Over the last several weeks, groups of intense football fans have been observed heading en masse for secretive nighttime meetings. They carry pizza boxes, liquid refreshments, and briefcases filled with stats and research. They spread out over conference rooms with speaker phones connecting participants not present and prepare for hours of high stake competition. The real NFL Draft has taken place for millions of fans - it is time to select players for fantasy NFL football.
It's an American phenomenon.
The explosive growth of fantasy football is rooted in the ability for fans to feel a special rooting interest in a team of players that they selected. Yahoo! started offering free fantasy football leagues in 1999. Many other portals developed to do the same including ESPN, CBS, and Fox. According to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, there are now 33 million people playing fantasy football each year. They also include an estimated 6.4 million women. Initially, most of the revenue was generated from the sale of information - Yahoo! and dozens of other sites offered their evaluation and ranking of players. Newsstands became crowded with publications dedicated to fantasy sports. Television now offers a multitude of fantasy football programming. While the NFL initially feared the connection with gambling, they now embrace fantasy football on their NFL.com website offering fantasy advice and updates. The phenomenal popularity of DirecTV's RedZone channel, which focuses on games where teams are about to score, was built in part for fantasy players following their players. Mobile applications now allow fans to track their players and teams in real time.
Research provided by Ipsos found that Americans spend an estimated $800 million annually on all fantasy sports media products. What is harder to quantify is the amount of money gambled in the process. Private leagues require a buy-in fee, usually at least $100 for the season. The top performing teams then split the collective pot using a variety of formulas. Recently Yahoo! decided to create Pro Leagues, where a user pays an entry fee of $20-$100 and competes with nine other players and competes with other players for a first place cash prize. Gambling on games has been strictly prohibited on U.S. internet sites, but this is another way to provide the same excitement. So fantasy football is appealing to the gambling interest of fans. It also appeals to the competitive nature of males and certain females who look to earn bragging rights for their expertise.
One of the reasons that fantasy football has grown the fastest of all fantasy sports is the compressed nature of the season. There are sixteen weeks to the NFL season, and the fantasy participants only need to prepare their lineups once a week for four months. Compare that to attempting to set a lineup every day for a 162-game Major League Baseball schedule that stretches over six months or an NBA schedule that encompasses 82 games. Football popularity is enhanced by the fact that it is an "event sport" with build up to the game ahead and analysis of the game past stretching throughout a week. The ready availability of scoring statistics online and in newspapers makes it easy for even the most casual football fan to follow their team. There is also the possibility of trading players and demoting or promoting players from week to week to provide interest.
For years it has been more than a little disconcerting to hear huge fan reaction to scores which cannot possibly influence the outcome of a game. Gamblers are chiefly concerned with point spread and follow the games from a different perspective than fans of a particular team. Fantasy footballers are another interest group more concerned with the individual performance of their players than team outcome. Since the NFL is at the height of popularity with record television contracts and attendance, part of that popularity is due to fantasy football. And while they may not fit the traditional concept of football fans - they are watching games, attending them live, and spending money on related products.
