Have Fantasy Sports Taken The Fun Out Of The Game?

On a recent trip to the local sports bar for a Sunday of watching as much football as possible while downing a few pitchers, I began to notice a few things. Before even tasting the first drop of the beverage of the day, there were at least twenty fellow spectators chatting about their fantasy teams and which players would score the most points, and…well you get the point. I have to admit I was interested in all of it, too, because of my two fantasy rosters and match ups for the week. The dilemma came in whenever the games started, and no one really cared about the play of the offensive line, or the best person for the short yardage play. Everyone was watching their players and what they were doing statistically. They were checking their phones for the “stats” of all the other players on their roster, and not so much the outcome of the teams those players were on.

Don’t get me wrong. There was still some intelligent conversation going on about defensive strategy, and whether to pooch punt or go for it on 4th & 2 at the 45 Yard Line. I made it a point to just root for my team and watch the game at its finest. After the game I started a discussion about the state of fans today vs fans before fantasy sports. I brought up the Steelers vs. Ravens match up, how the game was so close, and how it was like a title fight in that the first person to really land a big blow would come out on top. People finally talked football, and forgot that fantasy owners took a beating because Roethlisberger and Hines Ward didn’t get them enough points. We moved on to the Eagles Vs. Bears game, and how entertaining of a game it was, and the big hits by both squads. I just don’t hear enough of that kind of talk on the streets anymore.

This made me think about not playing fantasy football next year. As much as I enjoy crunching the numbers, and evaluating players, and trying to out perform a fellow fantasy owner, I thought how it would be to just say man that was a good game, and not man Ronnie Brown scored 52 points for my fantasy team. I began to weigh the Pros & Cons of both sides of this topic. A debate with friends began, and many intersting points were made.

After weighing the pros vs. cons of the debate, I have decided that I probably pay more attention to a lot more games than usual because of players I have or my counterpart has involved in games that I wouldn’t pay close attention. I think that as long as I can keep raising awareness of the integrity of the game, and not just focusing on stats in my sports conversations, then I will keep one team going in fantasy. I believe people can enjoy the best the sport has to offer, and have some competition on the fantasy end, but I still don’t condone the owners with 10 teams and a laptop to track the progress 24/7. I like to make a lot of waiver moves to improve my teams and watch the staus reports as much as the next person, but when you start having too many teams you lose focus on the game itself, and inflate the value of statistics.

With today’s society putting so much value on statistics, and players getting new ridiculous contracts, I feel like we need to make sure to raise awareness of the fine things still left in the game besides all of the statistics. I want to be able to call myself a true fan, and feel like this article will be good material for some discussions about sports with & without fantasy teams.

By: sportsman

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Jesse5shsu is a huge fantasy sports fan. He’s often found discussing fantasy football rankings, fantasy basketball player rankings and fantasy baseball player rankings.