Can Anything Stop Fantasy Football?

Mainstream / Manning Endorsed

Consider, for a moment, the overwhelming marketing success that is the long-term performance of fantasy football. The entire notion of fantasy sports is a matter of debate in terms of who does it first, but it only becomes prominent in the public eye in the 1980s in baseball. For a long time after that, baseball is much higher in performance, because the day-in, day-out nature of the game leads itself to people who are very comfortable with numbers and statistics, unlike football. But eventually, football works out due to the head to head nature of most casual games, with an ever-growing number of players.

There really has not been a seminal moment in development. No single event occurs to legitimize the practice, assuming, of course, that you consider the practice legitimate. On some level, it's a lot like poker, in that we have made gambling (most fantasy games involve some amount of money, even if it's not very much) palatable by changing the event from a direct win and lose experience, and into more of a long-form tournament. I'm sure there is a corollary where, over a period of decades, an activity becomes just a little more popular every year, to the point now where it's almost harder to find an NFL fan who doesn't have a fantasy team, as opposed to one who does.

As you might guess from any long-term activity, more potent strains are now catching on. Big money leagues draft in casinos, who provide a setting that's more akin to the real-world NFL draft. Daily fantasy leagues, where players are not locked into the players they draft and more or less go off matchups regardless of exclusivity, are so popular that they run mainstream marketing and advertising placements, and have developed high level sponsorships. Wildly complicated variations that take into account real-world salaries, esoteric calculations on statistical performance, and so on, are increasingly common.

Which makes me wonder, given how I run my own league (don't worry, I won't bore you with the details)... how high can this tide rise?

The short answer is, well, despite the sense of fatigue that might be present for people who have done this for years and maybe haven't won very much... we are not anywhere close to done yet. The growing acceptance of the NFL in foreign markets, where casual gaming and gambling is far more established and accepted, will bring new players to market for years. The use of mobile phones to manage teams helps to ensure that younger demographics aren't getting left out at a hardware level. The continuing growth of mainstream reporting and acceptance, with the NFL Network devoting entire programming chunks to fantasy specific copy, will continue to make the hobby more and more mainstream. There's no reason for this to believe that we're done yet, really.

Any risk factors? Well, gambling is still gambling, even if you do it at a low level with remarkably low numbers of public complaints. A class action approach, or a stigma against players for being degenerates or nerds, just does not seem to have legs. The money involved is too varied and split to imagine collusion or conspiracy among players. Maybe a desperate coach or two makes a poor choice to goose someone's numbers, but given the career trajectory and long-term arc in play for those personnel, it seems very far-fetched to get to conspiracy. The same goes for referees.

So the only real gating effect on fantasy football is the same elements at work to potentially gate actual football. Injuries to players getting to the point of public condemnation or distaste. A public backlash on the de facto subsidization of the NFL by non-fans, in the area of public funding of stadiums, and the price fixe nature of cable programming that causes non-sports viewers to pay ESPN over $60 a year. Other sports or interests coming to the fore, or the audience getting aged or priced out, maybe from something as short-sighted as the league trying to copyright statistics, or to try to litigate every player into using their site, instead of the high number of players currently in the field (Yahoo, ESPN, CBS and others).

A mature market with growing acceptance and interest. An audience that seems more and more willing to pay for programming, who also skew to the same attractive demographics that sports benefits from. And the next 2 to 5 weeks of coverage that more or less translates into an advertisement to join or start your own league.

Amazing marketing and advertising success, right?

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