From Trophy Room to Crown Room: How Marcus Howard Built Crowned Champs Company

There is a moment every diehard fantasy football fan knows well: the league champion is crowned, and someone hands over a trophy that looks exactly like every other trophy in every other league across the country. For Marcus Howard, founder, president, and CEO of Crowned Champs Company, that moment sparked a question that would change the direction of his life. After years of collecting trophies, belts, rings, and plaques from more than a dozen fantasy football leagues, he found himself asking a simple thing: what else is there to win?

The answer he landed on was a crown, and from that idea, an entire business was born.

A Lifelong Love of the Game

Marcus grew up right on the border of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, in a region known for producing serious football talent. He now lives in Weirton, West Virginia, just a short drive from Pittsburgh, in an area where football is woven into the community’s identity. He played semi-pro and indoor arena football in his younger years, and while a shot at professional football did not pan out, his passion for the sport never faded.

“I’m a football fan in general. I love every bit of it,” Marcus says. Fantasy football, in particular, became a year-round outlet for that passion, so much so that he was once active in as many as fifteen leagues at a time. For most enthusiasts, five leagues is considered a lot. Fifteen is a different level of commitment, and it is exactly that level of dedication that led him to notice a gap in the market.

Building Something the Fantasy Football World Had Never Seen

The fantasy football industry moves tens of millions of dollars every year, and yet Marcus noticed that the prizes had not evolved much beyond the standard trophy or belt. So he set out to design something new: a custom crown, built specifically for fantasy football champions.

Crowned Champs Company was founded in February of 2024 with a simple mission: help fantasy football players celebrate their wins in a way that feels genuinely special. The company offers a line of custom crowns and championship rings, including a signature ring with a hidden inner engraving that reads something like “champion of your kingdom,” a detail that gives it the presence of a professional sports championship ring while keeping it personal to each league.

To make the experience accessible to everyone, Crowned Champs built an affordable subscription model. Plans start at just a few dollars a month per player, making it realistic for entire families, including kids, to participate without a major financial commitment. For adult leagues that want to raise the stakes, the platform also supports the option to play for money on top of the crown itself.

More Than a Trophy: Building Real Experiences

What truly sets Crowned Champs apart is not just the prize. It is the experience built around winning it. The company offers live draft parties that can be tailored to whatever a local market has to offer. In cities near professional stadiums, that might mean an NFL stadium draft party. In other areas, it could be a fully decked out party bus complete with screens, monitors, and live announcers, or a rooftop bar, beach gathering, or yacht party, depending on the location and the group.

“We’re all about luxury. We’re all about having new experiences,” Marcus explains. The goal has always been to move fantasy football leagues away from the ordinary living room draft and into something memorable, no matter where a league is based.

The company has also built relationships within the wider fantasy football community, including a partnership with Adam Rank, a well-known ESPN Fantasy Football Live personality and podcast host. Crowned Champs will also be attending the Fantasy Football Expo at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, connecting directly with fans who share the same passion that started the business in the first place.

A Small Team With a Big Vision

Crowned Champs currently operates with a lean team of four, supported by modern tools, including AI, to help manage outreach and social media so the business can compete without needing a large staff. It is a scrappy, resourceful operation built by someone who understands both the product and the community it serves from the inside out.

Before launching Crowned Champs, Marcus spent nearly eight years as an operations manager at Cigna and currently works in the healthcare space as well. That professional background in operations has clearly shaped how efficiently he runs his growing business alongside his other ventures, which include a restaurant and a photo booth style event company that provides coverage for parties, graduations, and special events.

Family First

For Marcus, the drive behind everything he builds traces back to his family. He and his fiancée have a blended family of five children, ranging from eleven to twenty three years old. Becoming a father at a young age, he says, is what truly grounded him and shaped his priorities. “My kids really helped ground me, get me back to that young man mentality,” he reflects. “It made me really kind of reflect and look back at what’s most important.”

That same competitive spirit that fuels Crowned Champs shows up at home too. Marcus recently picked up pickleball, largely because his fourteen year old son challenged him to a match. Despite being taller, and by his own account faster, Marcus has yet to win a single game against his son, a friendly rivalry that has quickly become his newest hobby.

Marcus is also currently pursuing a doctorate degree while holding a bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership, a master’s in business administration with a project management focus, and a black belt in Lean Six Sigma. Between his education, his businesses, and his family, his schedule is full, but he keeps coming back to the same guiding principle: work smarter, not harder, and always keep learning.

Get Crowned Champ

Crowned Champs Company‘s tagline says it all: Get Crowned Champ. It captures the same competitive energy that pushed Marcus to reimagine what winning a fantasy football league could look like, and it reflects the pride that comes with building something from scratch in the community where he grew up.

For a business built on the idea that every champion deserves something better than an ordinary trophy, that mindset has become the foundation of everything Crowned Champs does, from its products to its live events to the community it continues to build one league at a time.

 

Ready to Get Crowned?

Whether you’re starting a new fantasy football league this season or looking to upgrade the prize your league has been playing for, Crowned Champs Company has a plan for every group, budget, and city. Visit crownedchampscompany.com to explore crowns, rings, and party packages, and follow Crowned Champs on the links below to see the crowns in action.

Website: crownedchampscompany.com

Social Media: Facebook | Instagram | YouTube

Phone: 304-670-3604