Fantasy sports are virtual games that are also known by the name of rotisserie or roto. In these sports players behave as
the owners of the teams that they build. They compete against other such payers based on statistical information that is generated from real games these particular virtual sports are inspired from. All fantasy teams have a manager who is in charge of compiling the points as per the roster which 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 which range 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 2007.
Fantasy sports experienced a boom during the dot-com era with a number of companies committing to this domain. But once 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 like RotoWire.com and some with new marketing strategies and business models such as Yahoo. Through the years, in spite of the unstable economy, it had been noted that the average American fantasy players spent almost 8.4 hours of surveying the NFL each week compared to watching the NFL on television. NFL was able to recognize an opportunity that lay in fantasy sports and began to run ads for fantasy football featuring existing players. They were possibly the first to identify 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 with 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 among the hardest and time consuming sports. It follows the Major League Baseball season of 162 games. Fantasy basketball is said to generally be inspired from fantasy baseball. Ever since the 1990s fantasy basketball continues to be increasing in its popularity especially with the internet exposure which it seems to have. NBA has gotten advantage of its immense popularity by launching a worldwide competition called 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 the news and information that they need on the happenings within the world of fantasy basketball.
Fantasy football on the other hand has become increasingly popular and has taken over the mantle of popularity from fantasy baseball. This is mostly associated with the complexities associated with fantasy baseball with regards to the players involvement for the length of time as well as the many number of matches that are played. Fantasy football, however, gives its players and managers a lot more flexibility particularly in time as the games take place only once every week when compared with daily in fantasy baseball.
Some of 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..