In a World of Fantasy

The first, and probably the most difficult, step in overcoming any addiction is admitting to the problem at hand.

Well here goes.. My name is Anthony and fantasy football has taken over my life.

For those who may not be familiar with fantasy football, it is a place where individuals are able to act as general managers of a professional football team by drafting and managing players of their choice.

Success in this game is measured by those specific players providing points to the manager based on how well their performance is during a given week. 

Managers compete online and may join a random league or create a league of their own to include their friends.

This is my only second season participating in fantasy football and I honestly believe that I have developed a sort of obsession.

During class, I sometimes find myself pretending to listen to the professor (of course, never in my magazine or column writing class) when I am really keeping up-to-date with different player injuries and searching for better players to incorporate into my team.   

I’ve also started to notice other students with their laptops out during class with the familiar background labeled “Yahoo! Fantasy Sports” placed on the top of their screens. At least I’m not the only one.

One student in my class had a rather clever technique while he was looking up football statistics on his laptop.

Every now and then he would look up from the computer and pretend to listen to the teacher for about 5–6 seconds and then go back to doing his research.  I found it hilarious because while discussion was going on, he would even nod his head as if he was agreeing with the topic at hand.

These tendencies may seem bizarre to a person outside of the world of fantasy football, but to a person who is in a fantasy league, these actions are important in order to be successful.

Though fantasy football, or any fantasy sport for that matter, can be detrimental to ones academic standing in school, productivity at work or maybe even their relationship with their significant other, there is a silver lining to all of this.

Fantasy football has changed the way we look at the game. I remember a time when football fans would only root for their favorite football team and despise all the others who would stand in their way.

Fantasy football has also allowed us to become better fans of the sport because it has turned us into supporters of different players as opposed to just entire teams. It has provided us a way to become more fanatical about the sport by being inclined to follow a wide array of topics from player injuries, coaching changes, or even how long a particular player has to stay in jail.