Talk Back! 
Most Read stories this week
Most Emailed stories this week
RSS
Fantasy becomes reality: Time-sucking online games building steam
I'll regret admitting this, but when I was a boy of about 4, the first fantasy I can recall was having Roy Rogers and Dale Evans come to my house to ride horses in the back yard.
``The Roy Rogers Show'' aired in the '50s, and I was fascinated by the world Roy and his horse, Trigger, and Dale and her horse, Buttermilk, galloped through. I just wanted them to take me along on their adventures through the wild frontier.
Later, my idea of a fantasy usually involved a nurse, but nowadays I discover that the concept of fantasy has changed dramatically. Today, many men (and, yes, a few women) live in a fantasy world inhabited by quarterbacks, running backs and obscure place kickers.
Fantasy football has become an obsession in this country with estimates that more than 36 million people are now playing, many invested in more than one league while spending hours each week brooding over their teams.
In case you don't know what a fantasy sports league is all about, it works like this: You become the general manager of your team. You're responsible for drafting players, assembling a roster that can accumulate points based on the scoring system your league has adopted and making constant adjustments to that roster based on weekly injuries, matchups and availability of players.
Sounds simple. It isn't.
You match wits against other ultra-competitive fantasy team owners, chart points throughout the season and someone emerges as the league champion.There are fantasy leagues in virtually every sport, with football, baseball, basketball and NASCAR among the most popular. Pro football, though, is where the hardcore fantasy players come to do combat.
The whole fantasy sports concept raises a myriad of questions, and because so much of the research required to manage a team is done on the Internet, fantasy sports and the effort it takes to stay involved have spilled over into the workplace.
A report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based employment consultant, says that fantasy players are costing employers as much as $1.1 billion a week during the National Football League season.
That's time spent prowling the waiver wires, checking up on injury reports and reading news stories that might indicate matchup insights or personnel changes. It's time spent making trades, joining in blogs and community discussions ranting and raving about the costly impact of Tom Brady's knee injury.
In case you think these fantasy players are unemployed kids who have nothing better to do, think again. A story published in 2006 by the Washington Times said the average fantasy player earns $76,000 a year. These people are earners, and they're from the male demographic that gets the attention of advertisers on Web sites and in periodicals.
I don't understand the whole fantasy league craze, but maybe that's because I get my fix of sports during the course of my job. I can't imagine spending one minute cobbling together a trade for an able-legged place kicker. That said, most sportswriters I know are in several fantasy leagues - some in six, seven or eight, including golf. And poker.
So far as I know, the business of fantasy sports involvement hasn't come up at the Herald & Review, but I see where it could raise a number of questions in the workplace. Such as:
If there's money involved, such as a cash prize to the champion, does it constitute gambling? Gambling is forbidden in most businesses.
While some might be alarmed at the company time spent on fantasy league matters, why is that any worse than the time many workers secretly spend on Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, eBay, playing with personal e-mail, working on Oscar picks or checking scores for the annual NCAA basketball tournament pool?
Why is it more problematic to use your work computer to search for a backup wide receiver than to stand near the office copy machine and yap for 10 minutes with co-workers about yesterday's NASCAR race?
And, guys, do you sneak fantasy football time at work to avoid doing it when you get home, in front of a wife who is already sick of your indifference every fall?
A ``Sports Illustrated'' column this week says a woman has formed an alliance of fantasy football widows that has its own Web site and is marketing apparel. The offerings include panties that say, ``Closed for the fantasy season.''
Ouch!
All of this may be Greek to those who neither like nor understand football. But even those people are being lured into the broadening fantasy league world.
We now have ``Fantasy Congress,'' where government nerds can select a team of four senators and 12 House members. The Web site motto: ``When People Play Politics.''
Points are won when a politician introduces a bill or amendment and more points are accumulated for seeing it through the various steps of the legislative process. There's more, but you get the idea.
Even legislators themselves have taken a curious peek.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman checked it out and said, ``One of the upsides to Fantasy Congress over fantasy baseball is that you don't really have to worry about your team being destroyed by injuries. Then again, there probably aren't many fantasy baseball owners who worry about losing their shortstop because he has ties to Jack Abramoff.''
In a world where team names are often creative and comical, one ``Fantasy Congress'' team is called ``We the Peeps.''
Clever team names are the rule in fantasy football, where I've bumped into these jewels:
Can of Kournikova, Cow Tipping Dwarfs, Victorious Secret, Dexter Manley's Book Club, Yoko Romo, Multiple Scorgasms, Amish Rake Fight, Kissing Suzy Kolber and Menace to Sobriety.
Personally, I like Dexter Manley's Book Club.
The next time you see a co-worker with his head jammed into his computer screen, don't assume he's trying to swing a last-second trade for Jon Kitna.
Maybe he's just working.
Maybe.
mtupper@herald-review.com|421-7983
Previous Page 
Subscribe 
Email Alerts 
Print this story 
Email this story
del.icio.us
digg
newsvine
facebook
Search By Issue
Search By Keyword
