How Fantasy Sports Have Changed the Sports World

Via a Dave and Buster’s survey over 15,000,000 people played fantasy football last year. I am sure that is more than anyone could have expected.


This article pertains to all fantasy sports but I will focus mainly on fantasy football since it the most popular.

There have been articles and arguments talking about how fantasy sports shouldn’t take place. They have destroyed sports, particular football in general.

I totally disagree.

I believe fantasy sports are the best thing to happen to the sports world in a long time.

I myself am an avid fantasy sports player. I play mainly fantasy football and fantasy baseball. I have played fantasy basketball and hockey before but I just can’t get into them like I do football and baseball.

I love fantasy sports. It brings a whole other dimension to the games.

First off fantasy sports are very fun to play. The whole concept of fantasy sports make it enjoyable and addicting. The competition against other sports fans, the thrill of cheering for other teams that you usually don’t give a care about or even in some instances hate as bitter rivals to your favorite hometown team. We are able to be the general manager of a team that we all dreamed of before but now has come to life. We get to make the decisions of the team, bench players that are slacking, make trades to better our season or maybe our future season in keeper leagues, add players who come from nowhere to be studs. It is exciting. It gets a rush going into you.

There is also the process of preparing for the season. Reading and studying magazines and sports sites for the hottest sleepers and busts although it ends up that the sites and magazines we support don’t know any more than we do. But it is fun. Finally after all the preparation and countless hours of making cheat sheets we sit on the edge of our couch wondering if all our hard work will lead to us being victorious in our league or maybe in our many leagues.

Second fantasy sports bring in more revenue for the sports itself. From fans watching games of their fantasy team players that they would of never watched if they weren’t on their team. To people buying jerseys of their favorite fantasy players, also fans paying for the fantasy sites other than ESPN that are not free and also paying for magazines and cheat sheets. All in all whether we care if they do or not fantasy sports bring in more revenue for the all of the sports.

A few years ago I was immature and stupid because I had a man crush on Tom Brady. Yes you heard me right, Tom Brady! I thought he was the best thing in the world because he was the main reason my team won the league that year. 

I watched a lot of the Patriots games and rooted for them to win, when they played the Steelers I was hoping the Steelers would win in a close high scoring game. I was thinking my favorite team will get a much needed victory and if Brady throws for 4 touchdowns so will my fantasy team. Well that was back then, I learned my lesson about Tom Brady, he is a selfish idiot and I will never draft him again no matter how good he is or root for the Patriots whatsoever.

The point is fantasy sports have become so important to us that we really reflect on the question who do we care about more and who do we want to win more our precious favorite sports team or our fantasy team?

It really is a difficult question. For me in football it is the Steelers most of the time. Unless they are having a losing season and out of playoff contention and my fantasy team is vying for the playoffs then I will cheer for my fantasy team. In baseball until this season it has always been my fantasy team but this year the Buccos are playing out of their mind so right now it is our beloved Pirates.

Finally, most of our friends love the same team that we do. In our instance that would be the Steelers and the Pirates. So when we get together to watch a game there is no friendly competition, no rivalry, no smack talk because we all love the same team. That was before fantasy sports came around. Now we can each have a personal fantasy team. We can cheer for certain players from different teams. We can watch games that we would never watch before but now that we have our own team we can do that. We can put wagers and bets on who will finish higher or which quarterback will have a better day. It just brings something different to the table. And I like the other millions of people that play fantasy sports love it.

Fantasy sports have changed the landscape of the sports world forever.

Written By Michael Healy 

You can follow me on twitter : @mjhjesusfreak