Fantasy Football is Changing the Way Fans See the Game
Published by Dipesh Patel (Guest Contributor, Executive Columnist for The Penn Sport Report), Edited by Daniel Lewis (Featured Contributor) on November 28, 2012 in The Penn Sport Report. Click to read article in The Penn Sport Report.
Nick Scurfeld/Houston Texans
The brainchild of Wilfred Winkenbach in the early 1960s, fantasy football was a game conceived for the hardcore football fanatic. Today, it has become a game that draws the most casual of football fans and even introduces some to the sport for the first time, one reason for the ever-growing popularity of the National Football League.
According to estimates, roughly 30 million Americans play fantasy football. It is a $1 billion industry that is only growing.
For many participants, the appeal of fantasy football lies in the chance to be a quasi-general manager, gain bragging rights over friends, or both. It’s a way of putting your money where your mouth is. It’s a chance to prove your sports chops with an actual measuring stick. It has become an industry with actual “experts” like Matthew Berry and Michael Fabiano. Think about that for a second and you’d be hard-pressed not to at least chuckle.
All of this to feed our insatiable appetite for “fake” football. In short, fantasy football has taken over the football world.
So, naturally, this begs the question: Is fantasy football changing the way fans see the game?
That’s sure what it seems like.
For one, fantasy football has individualized real football, often touted as the ultimate team sport. Instead of rooting for teams, we root for players. Instead of watching for the outcome of the play, we focus on how our fantasy player was utilized.
In this way, fantasy football has also diluted fandom by creating too many allegiances among football followers. By rooting for our fantasy players to succeed, we essentially become their fans, more so if they lead us to any form of fantasy glory.
It can be bittersweet to see a player on an opposing division rival team essentially win you your weekly matchup at the expense of a win for your “real” team.
Any fan worth his or her salt would never feel the slightest bit of joy in that.
Guilty as charged here. As a Philadelphia Eagles fan, I shouldn’t like the division rival receiver Hakeem Nicks of the New York Giants. But I do—he was a key contributor to the success of my fantasy team last year. That’s a problem.
I have always believed in the school of thought that you should be a fan of only one team and despise the rest. Fantasy football has been the devil in disguise by swaying fans, including me, away from this allegiance.
And let’s be honest, the best times to be a fan come just as much from hating the opposition as they do from cheering for our favorite team or player. In sports, unlike in everyday life, it’s better when there is less love to spread around.
Fantasy football is also perpetuating the numbers movement—think sabermetrics—that is overtaking sports analytics.
The essence of fantasy football is numbers. Each player’s value is quantified into a single number and the total of all the players’ numbers in your starting lineup determines whether you win or lose in a given week.
Elsewhere, there are websites such as ProFootballFocus that also attempt to quantify the quality of a player by measuring obscure attributes, including “true air yards per drop back” or “coverage snaps per tackling opportunity.”
The problem with numbers, particularly in fantasy football, is that it dehumanizes the real players.
Just ask the “real” Arian Foster of the Houston Texans how he feels about fantasy football. In 2011, while he was recovering from an injured hamstring before the start of the regular season, Foster attached some of his Twitter followers who were more worried about his fantasy value than his actual health.
His tweet: “4 those sincerely concerned, I’m doing ok & plan 2 B back by opening day. 4 those worried abt your fantasy team, u ppl are sick.”
It’s easy to understand why NFL players can be so sensitive. No professional athlete wants to be viewed as a mathematical chess piece. Personally, I have to agree.
Fantasy football reduces the world’s greatest athletes to mere stocks. It ruins the integrity of the sport. Players are supposed to be celebrated for leading their teams to victory, not for earning you 30 fantasy points. Fans are losing sight of the real reason we watch the game.
Again, that’s a problem.
For some, we watch football to bear witness to great athletes perform at the highest level. For others, it’s the suspense of the unscripted. Or maybe it’s a way of indulging our competitive desires. Yet still, for some it is the shear black and white nature of the game. Success is directly measured by wins and losses, a dynamic found nowhere else in life. There is no need for debate. It’s all settled on the field. These reasons are why we love, watch, and follow the NFL.
Perhaps I am just a football purist.
Admittedly, I am not perfectly comfortable playing fantasy football. It creates too much internal conflict. I love the game for the reasons that transcend mere numbers and individual players. I don’t care so much for individual statistics as I do teamwork, camaraderie, leadership, and grit—all aspects of the real sport that a fantasy version can’t measure.
