With The Internet, Fantasy Football Is A Way Of Life
Posted
Jerad Shaw-
Has the guy in the cubical next to you at work been quiet lately? Silence only interrupted with a loud beep about every five minutes? It’s fantasy football season, and offices all around the country are losing valuable work time to mock drafts and draft planning strategies each day. The water cooler talk has transformed into who are sleepers, or who might be a bust in the upcoming year. Somewhere in late July, the switch is turned on, and the majority of us begin our march to fantasy glory. Well, maybe in my case, another long football season of losses and heartbreaks. Fantasy football has turned into a multi-million dollar business over the last 20 years. In its infancy, fantasy football was a paper and pencil type of hobby. Stats were kept using the newspaper, with every owner having to double check the work of the commissioner. At that time, unless you drafted a Bear or Colt, chances are you wouldn’t see most of your players play on Sundays. Enter the internet! The internet has changed the way we live life, but completely refaced the world of fantasy sports. Stats can be followed in real time, as updates get blasted to your phone when a player stubs his toe. Nobody knows the inner workings of a 24/7 news cycle quite like a fantasy owner. A season can be won or lost with one beep of the phone and the reports of a devastating injury to one of your players. How are you feeling today Sam Bradford owners? The internet started the trend, but the Redzone channel has put the cherry on top. At 1 p.m. every Sunday, there’s now a channel that allows you to just watch the meaningful plays right after they happen. So for eight hours, many of us will sit with our laptops to follow live stats, while a channel jumps from game to game for us. How did you guys do this before technology? I remember the first time ever hearing of fantasy football. I had the opportunity to see Dan Grainey’s binder of a paper and pencil league. It was so thick that I would need a cart just to carry the thing around. I can only imagine the stockpile of binders that league has today. That’s what makes fantasy sports great though. A league that stands the test of time has history that can’t be replaced. A group of 12 friends find themselves battling each year, with only one able to brag throughout the year as champion. And believe me, trash-talking and bragging rights are always more important than the end of the year prize money. And just like everything else, every league has its one or two guys that you don’t want winning. Random text messages in March with the picture of the championship belt on their mantel. They turn their Facebook timeline into a picture montage of themself and the newly won trophy. Though most of the year, that same trophy is the center piece of their dining room table, much to the chagrin of the wife. Wait a minute, come January, that will be me!
