Do you or your friends play fantasy sports? If you don’t you might be wondering what all the hype is about. All this talk about starting and sitting players. Hearing people saying “ Dude I got him on my fantasy team”. Calling their friends about advice on trades. So what are fantasy sports? The technical definition is this “Fantasy sports are games where players create virtual teams of real athletes and earn points based on how well the players perform. Players act as the general manager and field manager of their team, making trades, drafting players, and setting lineups.”
So why are they so fun? For me personally, it makes me feel like a general manager mixed with a head coach. I’m responsible for drafting all of my players, trading them if they aren’t performing and deciding who to start and bench. All of this without the pressure of being fired and losing your job, it’s perfect. You can play fantasy sports with almost every sport. Hockey,football, baseball, basketball you name it. The most popular is football with about 24 million people playing it yearly. I’ve always been a big football fan and get up every Sunday to watch it. However, ever since I started playing fantasy I watch every game super closely.
Me checking my fantasy app every 2 minutes on Sunday while watching Redzone pic.twitter.com/bjNZWQPv4b
— Yahoo Fantasy Sports (@YahooFantasy) January 13, 2025
This got me thinking, most people think fantasy sports are just for die-hard fans. I disagree, I think fantasy sports are a great way to learn about sports are get into them more seriously. For example if one of your friends loves hockey and you don’t watch it enough to talk about it with them. Join a fantasy league, you’ll pick some of the top players, be more engaged and watch more hockey. Lets say for instance you draft Quinn Hughes on your fantasy team you’ll start watching more Canucks games and over time you’ll learn more about the team and the sport. I know people who were causal NFL fans play fantasy for a year and now wake up every Sunday at 10am to watch games all day. While checking their fantasy team or teams the whole time.
Fantasy sports might seem dumb to some people, but trust me. Once you start you’ll enjoy it and never look back. Theres no better feeling that winning your league and bragging to all of your friends that you know more about a sport that they’ve been watching for years. So take my advice and join in on fantasy sports culture.