Living In Your Own Little Fantasy World

A new wave has taken over the world of sports…and it isn’t even ‘real’. Online fantasy sports leagues have become extremely popular among sports fans. These leagues give fans the opportunity to make their dreams of coaching a professional team come true. If you pick the right players and play them at the right time, you could walk away with bragging rights…and a whole lot of money.

There are fantasy leagues for all different sports: hockey, football, baseball, and basketball are a few. They also have leagues for college sports as well. The way it works is you join a league with your friends, or complete strangers, whichever you choose, and you get a “draft day”. On draft day all players in the league choose professional players to play for their team. Everyone is allowed a certain number of players, and a certain number of positions must be filled. For example, in some fantasy football leagues you are allowed two quarterbacks and three wide receivers, so you might draft Bret Favre and Peyton Manning for your quarterbacks, and Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, and Chad Johnson for your wide receivers. The point of the draft is to get the best players you can for your team.

On game day, which is the day the players on your team play (Sunday, Monday Night Football, etc.), a running total is kept for how well all of your players are doing. If Bret Favre throws three touchdowns you get a certain number of points, and if he throws an interception your team has points taken away. All players on your team are given points based on their individual performance. In football, passing yards, rushing yards, touchdowns, field goals, etc. all give your team a certain amount of points. At the end of the week, when all professional games are finished, your points are are added up and you are given a total score. Your goal is to get more points than all the other players in your league.

Several “big name” companies are now setting up fantasy leagues for people to join. You can have leagues on ESPN.com and Yahoo Sports, and most professional leagues and associations offer fantasy as well; NFL.com, NBA.com, and MLB.com are a few that offer free fantasy leagues. To join some leagues you have to pay money in order to play. However, in those leagues the incentive, unlike the free leagues, is if you win the most games or have the most points when the season is over, you get prize money…just for having the best fantasy team. In some leagues you can win hundreds of dollars!

Fantasy leagues have become so popular that some journalists have devoted all of their writing to analyzing players in the fantasy world. Most sports websites, now, have sections for fantasy, where journalists break down the upcoming week and suggest which players you should play, and which you should bench. ESPN’s Sportscenter now has its own analysts cover fantasy and give updates on which players are performing great, and which are playing poorly. There are also several books that give out tips for playing fantasy, and books that tell the story of the famous leagues around the country.

This new craze has changed sports in today’s world. Fans not only care about their team doing well and making it to the playoffs, but are also rooting for players on their rival teams. Where a deep hate for a rivalry used to reside, fans now hope players on the rival team do well in order to help out their fantasy team. Fantasy continues to grow and become more popular every year. It makes you wonder if one day people will stop caring about the Super Bowl because none of their fantasy players are in it.