Fantasy fans obsessed
By Doug Sulenta
The Collegian
It’s football season again and that means it’s time to fire
up the old Internet and get the fantasy football teams rolling. Hoards
of businessmen flock to their computers to check the rosters and stats
of every player in the league.
Throngs of nerds sit glued to the evening telecast of Sports Center to
hear about who they should pick up or cut. Masses of sleepy-eyed Sunday
morning football fans log on to their laptops to check the last minute
changes in weather conditions and the like. But I digress.
Maybe we don’t all exactly know what fantasy football is. So here’s
the skinny for those of you who don’t know, and likely don’t
even care.
Fantasy football is a game in which a group of people, predominately guys,
select players that will make up their fantasy team from the rosters of
NFL teams. Typically, the “draft” is either held online if
the league is Internet based, or the players will have a draft party.
The draft takes place much like the yearly NFL draft in that the team’s
“general manager” picks a player in each round. Once each
player’s team is filled with a stable of quarterbacks, wide receivers,
running backs, tight ends, kickers and the defense of a given NFL team,
the draft is finished and the teams are set.
The season progresses as such (though there are other forms of the game).
Each weekend, one player’s team matches up against the team of another
player and the winners and losers have a record throughout the course
of the season just like a real NFL team. Also, much like an NFL game,
the manager has to select which players he’s going to start that
week.
The winners are decided by a system of points. Points are awarded based
on touchdowns, yards passed, caught or ran for, interceptions, catches,
sacks, and a series of other offensive and defensive categories. The winner
of each week’s game is determined by these points, and in fantasy
land, these points mean seven days of bragging rights.
So here we have it. Football fans finally have reason to care about a
game that features two teams who couldn’t beat their dog with a
shoe. In fantasy land, their starting running back is in that game, and
now, the fantasy-landers have a vested interest not in the game, but in
that player. They no longer need to call their bookies every Sunday morning
and risk half a pay-check to get excited about a game.
But the aspect of fantasy football thatkeeps these fantasy-landers coming
back is that they finally have a reason to compete. Years after their
six pack abs have turned into kegs and their days of playing competitive
anything are over, these pot bellies have a reason to talk trash. And
they don’t even have to risk pulling a groin to do so.
By simply watching a football game, their competitive flame is blazing
yet again. Suddenly that meaningless carry in garbage time of the most
impertinent game of the season has special meaning.
But maintaining these teams does tend to take some time and for most Fresno
State students, time is something in short supply.
“I used to play, but I just don’t have time anymore,”
said Ryan Emerson, a senior history major at Fresno State. “I still
watch the games and keep up though.”
John Gerwe, a student of construction management said, “I’m
always at work and don’t have time to play.”
This proves, to an extent, that fantasy football is a game for the previously
unengaged. Young businessmen like Tu Le, a recent accounting graduate,
can’t get enough of fooling around in fantasy land. “It makes
the game even more exhilarating,” he said of fantasy football.
Le obviously isn’t the only one that enjoys fantasy football land.
A simple Google search with the words “fantasy football” will
provide you with more than 46,000,000 sites featuring this activity, and
sports channels such as ESPN and Fox Sports have entire shows dedicated
to this game. So it seems no matter what, I, being a sports fan, am stuck
in fantasy football hell.
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