Fantasy sports are virtual games which are also known by the name of rotisserie or roto. In these sports players behave as owners of the teams which they build. They compete against other such payers on the basis of statistical information that is generated from real games these particular virtual sports are inspired from. All fantasy teams have got a manager that is in charge of compiling the points in accordance with the roster that has been selected.
The Fantasy Sports Trading Association is responsible for hosting conferences of these sports and is also responsible for ensuring their continuous growth. This association has got almost 120 members ranging 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 the year 2007.
Fantasy sports experienced a boom in the dot-com era with a variety of companies committing to this domain. However when this dot-com bubble burst, most of these companies went bankrupt. Some of the more established and long standing companies did manage to survive these turbulent times and remerged, some with new names such as RotoWire.com and some with new marketing strategies and business models such as sportfanatick.com Yahoo. Over time, in spite of the unstable economy, it was noted that the average American fantasy players spent almost 8.4 hours of surveying the NFL per week compared to watching the NFL on TV. NFL was able to recognize the opportunity that lay in fantasy sports and began to run ads for fantasy football featuring existing players. These people were possibly the first to recognize 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 that have gained prominence over 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 has been said to generally be inspired from fantasy baseball. Ever since the 1990s fantasy basketball has been increasing in its popularity particularly with the internet exposure that it seems to have. NBA has gotten benefit of its immense popularity by launching a global 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 become more popular then ever and has now taken over the mantle of popularity from fantasy baseball. This is mostly associated with the complexities involved in fantasy baseball in terms of the players involvement for the length of time and the many number of matches that are played. Fantasy football, however, gives its players and managers considerably more flexibility particularly in time since the games take place just once every week when compared with daily in fantasy baseball.
Probably 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 bring it on the table for fantasy sports enthusiasts.
