How Fantasy Sports Is Ruining Regular Sports
By Andrés Serna
Sports Insomniacs Editor-in-Chief
As a side note, I have to personally say thank you to all the people who took the time to read my last blog entry and either a.) read it and gave me feedback or b.) asked me about my physician’s diagnosis. Again, my rapid heart beat is apparently due to stress and it is no cause for alarm.
Anyway, on with the show!
The topic of the day is about one of the fastest growing phenomenons in all of sports, fantasy sports. According to an article in 2017 in the Washington Post, a little more than 59 million people play fantasy sports.
Out of that large number the majority play some form of fantasy football, whether it be a traditional setting with a draft at the beginning of the football season and competing with other teams in a league-like setup or competing on a web site like DraftKings and FanDuel where roughly five million players play in week-to-week competitions.
Either way, fantasy sports is big business.
And it’s ruining regular sports.
Now, I know what you’re probably all saying at this point. “But, don’t you play fantasy football? I know I’ve seen you complain about ‘fantasy football problems’ on Facebook before.”
And you would be correct. I do play fantasy football. At one time, years ago, I actually played in three different leagues. Three of them. Yes, it was a tad bit difficult trying to manage three different rosters, but I managed. I will say this season I am in two leagues, one a league that I have been a part of for years and the other I am rejoining after being MIA for several years.
So then, why, would I say that fantasy football is ruining the sport of football or more accurately, the NFL?
People make the claim that fantasy sports, whether it be football, basketball, baseball or any other fantasy sport you can think of, make people into bigger fans of the sport. I’ve heard time and time again how fantasy sports have helped spark interests in games that might, to put it mildly, slip through the cracks of the average fan. Fantasy sports can make a regular Joe Fantasy Player interested in some snoozefest of a NFL game like the Miami Dolphins and the Detroit Lions or a boring ass NBA game between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Phoenix Suns.
And that may be true. A traditional non-fantasy sports fan might ignore those games that I referenced earlier. A fantasy fan with someone like Dolphins quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick or Cavaliers forward Kevin Love might actually sit through those games, just to see how their fantasy players perform.
That, in my opinion, is why fantasy sports are ruining their real counterpart.
Fantasy sports are making the *fans* who play fantasy sports fans of individual players. Many of these fans cease to be fans of teams now and only follow sports for their specific players.
For example, I know of one person who played fantasy football a few years ago who had drafted a New Orleans Saints player (I totally forgot who) but also was starting the team that was playing the Saints defense. So, in essence, he wanted the individual Saints player to do well BUT also wanted the opposing team’s defense to smother the rest of New Orleans’ offense.
I can’t even think of a better example. Here was a Saints fan, a member of the Who Dat Nation, black and gold through and through, and was only, technically, cheering for one player from the Saints and hoping that all the other players on the Saints would do poorly.
Does that make any sense to anybody?
If it does, then you, my friend, must also pay fantasy sports.
Fantasy sports make people fans of individuals, plain and simple. Loyalties to teams disappear when it comes to fantasy sports.
And that is why I believe fantasy sports is ruining regular sports.
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