I don't get it. Maybe it's because I'm a girl. Maybe it's because I never dreamed of being involved in the NFL. But I do not understand fantasy football.
Please don't misunderstand me — I love football. I'm writing this column as I'm watching college football games and reading about Matt Leinart being released by the Arizona Cardinals.
What I don't understand is how people, mostly guys of all ages, have gotten so obsessed with an unreal sport. The word fantasy is in the title!
Because of my lack of understanding, I asked one of my friends to explain the concept of fantasy football to me. He is a college junior and participates in three separate fantasy leagues.
He told me that playing fantasy football is like running your own team. You draft players based on what they're expected to do during the season. As the real season progresses, you get points based on touchdowns, receptions and other similar categories. He said you trade and draft players with the goal of putting the best team possible on the field.
Participating in a fantasy league can sometimes be free, but some leagues ask that each participant pay an entry fee. The winner of the league gets the money at the end of the season. It's a bit like NCAA bracket pools in March, but these are based on stats and are constantly evolving and changing.
I should be impressed, right? Now you can live vicariously through a computer screen and manage a football team and potentially win money!
I'm not impressed.
A recent Associated Press article estimated that 20 million people participate in fantasy leagues each year. That's more people than live in the state of Ohio. In 2009, Colin Cowherd of ESPN claimed that 27 million people play fantasy football and they spent an average of nine hours a week on it.
Nine hours a week? That estimate seems a little high in most cases, but in a world where a Google search for fantasy football gets almost 11 million results, maybe not.
My friend, the one in three leagues, said he only spends a couple hours a week on his teams. He evaluates his team a couple times a week and checks on Sunday and Monday to see how he's doing. But he's "not that into it." Or so he says.
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Not that into it and you spend two or three hours a week in front of a computer looking at an imaginary team? If I had two or three hours a week to spend playing pretend, I would be able to get a daily nap in. Or catch up on TV shows. Or go for a walk to the Formal Gardens and relax.
I can understand wanting to live out a dream or being so into a sport like football that you want to keep up on your favorite players' stats and a fantasy league helps you do that. I have guilty pleasures that I spend too much time on too.
Fantasy football doesn't seem worth the time and potential money to me. But maybe that's because I'm a girl.
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