The meteoric rise of fantasy sports

Filed in archive Fantasy Football on January 20, 2010

© Ed Yourdon

Fantasy sport has evolved over the past three decades and has now become a multi billion dollar business. The game is pretty simple - all you need to do is pick up a team of existing players from any sport and then compare the performance of your team depending on statistical analysis of real life games with that of your opponent who given an option might have chosen alternative players. This concept is known to remunerate the most passionate and knowledgeable participants and has turned out to be a keen attraction for fans looking to get closer to their favorite sport.

Fantasy sport needs to be taken seriously because of its economic footprint with around 26 million Americans playing some sort of fantasy sports league and has created an industry worth $1 billion per year. Even in the time of recession it is experiencing a double digit annual growth with the average amount expected to be spent by each player estimated to be around $500 per year. The rise of fantasy football highlights that fans are becoming more sophisticated.

From the statistic above it seems that the trend for more of knowledge and more of fantasy sports is not going to die anytime soon.