This season the number of fantasy leagues has once again grown.
Though it is impossible to track all of the "private"
leagues on the globe, it is possible to track most of the online
leagues in the country. The number of leagues on Sportsline, ESPN,
Yahoo, Fox, and CNN/SI is in the hundreds of thousands. People all
over the world have discovered the fun, heartbreak and stress of
playing fantasy football. They are busy loving every minute of their
misery. Whether they are in free leagues or pay leagues, these owners
are fueling the television ratings of FOX, CBS and ESPN as well
as other tubule sources of football information. The fantasy world
has grown to the point where there are few areas of this orb left
untouched by it's print. Fantasy sports have become the reality
of many people; they have also become the mother's milk of advertisers,
marketers, network execs and the National Football League. There
should be no question why ratings for the NFL have risen while those
of the NBA and major league baseball are down.
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?
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