It is with no small bit of wonder that I recently realized my participation in fantasy sports began 20 years ago, in 1991. Originally "Rotisserie Baseball", within a couple of years I was also playing fantasy football and it was not long before fantasy baseball fell off and I just enjoyed playing the football equivalent. So it was that I am realizing how little I enjoy fantasy football today, and spent a few minutes trying to figure out why. My answer? Playing fantasy football today requires little-to-no thought. It has been reduced to a near-Zynga-like game, which for my money is the ultimate condemnation. Let's take a look at the evolution of the game that has reduced it to zombie-like button-pressing.
1. The secret to winning in fantasy sports 20 years ago was finding the "best" information outlets. This was no easy task. Originally, there were only a couple of magazines available on the topic. Treasure troves of information, it took some discernment to tell which of them was better than the rest. That conclusion could only be validated in a year-over-year analysis, where you went back and compared the predictions to the actual results.
As the 1990's rolled on and fantasy sports became big business, in many ways the game became harder. No longer were there only a handful of resources available: there were many. Dozens, even, in the years when the Internet was still in its relative infancy. The process of parsing through the available information was more difficult, and took more time. Of course, it was always rewarding when you discovered some new gem that nobody else caught onto yet. Seeing what mags your opponents were bringing to draft day was always a surprise and treat.
This process of identifying quality information resources was part of the game and, importantly, helped determine the difference between good players and poor ones. Today, thanks to the wisdom of the crowds effect as manifest on the Internet, the best resources are known to all.
2. Once you had identified the best information outlets, you needed to be skilled in identifying patterns across those outlets, and/or using your own ideas and analysis to triangulate, with those resources, the right players to pick or pay for. This was the most fun part of all, and is where the real bragging rights would be won or lost. If we took the current 2010 season and put it back in 1994, one of the sharks in the league I played in would have taken Arian Foster in an early-to-mid round. The other top competitors would have nodded and said "Great pick" and commiserated among themselves that they should have put him higher instead of trying to "steal" him later. The perennial cellar dwellers in our league wouldn't have known who he was and laughed and made fun of the pick.
In real-life 2010, everybody knew who Arian Foster was. Some took him higher than others and benefitted from it, but it was no great shock when he was picked. We knew all about him and the potential he provided from giant, screaming headlines on the various online sites and resources.
Of course, the most fun part, and source of personal pride for the serious players pre-Internet, was the draft list. Your unique listing from 1-n of the players at different positions, and how they should get picked. I wouldn't let anybody peek at mine, nor they let me see theirs. This was our intellectual capital, the manifest of our research and planning. Today, I struggle to imagine that any individual sits down and creates their own draft list from scratch that isn't based on the default list provided from the website that is ostensibly "hosting" the league. The tool that provides infrastructure for having the league also gives a highly refined, expert ranking of all players. There are no sleepers or surprises; ESPN and its myriad competitors have taken away all the magic by doing all of the work.
3. To field a winning team, you no longer have to do any thinking. This is the big one for me. Pre-Internet, if you weren't able to make a draft day you were essentially skipping playing in the league that year. Today if you can't make the draft day the website "Auto Drafts" for you and picks an excellent team. Auto-drafted teams are consistently strong finishers in leagues I've played in, clearly ahead of the weaker teams each year. Forget needing to do research and planning, you don't even need to show up to the most important event of the year and can still comfortably win. The software does all of the work for you.
Similarly, these sites have taken away even the thought process behind deciding who plays in your weekly lineup. Using ESPN as the example - the site where the league I play in is hosted - each week, each player has a "projected points" column next to their name. So you can simply play the guys with the highest projections, and know you will probably do really well. Likewise, if you need to get a new player because of injury or other issue, the free agents are all sortable and include the "projected points" column as well. A trained monkey could field an excellent team on ESPN.
To be certain, there are moments where the individual has an impact. This season I let ESPN auto-draft my team since I care so little about the game and ended up with Anquan Boldin. He scored very few points the first two weeks and was "projected" by ESPN to score an anemic amount of points this week. One of the "sharks" of the league offered a trade for him this week, a very logical and reasonable trade on the surface. Reviewing existing data - his performance to date, his projected performance, and the performance of his team's quarterback so far this year - trading him may have seemed smart. I knew better and didn't. He erupted for a huge week and will win me my game.
The problem is such moments are few and far between. The software is so powerful and the system so refined, "playing" in the league is really no different than a Zynga game like Farmville where all you really need to do is show up and follow the instructions. The "game" of fantasy football at this point is almost solely social: to have bragging rights over your friends on a micro (weekly) and macro (seasonal) level. But for someone like me who enjoys thinking games it is a pointless waste, sucking up my time for very little benefit.
It is a shame. If, in 1994, I was getting real-time updates on games and the performance of my fantasy players I would have been in hog heaven. A real, difficult struggle between thinking friends that had great updates of the results in real-time: it would have been magic. Unfortunately the good magic and the bad magic have all come together, and what is left just isn't very engaging, and certainly not challenging.
My friend Eric suggested that I try fantasy hockey instead. Without the weekly precision of football and lacking the maturity of statistical analysis it still rewards those who pay the closest attention and untangle the puzzle most effectively. A decade ago I would have taken this advice but, with more than enough games in my life to play, I rather think I will either just stay in a fantasy football league for social/networking reasons or eschew fantasy sports altogether. Odd that the real joy and passion of fantasy sports, once a joyous part of my gaming and social activities, has been reduced to a halcyon dream with only auto-drafts and projected points to remember it by.