Football, and sports in general, is about so much more than how many fantasy points Adrian Peterson put up for me this week.
So my plea to all those hardcore football fans turned fantasy football enthusiasts, please don’t lose sight of the true reason you love the game.
According to estimates, roughly 30 million Americans play fantasy football. It is a $1 billion industry that is only growing.
For many participants, the appeal of fantasy football lies in the chance to be a quasi-general manager, gain bragging rights over friends, or both. It’s a way of putting your money where your mouth is. It’s a chance to prove your sports chops with an actual measuring stick. It has become an industry with actual “experts” like Matthew Berry and Michael Fabiano. Think about that for a second and you’d be hard-pressed not to at least chuckle.
All of this to feed our insatiable appetite for “fake” football. In short, fantasy football has taken over the football world.
So, naturally, this begs the question: Is fantasy football changing the way fans see the game?
That’s sure what it seems like.
For one, fantasy football has individualized real football, often touted as the ultimate team sport. Instead of rooting for teams, we root for players. Instead of watching for the outcome of the play, we focus on how our fantasy player was utilized.
In this way, fantasy football has also diluted fandom by creating too many allegiances among football followers. By rooting for our fantasy players to succeed, we essentially become their fans, more so if they lead us to any form of fantasy glory.
It can be bittersweet to see a player on an opposing division rival team essentially win you your weekly matchup at the expense of a win for your “real” team.
Any fan worth his or her salt would never feel the slightest bit of joy in that.
Guilty as charged here. As a Philadelphia Eagles fan, I shouldn’t like the division rival receiver Hakeem Nicks of the New York Giants. But I do—he was a key contributor to the success of my fantasy team last year. That’s a problem.
I have always believed in the school of thought that you should be a fan of only one team and despise the rest. Fantasy football has been the devil in disguise by swaying fans, including me, away from this allegiance.
And let’s be honest, the best times to be a fan come just as much from hating the opposition as they do from cheering for our favorite team or player. In sports, unlike in everyday life, it’s better when there is less love to spread around.
Fantasy football is also perpetuating the numbers movement—think sabermetrics—that is overtaking sports analytics.
The essence of fantasy football is numbers. Each player’s value is quantified into a single number and the total of all the players’ numbers in your starting lineup determines whether you win or lose in a given week.
Elsewhere, there are websites such as ProFootballFocus that also attempt to quantify the quality of a player by measuring obscure attributes, including “true air yards per drop back” or “coverage snaps per tackling opportunity.”
The problem with numbers, particularly in fantasy football, is that it dehumanizes the real players.
Just ask the “real” Arian Foster of the Houston Texans how he feels about fantasy football. In 2011, while he was recovering from an injured hamstring before the start of the regular season, Foster attached some of his Twitter followers who were more worried about his fantasy value than his actual health.
His tweet: “4 those sincerely concerned, I’m doing ok & plan 2 B back by opening day. 4 those worried abt your fantasy team, u ppl are sick.”
It’s easy to understand why NFL players can be so sensitive. No professional athlete wants to be viewed as a mathematical chess piece. Personally, I have to agree.
Fantasy football reduces the world’s greatest athletes to mere stocks. It ruins the integrity of the sport. Players are supposed to be celebrated for leading their teams to victory, not for earning you 30 fantasy points. Fans are losing sight of the real reason we watch the game.
Again, that’s a problem.
For some, we watch football to bear witness to great athletes perform at the highest level. For others, it’s the suspense of the unscripted. Or maybe it’s a way of indulging our competitive desires. Yet still, for some it is the shear black and white nature of the game. Success is directly measured by wins and losses, a dynamic found nowhere else in life. There is no need for debate. It’s all settled on the field. These reasons are why we love, watch, and follow the NFL.
Perhaps I am just a football purist.
Admittedly, I am not perfectly comfortable playing fantasy football. It creates too much internal conflict. I love the game for the reasons that transcend mere numbers and individual players. I don’t care so much for individual statistics as I do teamwork, camaraderie, leadership, and grit—all aspects of the real sport that a fantasy version can’t measure.
Football, and sports in general, is about so much more than how many fantasy points Adrian Peterson put up for me this week.
So my plea to all those hardcore football fans turned fantasy football enthusiasts, please don’t lose sight of the true reason you love the game.