Fantasy sports are virtual games which are sometimes known by the name of rotisserie or roto. Within these sports players act as owners of the teams which they build. They compete against other such payers based on statistical information that is generated from real games these particular virtual sports are inspired from. All fantasy teams have got a manager who is responsible for compiling the points as per the roster that has been selected.
The Fantasy Sports Trading Association is responsible for hosting conferences for these sports as well as being in charge of ensuring their continuous growth. This association has got almost 120 members which range from the newer and smaller start-ups to the more established larger media corporations. The estimated age of fantasy sports players was twelve and above and extended to 29.9 million people in 2007.
Fantasy sports experienced a boom in the dot-com era with a number of companies investing in this domain. However when this dot-com bubble burst, most of these companies went bankrupt. A few of the more established and long standing companies did manage to survive these turbulent times and remerged, some with new names like RotoWire.com and some with new marketing strategies and business models such as sport fanatick Yahoo. Over time, notwithstanding the unstable economy, it was noted that the average American fantasy players spent almost 8.4 hours of surveying the NFL each week as against watching the NFL on TV. NFL was able to recognize an opportunity that lay in fantasy sports and began to run ads for fantasy football featuring existing players. These people were possibly the first to identify that it was fantasy play that drives T.V. viewing.
Some of the most popular fantasy sport are fantasy baseball, fantasy basketball and fantasy football. The other games which have gained prominence with time are fantasy golf, fantasy cricket, fantasy auto racing, fantasy hockey and wrestling.
Fantasy baseball is regarded as among the oldest fantasy sports and is also one of the hardest and time-consuming sports. It follows the Major League Baseball season of 162 games. Fantasy basketball is said to generally be inspired from fantasy baseball. Since the 1990s fantasy basketball has been increasing in its popularity particularly with online exposure which it has got. NBA has taken benefit of its immense popularity by launching a worldwide competition known as the Premier Fantasy Championships. This competition is considered to be among the largest and most exclusive fantasy sports competitions. NBA has additionally launched a program called Fantasy Hoops that gives fantasy sports players all of the news and information that they need from the happenings within the world of fantasy basketball.
Fantasy football on the other hand has grown to be more popular then ever and has taken over the mantle of popularity from fantasy baseball. This is mostly attributed to the complexities involved in fantasy baseball with regards to the players involvement for the length of time and the many number of matches which are played. Fantasy football, however, gives its players and managers considerably more flexibility especially in time since the games take place just once a week as compared to daily in fantasy baseball.
Some of the most popular fantasy sports players and games news providers are Yahoo.com and ESPN Fantasy Sports. They gather all of the news, reviews, statistics and players performance and provide it on the table for fantasy sports enthusiasts..
