Fantasy Sports By J.R.

Fantasy sports has been blowing up for years.  I jumped on the bandwagon my freshman year of college and it has paid me dividends literally.  I have won three fantasy baseball leagues, two fantasy football leagues, and even one fantasy basketball league.  Throw in being in the 96th percentile in 2008 of all brackets on Yahoo, and I feel my fantasy resume is quite impressive.  Being an avid sports fan doesn't always mean you will be a good fantasy sports player.  Are you willing to drop your alliances and root for the player rather than the team?  What matters more to you ,the playoffs or $1,000?  These are the tough decisions myself and many others have faced being fantasy participants.  

Some might call it gambling, others might call it a waste of time, but for me it's become a part of life.  Every year myself and 9 of my closest friends hold a fantasy baseball draft at the end of March. Even though many of us have moved to different parts of the country we are still able to sit down for an hour to strategize and trash talk over the Internet.  It's our means of communication throughout the year.  It's priceless receiving drunk dials from my friend in Florida just to say "your team sucks!"  Why is he thinking about this at 2:30 on a Friday, because it's a lifestyle.  As a kid I always loved stats, yes it's kind of nerdy, but it helped me understand the game better.  Stats allowed me to compare players and I understood the value the stats carried at a young age.  There are so many new statistics involved in fantasy sports that it has really become confusing for the everyday person.  You have to be committed to be successful or you have no chance in winning.  Why do I care about winning?  It's about respect for me.  If I win our league, for the next 6 months I can brag, boast, and rub it in my buddies faces.   I can talk trash on Facebook, I can call at 2:30 and tell my friend he sucks, and most of all I get the money.  Just like the stock market, your season may be filled with ups and downs, but if you have a strategy and a desire you may come out on top.  There are things that you can't control like injuries, but especially in baseball there are always opportunities to make up for those injuries.

The future for fantasy sports is bright and it will continue to grow.  This is big business, Forbes wrote in article in 2008 stating that it was a $1 billion industry with over 20 million online users.  Our little 10 person league is bananas compared to some of the big dynasty and pay leagues out there.  For me though our league will always be something that my friends and I can share even as we get older, it will be a way we can continue to stay in contact as our lives progress. So with that, I say watch out this year, Cheeseballs got you!