Wednesday, August 4, 2010

The Draw of Fantasy

So, I've been spending some time (maybe too much) lately on prepping for the upcoming Fantasy Football season. For the second year in row, I'm running a league on ESPN with a bunch of my friends. It's affectionately known as the IWWL (Idiots With Whiskey League). More importantly, I'm in a league on CBS with what I think are high school kids in Kansas City. If you've never done fantasy sports before, here's a warning: participating in more than one league at a time may cause health problems... both mental and physical.
Here's the thing about fantasy sports, it's either addictive or annoying, but not in between. With real sports, you can be a casual fan... checking scores occasionally, cheering when good things happen, shrugging off losses, ignoring it when things get busy elsewhere in your life. But casual sports fans don't like fantasy sports, they can't be casual. They are annoyed by all the stat-crunching, game-watching, and random-player-cursing. I know my wife doesn't care for it because she gives me "that look" on Monday nights when I'm crossing my fingers that Dallas Clark will get 14 more yards or that Ronnie Brown will fumble. I know that look, it's the "Are you serious? If I'd have known you were this crazy, I wouldn't have married you" look. It's the same look I get when I'm cursing at the Playstation or Wii for cheating. But fantasy fans known what I'm talking about. They are just as concerned as I am about the training camp battle for the number two receiver position in Indianapolis.
Why is it addicting? Well, from the perspective of someone who grew up wanting to be a pro athlete, it's a chance to live out dreams. When I was a kid, I turned my backyard into a football (or baseball) field and my driveway into a basketball court. I played out entire seasons of make-believe football or basketball in my head, pretending to pass the ball, being tackled by no one in particular, blocking my own shots, intentionally dropping passes I threw to myself, just so I had control over the situation. (Did I mention I'm an only child?)
Once guys like me pass the point of no return on the pro sports career (in my case it all came crumbling down when I was 15... talk about a reason to be angst-ridden), they usually turn into an arm-chair coach or general manager. They watch games and complain about the call on third-and-7 or the decision to leave the starting pitcher in. They say things like "If we can just get some middle relief, we might contend for the playoffs" or "We need to get him more touches late in the game." Sounds crazy, no?
Fantasy sports allows us to semi-execute these thoughts and stay hooked into the entire league when our real teams suck. I'm sure fantasy football is less popular among Colts fans as it it for Bills fans. If you love football, and you aren't particularly tied to a college team (or they suck, too), then fantasy football is an outlet for your fandom.
So, all that being said, here's the problem with having two fantasy teams at once: it's easy to either forget about one team or make both teams the same. If you two teams with a 14-man roster, you're probably monitoring the stats and injuries of 25-28 guys (more if you are planning a trade or free-agent signing). Either one team falls by the wayside, or you start decreasing that number by signing the same free agents and trading for guys on your other team. What's wrong with that? Well, odds are you aren't going to win BOTH leagues... it's much more likely that you'll fail in both.
Now, I'm not going to hand out any analysis... mostly because I don't know what I'm doing, I've never won a fantasy league. I'll keep you updated throughout the season.

On to some reader comments:
From the College Football Realignment bit:
Bill said: "While I think this is a decent analysis from the football perspective, such conference shuffling will impact all men's and women's sports, and some consideration of other sports should be taken into account. I emphasize "should" because with the recent Big 12 shenanigans that left KU out of the talks completely, we at least see that even men's basketball doesn't have such a (financial) influence as football. Ultimately, you'll have to make a business/tv revenue case that will be financially sound before anyone will seriously consider such reshuffling."
Here, here. All the shifting made no mention of how poor the other programs may be. By adding Nebraska, the Big Ten got better in football (for now) but they got MUCH worse in basketball. Does the Pac-10 know that Colorado doesn't field a baseball team? Or whether or not Utah's women's teams are worth anything? It's all about the benjamins, I guess. That being said, my argument was attempting to supersede any talk about money... I just mentioned it from a "smaller schools can SAVE money" perspective.

ConnQ said: "Hmm.... I only have one thing to say. I don't like it. You know me. You've left out one big reason to keep the bowl system and not have a "playoff" (boo hisss) - tradition. Yep, that's what I like tradition. Oh and you can say we'll have the "non-playoff" bowls and call the playoff games X-bowl or Y-bowl, but you know it won't be the same. Them's my 2 cents, but keep thinking about and one day you'll see the light.
I made no argument FOR the bowl system for good reason: it's become a monster, primarily due to corporate sponsorship. What kind of tradition is the Outback Bowl or the PapaJohns.com Bowl? There are only four bowls with any sort of tradition: Rose, Orange, Sugar and Cotton. You're telling me that the FedEx Orange Bowl has just as much tradition as the Orange Bowl? If you can't keep the bowl game financially afloat without adding a corporate tag, don't have the bowl game, you've sullied the tradition already.

Oh - and I want my team in the New South (oxymoron anyone?). I mean with Houston, Rice, TCU, UTEP, North Texas, SMU, New Mexico, NM St., Tulsa, La-Lafayette, La-Monroe, La Tech in my conference I won't need to schedule 5 cupcake teams to have a good record. I could have a terrible team and keep a better ranking than most great SEC teams. Lucky me, illusory rankings! Them's my other 2 cents."

Just because a talented team goes 8-4 in the SEC, doesn't mean it WILL go 12-0 in the WAC. My argument is that conference alignment should have no baring on your National Championship aspirations. Put the teams on the field and let the results determine your champ. I still can't give Alabama the title because they didn't beat TCU (no one did). True, if you were TCU in this scenario, you'd be the favorite to win, but that doesn't garauntee anything. I could give up the rule that you have to be ranked by record, but the point is if you are 9-3 you should have less of a chance at the title than an 11-1 team, irregardless of what conference you're in. You do go 11-1 or 10-2 by accident.

On the "About Me" post:
A-Mac said: "What can you say about Kansas except...at least they're not from Canada."
I don't know most kU fans are about as insufferable as French Canadians.

My dad said: "Bottom line - nice history lesson - never quite sure why you saw fit to deliberately latch on to teams in opposition to the ones I liked. It might've been nice to root for the sames teams, although I supported your choices. The only reason I've been a (extremely frustrated) Pirates and Redskins fan is because Mark (his younger brother by 2 years) has always been a Yankees fan and a Cowboys fan and I hate both of those teams. Granted, except for beating the Yankees in the '60 series, the only time the Pirates have been contenders was in the mid-late '70s when they had Stargell and crew."
Just as your brotherly rivalry was all in fun, so was ours. Except for our recurring kU/MU rivalry (which is usually quiet), I no longer cheer against your teams.

I still need more ideas for columns. We're coming up on football season and I'd like to keep you all from being bored with my predictions.

3 comments:

Aaron said...

I never got into pre-draft rankings and worrying. I think if you're going to hyper-analyze D&D for jocks for 16 weeks that it's good to take the summer off and not worry about which princess doesn't want to show up for training camp. Just not worth it.

Anonymous said...

FYI, your CBS fantasy league are mostly kids going into 8th grade. This is my first year too, we'll see how it goes. Being a stats dork just may be fun this year, that is unless a 12 or 13 year old beats me.. which very well could happen.

Anonymous said...

FYI your CBS league are mostly kids going into 8th grade. I am sure it will be fun, unless of course I lose. Maybe this is a way for people to live out their true aspirations. Stat crunchers have always pretty much bored me because one thing I've learned in life- nothing is predictable. Look at my Broncos in the first 6 games last year (without any smart *** comments of course). We'll see. :)