Tag Archives: fantasy football

Divided fan loyalties: QB1 is on my team, my opponent’s team, and my home team

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In recent weeks, I have run into a situation unique to Chicago Bears fans: do I always cheer for our quarterback who is scoring points at a prodigious rate? Here is where loyalties can be divided:

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  1. In one fantasy football league, I drafted Justin Fields at the beginning of Round 5. This put him after all of the established quarterbacks and somewhere in the middle with a number of other unproven players. (Trevor Lawrence went next, I drafted Tua Tagovailoa at the beginning of Round 7, etc.)
  2. In other fantasy leagues, I have now played Justin Fields as the opposing QB in multiple weeks. He is scoring a lot of points recently – but now against me.
  3. As a fan of the Chicago Bears, I almost never draft Bears players because for decades the Bears have not scored consistently. Even with an exciting young quarterback, the Bears are still not winning. Should they lose more for a higher draft pick? Should they do more for their young QB?

Fantasy sports and gambling has introduced this conundrum for years: do I enjoy watching sports or do I reduce my teams and the players to individual components that I can profit from?

If I had to decide, I go with my lifelong fandom with the Chicago Bears. I want them to do well. Even as I have played fantasy football for almost two decades and Madden football for three decades, I enjoy being a sports fan, even of an unsuccessful team.

It is less clear whether others sports fans agree with this. It is much easier to follow particular players or certain teams as they become famous and successful. Why stick with the Bears when you can enjoy the play and exploits of others? Why not turn it into a matter of my own success?

Perhaps sports fandom will look very different in the coming decades. Sports will continue and I suspect the push toward individualizing the fan experience, particularly prioritizing those teams and players who are successful, will as well.

“Armchair sociology” accusation in DraftKings, FanDuel case in New York

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The recent case in New York involving the Attorney General and two fantasy sports sites included the accusation of “armchair sociology” this week:

“Rather than identify the concrete and immediate harms necessary to support a preliminary injunction, the NYAG instead resorts to smear tactics and speculation stretching to tie DFS contests to everything from child-abuse to over-eating, among other things,” reads DraftKing’s motion.

“The Attorney General’s armchair sociology would not pass muster on a daytime talk show,” continues the filing, which urges a panel of appellate judges to allow the online companies to continue operating in New York while the case works its way through the courts.

Schneiderman first filed suit in November, and was granted a temporary injunction on Dec. 11 to stop the sports giants from operating in New York. But that decision wasoverturned just hours later, and now the companies are operating under an emergency stay as the Appellate Division decides their fate in an expedited ruling.

Armchair sociology is a derogatory term here implying a false understanding of how people and/or society work. Additionally, there is a reference to daytime talk shows with the idea that the explanations given there for human behavior don’t match reality. Perhaps DraftKings and FanDuel would prefer more rigorous social scientific examinations of their practices and users? It would be interesting to see whether the “armchair sociology” claim has any influence or it is just PR posturing.

Just out of curiosity, I checked where I have seen the term armchair sociology before: see this earlier post where George Will accuses liberals of wrong ideas about how society works. There, the term is used to link sociology and liberal ideas, a thought that many conservatives may share.

Fantasy football in the classroom

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Fantasy football is not just for adults or for recreation.  Some teachers are now using it in the classroom to help teach math:

Empirical data show that classroom fantasy-sports programs help improve grades and test scores.

In a 2009 survey of middle and high school students by the University of Mississippi, 56 percent of boys and 45 percent of girls said they learned math easier because they played fantasy sports in class. And 33 percent of boys and 28 percent of girls said their grades improved.

This sounds like a fun way to learn math. And the story suggests that whole families got involved with the process and helped the children decide whom to draft and how to score.

On another front: will everyone will be playing fantasy football in the future?