Are Fantasy Leagues All That They Are Cracked Up To Be?

By Alexa Vlahakis on November 2, 2014

“Hey man, have you checked your league this week?” “No, I haven’t. How am I doing?”

This is a common phrase shared between most men who are infatuated with sports. Yes, women do love sports too, but it seems men have now taken it a step further with creating something known as a ‘Fantasy League.’

The Googled definition of this phrase equates to the term ‘fantasy sport’ meaning “any sports competition with imaginary teams in which the participants own, manage and coach their personalized teams … the games are based on statistics generated by actual real-life players and/or teams of professional sports” according to dictionary.com.

What exactly is the appeal of a ‘fantasy team’? Is it the chance to potentially make money? Or just the simple concept of creating your own professional team and playing against your friends?

Jimmy Durnell, currently enrolled as a junior at the University of Iowa, stated, “Well, I personally just enjoy competition and football in general, and with fantasy it gives extra incentive to root for different teams and players other than the Chicago Bears. Also, I just love winning.”

Durnell, originally from Illinois, seems to capture the spirit of the American male. Now, fantasy leagues do not include only football. There are fantasy leagues for a variety of sports, football just seems to be the most prominent.

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The most common form of a ‘Fantasy League‘ is when the performance of the players chosen are converted into statistical points that are compiled and totaled within a roster by the said participant. This is considered the more common or straightforward approach to a fantasy league.

More complex fantasy leagues would include such things as being able to sign and trade multiple players as a real owner of a professional team would.

According to dummies.com, there are six simple steps to creating your own fantasy team. These include:

1. You join a league

2. You prepare for your league draft by scouting players

3. You build your fantasy football team via the draft

4. Your team competes against another team every week

5. You make moves to improve your team

6. Your team (hopefully) makes the playoffs and wins your league

These steps seem pretty simple right? This is actually not the case. If you do not follow, let’s say football, closely than you will encounter problems. It actually takes a great deal of skill and accuracy involved if you intend to win. You must know the players names, their stats, the teams stats, etc. Fantasy leagues encompass an enormous amount of knowledge to be successful within and potentially make it to the playoffs.

Now is it okay for these infatuated males to become obsessive over their leagues and focus less on their school, work or personal relationships? I’ll let you be the judge of that…