Fantasy Football: The New Internet Porn
businessweek.com
businessweek.com
It does not take a lot of time to play fantasy football well, though. Some junkies truly overanalyze to death. Their desire to find an edge is so great that they latch onto some obscure little nugget and convince themselves that it's the secret they need to win.
I stopped playing it over 10 years ago because I was one of those guys. There wasn't much info on the internet back then, so I had newspapers, magazines, and Excel spreadsheets. I knew if was crap analysis, but sometimes letting your OCD side run loose is fun in its own way.
It is a good way to get into a friendly competition with your friends and get into football. We do some office leagues and games every year because it's competitive and fun, and we don't find a huge hit to productivity. Most people do it on their own time at home.
Perhaps it's a chance for non-geeks to geek out about something in a socially acceptable way? On the other hand, maybe it's just about having an excuse to socially interact with your workmates in a non-work context?
I have coworkers that I will go out to drink with and have over at my house on weekends, and I have coworkers I don't associate with at all outside work hours. Somewhere in between are the guys in my office fantasy football league.
Add in the fact that it involves watching sports, which is something many already enjoy doing on it's own.
Fantasy sports let them try.
I understand for some people, fantasy football gets them more into the football game. But for me, I actually prefer to watch without such distractions and perverse incentives.
Now when I watch football I can just enjoy the game itself. I root for a team to score and win at the end, not certain players to score a TD or kick a FG.
In SA we have sites like superbru, but thats mostly free. What I'm thinking about is a site that manages not only the scoring and management of the league, but also collecting the buy ins and doing the prize payouts. For a small admin fee of course.