4.5 reasons why Fantasy Sports has exploded

Fantasy sports by a number of measurements is booming whether it is IBIS World identifying the industry as one of its fasting growing markets, the start of fantasy football season causing a surge in internet traffic, or the Fantasy Sports Trade Association declaring that there are over 33 million Americans playing fantasy sports.

If you ask yourself what singular reason has caused fantasy sports to explode, you would be challenged to just find one. Thus below or 4.5 reasons why fantasy sports is in the growth it is in.

1.) The Goldfish Factor

There is a myth about goldfish that says that the goldfish will only get as large as the bowl or environment they are in. Thus a goldfish in a fish bowl only get so big, but goldfish in lakes and ponds can actually grow much larger. It is a myth but it illustrates a theme of why fantasy sports is as large as it is.

Take fantasy football, the flagship fantasy sport, it is attached to the NFL and the NFL is huge. The NFL is supposed to be a non-profit organization but the commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell still makes $44 million a year. The league itself generates over $9 billion in profit from tickets, TV revenue, merchandising and licensing.

 By attaching to a sport like the NFL, fantasy football has an enormous potential to grow.  If fantasy sports was attached to say something like curling, the expansion of the fantasy sport would be limited to its parent. Not to say that fantasy curling would not be able to surpass real curling, however, its initial potential is bound to real curling. Just like the goldfish is bound to its fish bowl.

The NFL is a humongous fish bowl, and fantasy football has turned into a humongous goldfish.

2.) Alan Turing

Alan Turing was a British scientist that in the 1930's developed a device called the Turing Machine. The machine was a theoretical device that used a concept of a strip of tape of infinite length for a computing concept. Even though his machine used an infinite piece of tape or what we called "memory", Alan Turing was able to define the limitations of computational logic. You could say the Turing Machine was the first theoretical computer that was conceptualized decades before the computer and internet boom.

The use of computers and the internet has provided the gasoline that ignited the fantasy sports fire.
Technology is vital in the data that is necessary to power a fantasy sport from the statistics and scoring and the emerging big data trend analysis. The use of technology and the content management systems in place provided by game providers have made obsolete the practice of keeping track of teams and scores via paper and pencil.  Fantasy sports is not a new concept. I it was first conceived in the 1960s with the advent of the rotisserie leagues for fantasy baseball. But it has been the boom of the computer and the  internet age that has propelled fantasy sports.   More recently, the growth of mobile devices has continued to carry the momentum of fantasy sports today. The use of technology is vital for also communications. Communications via email, podcast, fantasy talk shows, cable networks, chat rooms, and social media is important for league owners to interact with other league owners and for league owners to interact with the content ecosystem supplied by the content providers.

Without Alan Turning and computers, fantasy sports would still be tracked with pencil and paper and thus only available to the select few willing to score and to interact with each other.

3.)  The Red Pill or The Blue Pill

In the movie the Matrix, humanity struggles against machines that are enslaving the population by harvesting a person's body heat for energy. In order to control humans, the machines place humans in a virtual reality called the Matrix, where humans live out their lives none the wiser. However, one of the themes introduced in the movies is free will and choice. Neo, the protagonist in the film, has a choice to either pick the Red Pill where Neo can the learn the truth about the Matrix or the Blue Pill where he can live in ignorance.

For fantasy sports, the experience of choice and empowerment is what makes the game so enjoyable. It may not matter that the fantasy owner is making  a bad choice by sitting this player over the other, or by accepting a trade or not. It is the fact that the fantasy owner has the choice to make that allows them to feel empowered by the choice. Fantasy sports has had the right balance of simplicity and sophistication. League owners do not have to overcome a hurdle to learn the game but yet they have enough complexity and choice in playing the game that they feel that the choices they make will lead to them winning their league.

Imagine if fantasy football was only played with an offensive team and defensive team instead of the individual QB, RB, WR and TE positions in the standard format leagues. That would make drafting easier however, it would not give league owners much choices of what to draft. Give the league owners a choice on what clever team name they should pick, which players to include in a low ball trade offer or what they believe is the right player and it will make the game enticing to play.

Blue Pill or Red Pill? It matters not. It is the ability to make the choice that is most important for participation in fantasy sports.

4.) Anyone can become league champion

So if you are reading this article, you are probably been a league champion. The beauty of being a league champion is that it is eternal. Doesn't matter if you were league champion two, five or even ten years ago. You are a league champion. It also doesn't matter that you play in like six leagues at the same time. You are a league champion.

That goes into the competitive nature of fantasy players. Fantasy  sports competition drives participation in leagues and drives continued participation throughout the season and carries over till the next season in the quest to become league champion again.

Fantasy sports is not an exhibition hobby, where each league owner gathers players and them laments on their highlights. The genius of continuing the competitive nature of the sport into the fantasy sports allows the competitive juices to flow.

Everyone believes they know more than the next person about sports. Fantasy sports provides the outlet for that person to prove everyone that they are right.

4.5.) Wish Fulfillment

Wish fulfillment is a partial reason because it is related to the competitive nature of sports and empowerment of choice. There are only a finite number of real general manager and coaching positions for sports team. Fantasy sports is by definition, a "fantasy" for league owners to live out their dreams to be a. Wish fulfillment can also be the incentive to win. Thus the recent boom in fantasy sports revolve around daily sports and the incentive for cash payment for winning team owners.  Fantasy players are playing for an incentive. One incentive may be to fulfill the need to serve as a general manager of a sports team. The other incentive may be the opportunity to win money as a reward.