Why do some people hate fantasy sports so much?

Believe sports in general continues to serve that purpose . . . . a truism for which all
of us should be truly grateful, for as long as it lasts.

 

I enjoy it. I'm usually in one $10 league in baseball, football and basketball.

Now, I don't cover a pro team, nor do I have a favorite pro team. Paying attention to my teams helps me follow the leagues better.

 

I'll say this much: When I stopped playing fantasy football a year or two ago, I found that I had absolutely zero interest in the rest of the league, other than the one team I root for. That said, my interest in the NFL had been waning for a couple of reasons -- namely overexposure for 12 months. But FFL kept me interested in whatever game was on, and I liked that about it.

But I'll always play fantasy baseball, as long as my old hometown league is still in existence (up and running for about 10 years now.) It's more for the camaraderie than anything else -- keeps me in touch with my old ME, SE and old colleagues scattered around the country (including one guy in China).

 

That's one thing a lot of people gripe about that I don't see the harm in. If caring about your fantasy team means you keep an eye on a Week 15 snoozefest between a 2-13 Lions team (to see how Calvin Johnson is doing) and a 3-12 Bengals team (to see if Chad Johnson or T.J. Houshmandzadeh caught a TD pass), isn't that better than nothing?

And this is one of the big reasons I play in most of my Yahoo leagues. Our group of friends from college has scattered all over the country. E-mail, facebook, etc., is a nice way to keep in touch, but we've been doing fantasy leagues for the last 10 years. It's something that helps us keep in touch on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis when nothing hugely important is happening.

 

I don't hate it.

I just don't understand how anybody could waste their time doing something that seems so completely and utterly pointless and boring.

Hate to say, "Get a fucking life," but ... "Get a fucking life."

Hey, you asked.

 

If I don't care much about your real life, why would I give a shit about your pretend life as a team owner? I'll feign interest if you talk about your kid's Little League game, but when you start in on your "team," I'm outta there (or at least my attention span is) before you pull Peyton Manning's photo out of your wallet like it's a picture of your wife. Don't ask, don't tell.

 

Problem is, too many people take it too far -- they start rooting against their real-life team (which is why I, for one, try to draft as many Packers as I can, including Brett Favre in Round 1 every year since I started playing in 1998 ) or they root for injuries to their opponent's players or they go crazy when one of their players does scores.

Case in point: A former coworker was a huge, huge Twins fan, always hated the Angels because they beat his team in the '02 ALCS. Garret Anderson was on his fantasy team one year and got an RBI single late in a game on a Sunday, and this dude gets up and starts carrying on like it's the fucking World Series. It's like, dude, you hate the fucking Angels. It's like me cheering for David Wright. STFU.

 

Worse than fantasy sports is the morons who run road races.
Dude, we get it. you like to run, but finishing 463rd out of 500 in a stupid community 10 K makes you a worthless fuck.
On the same level, same with the people who swim, ride bikes, or go hiking. Fucking lame.

 

I think I learned to hate fantasy sports pre-internet when fantasy nuts believed that we had nothing better to do on a Sunday evening in the office than look up the players on these tools' fantasy teams. Wasn't like we were trying to put out a section or anything.

 

It's not the fantasy sports people hate, it's the talking about it that people hate. It's the equivalent of hearing someone natter on about what food in their fridge they're planning to eat in what order -- it's compartmentalized concerns that no one else on the planet would ever care about.

The other segemt of people who recoil is those who are (or see themselves as) insanely busy, and resent that other people apparently have the time to waste managing a fake football team.

 

What a shock. The board's uppity drain finds fantasy sports beneath him.