Working as a waitress at a sports bar and grill during football season and chatting with the regulars who came in to watch the games, I couldn’t help but realize how popular fantasy football was. Men of all ages, shapes and sizes played. I was determined to find what was so interesting and to learn how to play. After all, I loved football just as much as the next guy or gal.
Several months after football season was over, that lead to a sit-down lesson from sports fanatic and senior at UC Davis, Travis Marderosian, who couldn’t wait to teach me everything he knows about the culture of fantasy football. Here’s what he taught me.
First, how to play the game. Since I was expecting an information overload on player statistics and the inner workings of the NFL, I was shocked to find out how simple it was thanks to the internet and information age. Yahoo Fantasy Sports, ESPN and other fantasy sport sites do all the work for you. Let’s start with the basic-how-tos.
There are two ways to start a fantasy football season, but we will focus on the more popular. It starts by getting a group of friends, co-workers, family members, etc. together to create teams and start a private league. This is the best way to go since it makes the competition more intense and you can all get together to do the draft and watch the games. After you have your league you have to select a commissioner, aka the rule maker, and you have to have a draft to put together your teams. You can decide who goes first in the draft by pulling names out of a hat, having a paper, rock, scissors tournament, or whatever. If you don’t know the whose who of football you can check out the sports rankings on the sites I mentioned above and they give you a breakdown from their experts. So, when your turn comes in the draft you select the next best player that hasn’t already been picked up and you do it over and over again until your team rosters are full.
This is where the internet because even more useful. Now, you pick your team name, which is apparently a big deal, enter your players, the commissioner sets how points will be earned and the internet does the rest for you. All you have to do is log in to manage your team by taking players off the field and putting others in off the bench. A few tips, if one of your players is injured its best to put him on the bench because he won’t be playing in the game and therefore can’t earn you points. The same goes for players whose teams aren’t playing that week. Points are set a number of different ways. For example, if the quarterback on your team throws an interception it loses you two points, but a touchdown will gain you two, etc. Its all set up online the commissioner just has to change a few details based on your leagues preferences. Then you just sit back watch the games and root for your players.
Within the private league it is set up just like a football season. Each week you play a different team in your league and whoever gets the most points wins. You end up with a record of wins and losses and based on your record you move all the way to the Superbowl.
Now that we know the basics, let’s talk about the obsession with all fantasy sports. When I asked Marderosian what the big deal was he replied, “It’s a fantasy because you get to be the coach. You get the manage a team and compete. The competition is a big deal. Fantasy sports are a way to turn leisure into competition and you get to talk smack to each other.” He directed me to watch an episode of The League, a series about a group of guys and their fantasy football league. Like a good student, I watched an episode and the importance of the competition aspect became quite clear. In the episode I watched two of the guys run a footrace to settle a debate about the league only to argue about who won the foot race. They even went as far as stealing a taping of a wedding ceremony to watch their race which was caught in the background of the video. Pretty intense stuff.
With an understanding of the drive behind the addiction to fantasy sports, I want to leave you with an idea pitched to me by Marderosian that I found very insightful and intriguing. He mentioned to me that it doesn’t have to be fantasy sports. In fact, one year him and his roommates did a fantasy Survivor. They read the profiles of the participants, picked who they thought would win and turned the season of Survivor into a competition. His thought was women could do the same thing if sports weren’t exactly up their ally. According to Marderosian, “They could do a fantasy Bachelor or a fantasy anything really. Why should guys get to be the only ones who have fantasies?” I couldn’t have said it better myself.