It’s fever pitch for fantasy
Adrenalin rush takes hold in picking your own team
that brings that adrenalin rush.
They recently had their fantasy football marathon on ESPN, which goes for 28 hours, in which they give the audience a top to bottom overview of every player and who you should draft where and why.
It is something that has become a modern practice among workplaces, colleges, schools and so forth. Just last year, 13 million people signed up to play fantasy football.
NFL is no doubt the most popular format and that is largely due to the ease of the NFL scoring system and popularity of the sport.
The NFL teams play once a week, just like here in the AFL. NBA and MLB play multiple times a week and so they command the more hardcore fans who will be willing to watch and change their team daily.
Fantasy English Premier League is another that is huge in the fantasy sports world and that is largely due to the coverage that English football (soccer) gets around the world and therefore the popularity of the EPL.
We have had a league at the club in various sports including AFL, with guys in multiple leagues with mates as well.
The main one, however, that has been continuous with varying members over many years, dating back to the 2004-05 season, is Fantasy Premier League.
A few of the teams back then were McScatty Utd (Matthew Scarlett), P.R. Milano (Peter Riccardi), JC Porto (Joel Corey) and Rookcastle (Max Rooke).
This year, we’ve gone as far as getting a cup made up — well Mark Blicavs has anyway — seeing as he won last year, so he thought he would start a Fantasy Premier League cup and put his team name of FC Blitzkrieg on there with a little plaque stating winner of 2016-17 season, failing to recognise previous winners over the past decade and some.
This year a few of the better team names are Slumdog Mignolet (Zach Tuohy), Hoodlum’s FC (Paul Hood, VFLW coach) who is the game week one leader, ManeisHendo FC (Lachie Henderson), PSV Ruudenhoven (James Rahilly, AFL assistant coach) who was a part of the inaugural league with Real Madruud, and I’ve gone with Denzel Palace.
So, are you a fan of fantasy football?
Whether you are or it’s not for you, it has become part of sports.
Fantasy football is a great way to get your casual viewer of the sport more engaged in it.
A lot of people who are hesitant to get into a fantasy league are such because they enjoy the sport but they don’t have a complete grasp on all players and all teams.
From personal experience, when drafting players from different teams it gives you an added reason to watch a game or learn a bit more about that team or sport to get a better understanding on players.
It is also another great outlet for people to turn to for enjoyment and camaraderie, but also for those who might not be able to play competitive sports. This can and does become, along with following their sports team, their game for the week. It does a great job at filling voids that people have in their life.
Another pro is one for the organisations and sporting bodies. It brings more revenue into the sports, there is more advertising off the back of this, more people are talking about the sport and thus it drives fan engagement.
Another area in which this can be a positive but would be hard to measure is in relation to sports betting.
With the effect that fantasy sports have had in America, with huge popularity, even though we don’t have the laws around betting that they do, it is an outlet away from gambling where people can still get the adrenalin and enjoyment of SuperCoach or fantasy football without having to outlay or lose any money.
It’s also able to promote this nonwagering format with advertisements — on the big screen at sporting events, on LED screens and on TV, instead of going down the path of putting betting odds up and sending a poor message to kids.
In this can lie one of the cons, that people can get too obsessive with fantasy football and it takes away the overall enjoyment and reasons to as why people watch or play games.
The last thing you want is kids counting their SuperCoach points and touches over the importance of winning and helping their team.
Another con might come from many wives or girlfriends of their partners who they believe spend too much time on this pointless fantasy game.
I do enjoy AFL SuperCoach, even though I don’t score enough points personally in it, but my favourite fantasy format would have to be NBA fantasy as you will on most days throughout the season have at least a couple of players playing and it gives you that extra added interest to watch a game.
Overall, I believe that fantasy football is fun, enjoyable and much less harmful than other avenues that are available at present.