Everyone can play it
By Brandon Masuoka
Advertiser Staff Writer
Greg Bowron of Makakilo used to spend hours on his home computer managing his fantasy football team. Then his wife, Vicky, told him to cool it.
Photo illustration by Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser
"How much time? We're talking hours every week," said Bowron, an Air Force mechanic. "I get home from work, say at 6:30, and I'll look at it until 10 o'clock at night about every other day."
Online fantasy sports are enjoyable, addictive, and offer a chance to get in the game, virtually.
Last year, millions of fantasy sports fans such as Bowron hunkered down at their computers and scouted, drafted, traded or released players just as Bill Parcells did for the Dallas Cowboys.
And with the major league baseball season starting April 3, the deadline for joining online leagues for full-season play is fast approaching.
For Hawai'i — a state without a professional franchise — Internet fantasy sports has become a virtual link to professional athletes and franchises thousands of miles away. Highly addictive and enjoyable, fantasy sports has produced a bevy of fantasy Internet Hawai'i surfaholics who have joined the national phenomenon. There were more than 15 million fantasy sports participants last year, according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association.
In fantasy sports leagues, participants draft real-life athletes to create teams. Each team scores points based on actual statistics compiled by real-life athletes. Teams win by scoring the most points. In some leagues, participants pay entry fees and winners earn money. Participants can watch their games in "real time" on the Internet and get up-to-the-minute results.
"You feel like you're the coach, you're the owner," said Jeff Clark, 41, of Mililani, who works as an Air Force maintenance superintendent. "It really makes it fun watching the game when your players are out there and you're scoring. It gets in your head like it's the real deal. Passion is a good word for it."
What is it? A game based on the statistics from actual professional athletes playing in actual games. When did it start? While on a flight on Nov. 17, 1979, Daniel Okrent, a baseball fan, sketched out the first draft of rules for what would become the first fantasy sports league. Two weeks later in New York, he pitched the idea to a group with whom he lunched monthly at La Rotisserie Francaise. The group named its league after the restaurant, hence the Rotisserie Baseball League. How is it played? Fantasy games compile statistics of real players participating in real games to help determine a winner. Each participant is a "team owner" and selects real players from professional sports teams to form his or her own team. Statistics — such as hits, home runs, strikeouts, saves in baseball, and touchdown passes, receptions and rushing yards in football — are compiled and a winner is determined by the team with the better statistics. Games can be played in head-to-head competition between fantasy owners over a period of time, such as a week for baseball or NFL games. Some fantasy leagues simply determine winners by statistics compiled over the length of a baseball season. Online games can involve owners from across the nation who never meet in person. CHANGING TIMES In the early 1980s, players relied on newspapers for printed box scores. With the advent of the Internet in the mid 1990s, statistics were available at the click of a mouse. Now, computer programs have been written so statistics can be compiled instantly. FUN FACT There are fantasy leagues for nearly every major sport, college or professional, including basketball, hockey, golf, racing, tennis, and even sumo. Fantasy leagues have become so popular that there are highly rated television shows for fantasy sports, such as the Fox Sport's Weekly Fantasy Football Show. Every major sport — NFL, major league baseball, NBA — has a Fantasy Magazine. These magazines provide information and analyses with page after page of game statistics.Ê Newspapers nationwide also run columns. NOT-SO FUN FACT The Chicago human resources consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. estimated that employees playing in fantasy football leagues cost their employers $36.7 million a year. "Often, the computer people have on their desk is better than the one they have at home, and compared to a decade ago, the access to diversion is so much greater," CEO John Challenger told the Cedar Rapids Gazette. "It is more expensive than people think." Free Game baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com Some Fee-based Games fantasygames.sportingnews.com (offers some free versions of games). Sources: baseballlibrary.com; Internet research; Advertiser archive
Bowron, 30, said he cherished watching NFL games on television with his fantasy football-playing friends.
FANTASY FACTS
"You've got one guy yelling over here, and the other guy is crying over there," Bowron said. "It's a good time. It's a good reason to have a barbecue."
National fantasy sports expert Matthew Berry, known as the Talented Mr. Roto, called Hawai'i a perfect fit for fantasy sports because the state does not have a professional franchise.
"Because people in Hawai'i don't have a rooting interest in any game — unless they're from somewhere (on the Mainland) — it gives you something to root for, something to care about," said Berry, who runs Web sites TalentedMrRoto.com and Roto
Pass.com. "You watch SportsCenter at night and they're showing highlights of the Devil Rays-Nationals game, and you're like, 'Who cares?' Well, I do. I got Carl Crawford on my team. How did he do? The guy who is right behind me in the standings has Livan Hernandez."
