like Us. 190 entries.
Rock
Bohemian Rhapsody to Heat Waves, taking in stadium rock, grunge, indie and whatever the 2020s are calling it now. 220 entries.
Cars
Five classes, each judged on what its own kind is actually for: power and 0-60 for the fast ones, how little it asks of you for a daily, how far from a road it can get for a 4x4. 848 entries across 5 categories.
Hypercars
McLaren F1 to Rimac Nevera. 136 entries.
Supercars
Countach to Revuelto, with the Ferrari F40, the 288 GTO and the Porsche 959 drafted in the 80s pool. 184 entries.
Sports cars
Hemi Cuda to Miata to GR86. 184 entries.
Daily drivers
Camry to Corolla to Model 3, plus the wagons, hatchbacks, minivans and pickups people actually bought. 184 entries.
Off-roaders
FJ40 to Defender to Raptor, plus the Unimogs, the Power Wagons and the Jimnys. 160 entries.
Found a mistake?
Ratings are rebuilt by hand each offseason and the source numbers are captured on a date, not streamed live, so they drift. If a player is on the wrong team, a figure is wrong, or a rating is indefensible rather than merely arguable, tell us and it gets fixed in the next build.