Fantasy sports

Good evening fair people,

I just got finished with a fantasy football draft. In the last few years, I have really gotten into the fantasy sports thing. I have had a baseball and football team for the past three years. Last year, I won a total of $460, winning a baseball league and taking second in a football league. This year, I have three baseball teams and will have three football teams. I'm even the commissioner of one of the baseball leagues. I like to follow sports, but I think this is getting to be a bit much! It's interesting and fun to be involved with the daily transactions and the player research and the heartburn caused by poor player performances or injuries. I can't imagine doing this for a living, but some people do. They do so much research and provide "professional" advice on whether a player has a good chance for success or whether they're headed for a collapse.

The closest analogy I can come up with is the stock market. Players are like stocks and those who sell player tips and "inside info" are like stock brokers who don't make commissions. But the most interesting part of the whole situation is that it doesn't matter how much research you do and how well you know players hit during day games versus night and how many touchdowns they've had in a certain stadiums, it all comes down to luck. You do some due diligence on a player and make a gut decision. Will he perform or not? It's exactly the same as the stock market. You get a feeling that something is about to happen and you act before everyone else does and hope that you were right. More often than not, you make the wrong decision. The only way to win the league is making the right decision at the right time and then squeeze it as hard as you can.

A fantasy draft is everyone sitting around a table with little bits of player info that they think will put them over the top. This builds the foundation of the team. Then during the season, people get injured and new stars emerge from nowhere and everyone's teams will change. In baseball, the laws of averages usually even things out in the end (i.e. an all-star is cold now, but will be hot later to make up for it). In football, there aren't many games, so a cold streak of a few games can be devastating.

I didn't do much research for football this year, but I hope that the foundation I built will carry me through the year and I will come out near the top again. I have a chance to win another baseball league, but it is a free league, so I won't get a pay day. Stay tuned for more.

Four