Football and baseball are the most popular fantasy sports with about 13 million people playing fantasy football and nearly 10 million participating in baseball, Berry said. There's also fantasy soccer, fantasy golf, fantasy auto racing, fantasy bass fishing, and, in Japan, fantasy sumo.
"The truth of the matter is, if you can keep track of the score, there's a fantasy version of it," said Berry, 35, who also works as a Hollywood screenwriter and participates in a "fantasy movie league" where participants draft movies and measure how well they do at the box office. Berry's team drafted sleeper "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" for zero dollars — a fantasy movie steal "equivalent of getting a $1 Scott Podsednik (the 2004 major league steals leader) a year ago," he said.
Fantasy sports participant Jeff Chang, 34, of Salt Lake said he and his friends wanted a new fantasy sport and started an NBA fantasy league this year.
"When our fantasy football league ended, we were all kind of bummed because it's like six months until football season starts again, so we said, 'Let's start up a basketball league,' " said Chang, who works for an information technology outsourcing company. "We're just trying to learn the ropes."
The fantasy sports craze is not limited to regular people. Many celebrities and athletes play fantasy sports, too.
Actors Vince Vaughn and Matthew Perry play fantasy sports, according to Berry. Kansas City Chiefs running back Priest Holmes "is a huge fantasy baseball player," Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling "loves fantasy football," and for years, former San Diego Padres outfielder Tony Gwynn was the commissioner of the San Diego Padres fantasy football league, Berry said.
"I just love the idea of Tony Gwynn ruling on fantasy football trades in the clubhouse," Berry said.
In a sign of fantasy football respect, Holmes, a marquee running back, recently apologized to fantasy football owners after his knee injury cut short this season.
"If you had me on your team, I am sorry to have disappointed you with the news of my knee injury," said Holmes on his Web site www.31teampriest.com. "I hope with my absence you were still able to rack up the points."
Advocates believe fantasy sports brings in more casual fans, boosts interest in games and increases knowledge about athletes and games.
However, some professional athletes and journalists believe fantasy sports is overblown, celebrates individualism and can unjustly influence reporting.
"My only gripe with it is it takes away from the team," New York Giants running back Tiki Barber said while at the Pro Bowl in Hawai'i earlier this year. "It's kind of anti-theme to what our basis is, which is to win as a team and to do things as a team. I think it has benefits, but just don't let me know about it."
Not so for New England Patriots placekicker Adam Vinatieri. The two-time Pro Bowler had one of the greatest fantasy football moments this past season when he threw a 4-yard touchdown pass off a fake field goal in a 40-22 victory at St. Louis on Nov. 7. In most fantasy leagues, a touchdown is worth more points than a field goal.
"I do get a handful of people telling me, 'Way to go! You helped my fantasy football out this year and that week in general,' " said Vinatieri, a three-time Super Bowl champion. "It's fun to have that opportunity to help them out."
Veteran ESPN NFL reporter Chris Mortensen said he played fantasy football some time ago, but stopped because he didn't want it to affect his reporting.
"I don't want my analysis, my reporting to be skewed because somebody didn't have a good Sunday or Monday night and let me down on my fantasy football team," Mortensen said.
Berry related a story where fantasy sports actually bonded a father-son relationship. The son became a sports fan after playing fantasy sports, and he now enjoys talking to his father in Massachusetts about the Boston Celtics and New England Patriots, Berry said.
"Sports is huge," Berry said. "Sports is part of the American fabric and culture. Fantasy sports is a way to learn about sports, to learn to love sports and to appreciate sports."
Berry said fantasy sports should be enjoyable and shouldn't be played for big money. Berry was told of a fistfight that broke out between two brothers after a fantasy trade dispute. The league prize was $5,000.
"Fantasy sports should be about fun," Berry said. "It's about pride, being able to follow other teams, being able to talk a little ... to your buddies, and to have something to root for when you're watching games on Sunday, or watching SportsCenter.
"If you're playing to make $5,000 that's a problem," Berry continued. "I think that's a warning sign."
There are some high-stakes leagues such as the National Fantasy Football Championship in Las Vegas that costs participants a $1,250 entry fee to win $250,000 in total prize money.
Some participants, such as the Air Force's Bowron and Clark, don't play for money. They said it's better that way.
"Quite frankly, most of what we play is for fun," Clark said. "Some of these leagues, they play for like $25,000. I couldn't afford it. We're veterans, but small potatoes."
Reach Brandon Masuoka at bmasuoka@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2458.
