Playing fantasy football is one of the most popular recreational hobbies of sports fans around the world. According to the Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association, in 2022, there were 62.5 million people playing fantasy sports in the USA and Canada.
That is bananas.
Fantasy football is a major part of people’s sports lives and has many exciting components, but there are some major downsides.
Here are the pros and cons of fantasy football:
Pros:
Increased Knowledge of the NFL
Diving into the world of fantasy football requires you to learn about other teams and players or suffer the sting of losing. For those with a competitive spirit, the fear of losing is a powerful motivator to research and do your homework.
Making new Friends
Fantasy football requires you to join different leagues with different people. The league can consist of staff members from an organization, friends, families, and even random people on the internet. Participants end up making new friends who share a love of football.
The Joy of Being Right
Piggy backing off my previous point – a lot of hard work goes into researching the players to select for a fantasy league. The process can be strenuous, and when you go with your gut, and you’re right? All that hard work pays off, and you feel pretty good about yourself.
You Can Make Money
That’s right, you can make money playing fantasy football, but things can spiral if you’re not careful.
Cons:
You Can Lose Money
You probably saw this coming. Gambling involves risk and reward, as we know. It can be a huge rush using your sports knowledge to beat your friends and win money at the same time, for sure. However, you may find yourself addicted to the feeling in several fantasy leagues after your first exposure to the game.
Hyper-awareness of Bad Performances
Fantasy football can lead to the admiration of certain players and their skills, but when they fall short of your expectations, it can be a disappointment. That soft spot you once had for your favorite player leads to a “break-up” of sorts – leading me to my next point.
You Stop Seeing the Players as Humans
This isn’t on purpose, obviously. It can be easy to fall into the world of fantasy football because of what it is – fantasy. Fans forget that the players on TV are human beings with families and lives outside of the games. It’s a slippery slope of caring more about how the injury will impact the fantasy team than how the injury will impact the actual human being.
Reduces Productivity
This is a negative aspect of most online gaming. The rush of fantasy football and keeping up with your rosters can tear you away from the mundane tasks of day-to-day life. Work-life and study habits can easily be affected by the excitement and thrill of the game.
Fantasy Football is a game where participants act as managers of a virtual professional football team. Participants select actual football players from a list of all the footballers in that league, and their team will earn points based on the real-life performances of all the players they have selected.
