Why do some people hate fantasy sports so much?

Like some have said before on this thread, it can be the real diehards that take the fun out of it for everyone else.

Fantasy sports can be a good time, especially if you're in it for the fun and getting together with a few friends.

If it consumes your every move, then you probably need to re-evaluate yourself (Hi Sterling Silver! and those who have been in a league with him know what I mean).

I'm pretty much down to one football and one baseball league and that's with the same people every year (the NIAFL).

I find myself enjoying games just to watch the games. Of course, being a few years out of the business can help that too.

As we've talked about it on other threads, it can be overbearing at times being around sports at work, then at home too.

 

Hey! Hitting kind of close to home here!

Enough of this ... time to head out on my morning jog! ;D

 

I did two fantasy baseball teams in 1997, which was my first year of fantasy baseball. I did three teams in fantasy football that year.

Couldn't keep up with all of them, and I often neglected one or two to focus on a particular team I "coached."

Now, my rule is no more than one fantasy sports team per sport. I don't even like overlapping seasons, which kills me in September when baseball's in its pennant races, fantasy leagues might be in postseason play and football's getting started.

Even so, I don't like to talk about my fantasy teams unless someone else is talking about his or hers. And even then, it's usually a quick conversation.

 

Yep.

You get it.

Welcome to the club.

 

I don't hate fantasy sports. I hate elitism. I hate superiority complexes.

I don't hate fantasy sports, but I hate the NIAFL.

Burn in hell, all of you!

 

I'm guilty sometimes of talking about my fantasy team when I know no one cares. I usually quickly wise up and shut up.

I enjoy fantasy because it's broadened my interest in baseball in general, and I feel like I've got a better grasp of what's going on all around the majors, and not just with the O's. But I can totally see why people don't like it. To each his own, I suppose.

 

Because there's so much more to baseball (football, golf, whatever) than the eight or nine stats used in fantasy.

 

I'm with you on the "in my fantasy days, we had to walk to school uphill both ways in the snow."

I was a commissioner of a fantasy football league in college because, pre-Internet, being on the college paper I was the only one with access to stats on Sunday night. Also, the members were high school friends and my dad, so no one was in my area code at a time when long distance was still relatively expense (god, am I fucking old) and I had to use a phone card issued by the newspaper to make LD calls from the newsroom so I could get everyone's lineups. That was a shit-ton of work. Now you don't have to waste a lot of time playing fantasy because researching and updating everything takes about two seconds.

I have a friend who turned fantasy sports into a full-time gig, and it's a guy you've probably read. I heard him on the radio once locally, and the questions asked of him and the answers he gave were a level of obscurity that were a combination of Mel Kiper Jr., Al Bernstein in the Top Rank Boxing days and your uncle's D&D strategies. I think it helps in his job, too, that when he flies in somewhere for a fantasy conference, he doesn't look at the attendees like a bunch of rubes without lives. That's only if you're into science fiction.

 

Nobody should be rooting for injuries, but that isn't something only people who play fantasy sports do. That isn't a reason to hate fantasy sports. It is a reason to hate sports fans who lack class.

Fantasy sports don't just draw in casual fans. There are some people who really know their sports who happen to enjoy fantasy sports as well.

I don't understand anybody who puts their fantasy sports teams ahead of the "real world" teams they root for. If my fantasy-league quarterback is playing against the Steelers, I hope he has the worst day of his career.

There was a time I refused to play fantasy sports at all, back when I was a Pirates fan. I stuck with them when they were horrible for most of the '80s. I watched them slowly build a contender that won three consecutive division titles from 1990-92. Then I watched that team dismantled. Blame a lousy front office if you like. Blame ownership that wouldn't spend. Blame baseball's financial system. (Personally, I blame all three). It doesn't matter. The offseason when they lost Barry Bonds and Doug Drabek for nothing was the end for me as a Pirates fan. I was so disgusted that I just couldn't bring myself to care any more and I never went back.

I started playing fantasy baseball the following year and I was immediately hooked. It's fun. If you don't like it, that's fine. I probably don't like some stuff that you do for fun, either.

Sometimes fantasy comments are going to spill onto the baseball and football threads. We have fantasy sports fans on this site. A lot of them. We have stupid threadjacks on baseball and football threads. A lot of those, too.

Should we be debating fantasy trades and draft picks on those threads? No, I think that goes a bit over the line. But I don't see how a comment or two does enough damage to bitch about.

 

Poor outofplace.

 

I know. I love fantasy sports and science fiction. It is the upset of a lifetime that I don't live in my mother's basement.

 

A blog merging sci-fi and fantasy sports and she'll have no choice but to take you back!