Technically it’s a way to turn spectating in a game, so maybe this should qualify as a game. But over the last few years the pull of fantasy sports — and I’m specifically talking in terms of cricket, football, basketball, and so on — has gotten me heavily hooked.
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It started when I used to work late night shifts. Fantasy leagues gave me a second way to enjoy the English Premier League, which was on at the same time I was awake. It’s given me a route to slowly understanding and enjoying the NBA, and it’s also provided a second lease on life for the world of cricket.
But there’s now fantasy sports for everything. I’m in a fantasy league for box office movies. There’s fantasy leagues for poker. This league lets you pretend you’re the head of an economics department. And Wall Street Survivor has been operating as a fantasy league for the stock market for years. Hell, I’m pretty sure the ASX has been doing one for school kids and university students for decades.
So fantasy leagues are great. So I ask you: do you play in any, and if so, how does fantasy impact or affect your enjoyment of sports and other activities?
Comments
7 responses to “Off Topic: Fantasy Sports And Leagues”
I’ve played in a few different fantasy basketball leagues for the past 3 years. I’ve only played on Yahoo Sports so far, but may try ESPN out next season. I would say the best thing about it has been simply keeping in close contact with some of my best friends from high school who have all gone in different directions.
I consider myself a pretty avid fan of the NBA and follow player/team stats quite closely anyway, but fantasy has been great for expanding my knowledge of some of the tier 2/tier 3 players.
For…..box office movies?
I’ve tried and spectacularly failed at trying to learn fantasy leagues for the sports I do enjoy, I had no idea about some of these.
Excuse my ignorance, but are sports sims adding fantasy leagues in as well or something?
Second question – Have these sorts of games been the central idea behind the Football Manager games that have been around forever? I know there’s no ‘action gameplay’ in it like FIFA or PES.
1. Not that I’m aware of
2. Kinda but not really. The core drivers I guess are the same, but the appeal of the manager games are to manage a team through trials and tribulations. You are much more hands on and can train and improve your team. With a fantasy league it is more an extension to the sport, something that can enhance what you are watching, not the key driver.
Did Supercoach (AFL) for years, cant dedicate the time now for it to be worthwhile, have recently jumped onto COachkings for the play at home thursday night games which is much more casual.
Have about 30 different NFL fantasy teams on the go when the season kicks off.
I generally just do them for cycling. Season long CQ team and some of the individual ones (spring classics, each grand tour)
Also the standards office footy tipping although they changed the rules after I won 3 years running. Now there is no strategy and no luck so based purely on knowledge so I have no chance
Yeah, I’m down for AFL, NBA, MLB(not this season) and NFL at various times of the year.
some I’m pretty competitive in, others I just do for fun (as others said above, its a good way of keeping in contact with mates who you don’t see often or at all)
the only one I am religious about is NBA (love me some NBA) AFL I am really good at (won the comp the last three years on Dream Team) but that probably because I get to watch so much AFL (usually on in background when I game on weekends) that’s probably true for NBA as well, as I have league pass and try to watch as many games as possible.
not sure if it changes the way I watch the games (probably causes me to watch more games), but just makes me pay more attention to stats than I otherwise would have.
If I think of the difference in terms of gaming. Its like the difference between watching a esports/twitch stream for a game just because you like the game/streamer or watching it because you want to learn the ins and outs of the game to take into a competitive mode later on, or maybe like the difference between a single player mode in an RTS vs a competitive mode, either way you are just more………focused, I guess.
The closest I ever came to fantasy sports was the office footy tipping competition. Ours included tipping each game for both rugby league and AFL and I managed to come in the top 3 two years running by simply picking whichever teams had the best betting odds. I knew exactly zero about football, but figured that bookies probably had a pretty good idea. I managed to convince all the footy-obsessed lawyers in my office that I had some secret inside knowledge.
Fantasy sports looks very much like D&D for sports nerds.