For the first time in its three years of handing out Readers’ Choice Awards, About.com is opening the umbrella. The new coverage area includes a fantasy football category.

About.com, a property of The New York Times, hands out the publicly nominated awards to “showcase the best products, features and services in multiple categories.” Among the new categories this year is football, which occupies its own About.com subdomain, with “Best Fantasy Football Site” among the four subcategories.

The football wing also houses awards for: Best Football Blog, Best NFL Team Blog and Best NFL Draft Site.

The nominating process is open through Feb. 4, with reader voting following from Feb. 11 through March 8. Winners will be announced March 15.

“There’s no prize — just the bragging rights and potential traffic that come with getting recognized by the readers of a leading website owned by The New York Times Company,” football guide James Alder said in a recent e-mail to FSB.com.

With about 45 million unique visitors arriving at About.com a month, that potential traffic is something that many fantasy folks would be happy to win.