Fantasy football in my definition is: a football competition with imaginary teams which the participants own and manage players with the games based on statistics generated by actual players or teams.
The game created in 1962 has rocked and spread across the U.S. in the past decade.
Becoming an internet phenomenon, fantasy football has taken the role of a necessity for American football fans.
According to Colin Cowerd of ESPN, just prior to the 2009 NFL season there were an estimated 27 million people playing fantasy football. The powerhouse websites who have the most fantasy football participants are ESPN, Yahoo!, CBS and NFL.com. Typically these websites offer no charge to play. As the game becomes more popular every year, it is starting to become a money-making game for many.
According to Fantasy Sports Trade Association, 55 percent of fantasy sport players report watching more games on TV since they started playing fantasy football.
With that, channels have been created to satisfy and offer premium watching capabilities to fantasy owners.
A channel called NFL Redzone is a premium-cable channel that offers up-to-the minute fantasy stats, extended highlights and game analysis. Any time a team is at its opponent’s 20 yard line or closer, the station will switch to that game so the viewer can see if or how that team scored.
Fantasy owners can constantly watch when a player on their team is about to score with just the click of a button.
With extended television viewers, the average fan is consuming more time on the TV on Sunday’s than ever before.
Along with new channels, television shows have also been created, basing their premises around fantasy football.
Premiering on FX in Fall 2009 was the show called, The League. The show is about five friends who are involved in an annual fantasy football league. They live their normal working lives but they are always connected to each other by fantasy football.
An average fantasy owner can relate to the show because The League depicts and shows how a league is run and how it affects a person has while playing the game.
According to Cowerd of ESPN, the average owner spends nine hours a week playing fantasy football, including checking their fantasy teams and watching the week’s games.
Junior John Hickey, a fantasy owner of eight teams says he spends 10-20 hours a week following his teams. An average Sunday for Hickey might be different than the average college student.
“I usually have my stat and game tracker up checking all my players and watching the football games,” said Hickey.
Entering his 10th year playing fantasy football, he does not let drafting players on other teams get in the way of rooting for his favorite team, the New York Giants.
“I’ll always root for the Giants and their players no matter what fantasy impact it has on my fantasy teams. Giants first, then my fantasy players,” stated Hickey.
As the way people watch football has changed, ex-NFL players believe fantasy football has affected the game.
“I think it has ruined the game,” stated ex-NFL quarterback Jake Plummer in a 2006 Washington Post article.
When an owner drafts their team, there is a chance that they will draft a player they believe is good enough to be on roster, that might be on the rival team of their favorite NFL organization.
The question that then comes up is, “Does fantasy football change the way people root and watch their favorite teams?”
If the answer to that question is yes or no, the NFL Network believes that fantasy owners want to know as fast as they can how their players are performing.
According to the Washington Post, in 2006 the NFL Network signed a five-year $600 million deal with Sprint that offers fantasy football owners to either monitor or draft players or teams on their cell phone.
The country is starting to get used to fantasy football, but is that a good thing?
Sophomore Casey O’Connor believes fantasy football is a waste of time.
“I think that there are better things to do with your time than following a fake team. A lot of my friends are involved in fantasy football and it’s funny to see them root for players that aren’t even on their favorite teams,” stated O’Connor.
As more and more young adults and college students play fantasy football, some believe that it affects their school work.
“I see a lot of people checking their teams in the library during the middle of studying. If people spent the same amount of time on their school work, I wonder what the outcomes would be,” said O’Connor.
Whether it’s the team “Waka Waka Wallabees” or “Touchdown My Pants!”, fantasy football owners and leagues are here to stay.
Michael Paonessa can be reached at mpaonessa@spartans.ut.edu.