The relationship between fantasy online and television is a marriage blessed by the gods of electronic information. If you play in a league, you probably watch some football on Sunday. If you can't get your favorite team, there is a match-up somewhere with at least one of your fantasy players in action. Being unable to view your favorite team, you will watch even meaningless games just to track your player, root like an idiot and indulge within the cocoon of fantasy comfort. There is nothing like watching your player racking up huge points as his team pummels the opposition into submission. There is nothing like winning. Even if your player is struggling to the point where you can't bare to watch, there is probably another game with a couple more of your players doing better. If you have NFL Ticket you know there is another game somewhere in the vast ocean of satellite T.V. On Sunday the possibilities are endless. It provides a great excuse for wasting time in the name relaxation while you stress over every play from scrimmage.

Despite all of this stressful fun, there are some things about playing fantasy football on-line you may not be aware of. The best place to start this informative journey of knowledge is with your computer. Most computer users have heard of "cookies" in the context of web exploration, few have a real idea of what they do or why they are there. Fewer still even know how to rid their computers of these cyber snacks.

Cookies are digital sources of information exchanged on the web. They are usually programmed into the browser so your trip through cyber space can be tracked. Kind of like a digital Hansel and Gretel, every site you visit gives you a cookie. Information about your visit to the site is coded in your cookie. As you go to other sites your cookies can be scanned. All through your trek on the web you are busy gathering and dropping cookies.

There has been some debate as to the wisdom of being cookie enabled and scan ready, but there are advantages. Being cookied allows users to go to their favorite web sites quicker, with their pages developing faster. On the other hand, while you are getting you are also giving. What you are giving is information about your computer use. Although the use of cookie information is supposed to be restricted, there are unscrupulous companies who will collect your cookies. One can remove cookies from their system, but as soon as one is back on the net, the cookies begin to accumulate. Removing cookies from your computer while participating in fantasy games on line could be a full time job. This is not to say you should not clean your cookies, but you should be selective in the process. Companies will say their cookies have a limited shelf life; they are being honest. What they don't tell you is the expiration date is thirty to fifty years away. Cookies may seem to be benign, but they can be evil little goodies. Your cookies are what lead to another snack food, SPAM.

Spam may be very popular in Hawaii, not so in the PC world. It can clog your email system; provide you with unwanted or embarrassing messages making cleansing your email site a daily chore. Spam is the single biggest drawback of playing fantasy football online.

Before I began playing online last year I would get two to three pieces of spam a day. Since playing on the net I receive over 600 pieces of this electronic junk mail in the course of a single week. I have a spam blocker from my ISP. It catches most of the stuff, still. I fry "Spam" from my system everyday. If you are not able to get a spam blocker there are other alternatives to having your mailbox clogged with this garbage. Probably the best thing to do is get a separate email account strictly for your fantasy endeavors. Yahoo, MSN, Netscape or one of the other search engines provide easy to create, free, mailboxes. They do not interfere with the email you may like to get from your friends, best of all most everything you get there will be garbage except for league information. It is easy to spot the Spam from the league info making it easy to delete.

The other downer about playing on line is you may have very little control over whom you are playing against. Private leagues are offered at all sites. They are what they say, private. They are available by invitation only requiring a password and user name to gain access. Although you may run into a jerk in one of these, this is possible in any fantasy league. To fill a league people must recruit, not everyone has the best of friends, sometimes a living being is needed to fill a spot. Things happen, the competition is what is important.

You are more likely to find people you would rather not be playing with in a public league. They are open to anyone wishing to join. Sometimes these "free loaders" are not the most hospitable, knowledgeable or committed people in the world. They can make the playing experience about as fun as taking fleas off your dog with your teeth. Worst yet, they can take the bulletin board, one of the more fun aspects of playing on line, and turn it into a "flamers" heaven. Rude comments and inappropriate trash talk are just a start, the can make the spot a place to totally avoid. Avoiding any communication can be even more frustrating.

Flamers, people who are there for the sole reason of trying to embarrass or "put down" other owners, can be troublesome. Their comments go beyond the realm of rude to down right insulting. There are a couple of ways of handling flamers. You can avoid the bulletin board completely, missing out on a lot of the fun. You can try to respond to them in their own nasty manner, but if your heart is not in it, avoid this tactic. Perhaps the best response is to ignore the comments, no matter how personal, and try to establish communication exchanges amongst the other owners. If they are any kind of people, they will join in the fun ostracizing the flamer. They may even stop writing, but don't count on it. Worse than having a flamer in the league, is having no communication in the league at all.

Last year, for research purposes, I entered a free public league. For the entire season no one communicated with anyone. The only person going to the bulletin board was me. No trades were offered, no emails were returned. It was like playing the dead. Although I had some success, the feeling was blunted by the total lack of communication.

The bulletin board is one of the centers of activity for fantasy on line. It is a forum where owners can communicate with the entire league with a few strokes of the keyboard. With the best leagues, it is humorous, thought provoking and full of good-natured trash talk. The stuff any good fantasy league is made of.

One of the best things about playing online is the immediate access to information regarding the league. Rosters are readily available as are transaction logs, projections, "guru" reports, statistics, scoring averages and scoring totals. Sites also include customized injury reports, the ability to create your own logos and player news delivered in a timely manner. If information is power, playing on line, monitoring the transaction logs and picking up free agents as owners get frustrated can make the average fantasy player a dynamo in the league. If everyone in the league is as committed as you are, the league can be a competitive experience tough to match through participation in a normal fantasy league. They make playing so easy time can be suspended as reality drifts away, it can be addicting. Addiction is what the folks associated with marketing the NFL are hoping will happen.

All of this fantasy activity on the web, and even outside of cyber space, has larger implications. For the networks carrying the games they mean ratings. Ratings are tied to advertising. Advertising is tied to money. Money is tied to consumer spending thus making the world go round allowing the likes of Randy Moss to be paid millions. To understand the complete picture of the net games and the real games you must, "follow the money." CBS, FOX and ABC, the parent company of ESPN, did not put out billions of dollars just so they could showcase the NFL in your living room. They put the money out there with the intent of making more billions. They make their money from selling advertising. The amount of money they can charge a company is tied to the ratings they receive showing the games. The higher the rating, the more a network can charge. Ratings are the battlefield of network television.

If your television system is tied to either a satellite or some sort of cable system you are being monitored. Every click you make with the remote is being recorded at a central processing unit. The information can be categorized, timed and digested to the point where they know your viewing habits better than you do. This information is sold to marketers who then try to sell you on their products. Given the information, they can tailor their pitch to fit virtually any region or customer profile they wish to sell. Without advertising, there are no games, without games there is no fantasy football.

To a lesser extent, this is also true on the web. On the net every visit is recorded through your cookies. Through your cookies marketers can have access to every page you have viewed, how long you have viewed, peak hours of viewing and regional information. Companies like Bravenet have counter packages where web masters can view demographic information. They can take this information to advertiser who will pay the site to post their ads. The ever annoying "pop-up" has taken over the net as advertisers seek your dollar. Orbit is the number one pop-up advertiser in the world. Pop-ups are the reason Juno and Netzero can offer internet service for half the price of other internet service providers.

The symbiotic relationship between advertising, fantasy football, the networks and the NFL has grown with the popularity of the internet. The future looks even brighter as individuals willingly give up bits of their privacy. The figure of "Big Brother" seems to loom larger every season. Perhaps Big Brother would like another cookie?