THE GREATEST MONDAY NIGHT OF THE YEAR!
It is Monday night and you are watching the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Los Angeles Rams in one of the greatest NFL games you have ever seen. You witness Chiefs Quarterback Patrick Mahomes throw his 4th touchdown pass of the game and you go wild! The game goes back and forth as Mahomes exchanges blow for blow with Rams Quarterback Jared Goff. In the end, the clock ticks down and the pressure is on for Mahomes with his team down 3 points. He takes aim, fires his pass, and the ball is intercepted by the Rams; game over.
From the way I just described this scene, you should be deeply disappointed, embracing the agony of losing such a close game with the Chiefs. Except, that is not the case. You are celebrating and as happy as you possibly can be because you were 35 points down in your Fantasy Football league with only Patrick Mahomes as your lone remaining active player and he just scored you 39 points on Monday to give you the come from behind victory
“You should be happy Patrick, you just advanced ‘Praise Tim Tebow’ to 9 and 2 on the season. Be proud of the work you put in tonight brother.”
A Contest of Champions
I am willing to bet that for more than one person in the world, the scenario I outlined feels eerily similar to an event they remember from playing Fantasy Football. Fantasy Sports leagues are becoming more and more commonplace in today’s society, but over 20 years ago you would have seemed pretty weird if you told your friends you were so upset that the Chicago Bears Defense gave up that last touchdown to only win 27-14 instead of 27-7. The question I want to explore a bit is, “How did Fantasy Sports become such a big deal today and why do so many people love this strange game?”
Fantasy Sports at a Glance
In its simplest form, Fantasy Sports is a game where participants form leagues where they create imaginary, virtual teams composed of the actual athletes of various professional sports. Based on how each athlete performs, you as their ‘owner,’ receive points. The systems for determining points vary from sport to sport, but at the end of a set period of time (usually a week), the points are totaled up and the one with the most points at the end of that week, wins that week. This continues throughout that professional sports’ season until one winner is declared the champion of that league.
A Culture of Shared Fandom
The basic concept for this game goes back a fairly long ways, but Fantasy Sports have only really become mainstream in the last 15 or so years. If the timing of that rise in popularity seems familiar, it should, because the rise in the popularity of Fantasy Sports occurred about the same time Facebook came into existence. Therein lies the first major reason why people find Fantasy Sports appealing; the game facilitates connections along common grounds and interests. Just as Facebook was created to be a social media platform that allows for quick and easy communication of ideas, thoughts, statuses, etc… across the world, so to do Fantasy Sports create an arena for fans of various sports to actively share, communicate, and discuss their varied opinions on the nature of professional sports.
People like sports and the reasons why people like sports are varied and uncountable by nature. However, when we boil sports down to their core essence, we are simply engaging in a form of play. We play simply because the act of playing grants us enjoyment and sports are just a structured, physical, and organized form of play. Because sports by definition necessitate a certain level of physical skill and exertion, it is only natural that those with physical abilities that lend themselves to success in those sports end up as the best players in their respective sports. When we see these athletes who can use their physical gifts to their highest levels, it is a very human response to admire the skill at which these people ply their crafts, and to at some level wish that one could attach themselves to their success.
It is this desire to identify with another person’s success that creates what we know as fandom. I am a fan of the NBA team, the Oklahoma City Thunder and I have attached myself to that team’s successes and failures to the point where when I tell someone about what happened in a game, I say that “we” played really good defense or that “we” should have been more aggressive on the boards, despite the fact that I am not playing in the game and there is no way in this lifetime I could ever hope to play on the same team as them. Fantasy Sports is the next logical step beyond simply being a fan of a team. It is the combination of attaching oneself to another’s success coupled with being the person completely in control of your personal team’s success and that is the key combination I feel which drives the rise of Fantasy Sports culture.
Master of My Own Destiny
Some of the most powerful movies and shows of today revolve around the concept of people being free to be the masters of their own fate. Disney/Pixar’s Brave and Coco spring to mind immediately but along with them, I am also drawn to movies like The Adjustment Bureau and Minority Report which focus on characters fighting against a predicted or prearranged future. The ultimate point here is that the central question that each of these films are getting at is, “Can I do or be more than just what fate or the universe dictates for me?” In other words, “Do my choices really matter?” If you are like me, you want to feel like the decisions you make count and that you have a degree of choice in how you control and shape the course of your life. When it comes to the realm of professional sports, one of the worst feelings a fan can have is the feeling that, “If only the coach or manager had done things my way, our team would not have lost.” We think this idea in our heads and hearts because we want to believe that we know better and we wish we had the ability to control the decisions of our favorite teams. What Fantasy Sports allows, is the creation of a simulated world where you really do call the shots and you do have say in whether or not your team ultimately has success.
In Fantasy Football for example, your season starts the minute you begin the draft. You are using your knowledge and convictions to actively craft and create your own unique team. Your team’s fate rest solely in your own hands. You choose which players to value over others and you form a unique bond with the players you select. Once the season starts, you set the starting lineup and have to judge which players will have the best performances on any given week. You choose which players to add, to drop, or to trade for. There might not be another game in the world that gives you the player the combination of options and control as you get when you play Fantasy Sports. We all wish we had more control of the unknown factors and variables that shape and direct our lives. We want to know every answer on a test, every question and the best way to respond in an interview, whether or not our significant other feels the same way we do about them, the list goes on and on. All of this is related to our desire to control outcomes in such a way that the results will be favorable to us. Fantasy Sports create an arena where we as sports fans can maximize the feelings of control and attached success, while minimizing the damage of crushing loss. After all, unlike in that interview where one wrong response can kill your chances at earning a job, when you make a poor decision in Fantasy Football, all it will really cost you is a tick in the win column.
Fantasy: Where Control, Community, and Fandom Meet
Fantasy Sports culture is honestly just part of the new normal of being a sports fan. It arose in large part due to us living in a more connected and technologically advanced world where people who share common interests can easily communicate their interests with one another. Its popularity is connected back to the essence of why people love sports in the first place, because it allows everyone to feel a sense of connection and shared glory in the midst of competition between athletes who play at the highest level. We love Fantasy Sports because they give us ownership and control over the sports and athletes we admire and idolize so deeply. In the end, loving Fantasy Sports does not seem so strange after all. When you take the time to break down the game into its core elements, you see that the components that lead to its popularity are all tied back to some core desires that make us human.