Fantasy sports are virtual games which are also known by the name of rotisserie or roto. In these sports players behave as
owners of the teams that they build. They compete against other such payers based on statistical information which is generated from real games that these virtual sports are inspired from. All fantasy teams have got a manager who is in charge of compiling the points in accordance with the roster which has been selected.
The Fantasy Sports Trading Association is responsible for hosting conferences for these sports as well as being responsible for ensuring their continuous growth. This association includes 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 the year 2007.
Fantasy sports experienced a boom in the dot-com era with a number of companies investing in this domain. But once this dot-com bubble burst, most of these companies went bankrupt. A few of the more established and long standing companies did find a way to survive these turbulent times and remerged, some with new names such as RotoWire.com and some with new marketing strategies and business models like Yahoo. Over time, notwithstanding the unstable economy, it was noted that the average American fantasy players spent almost 8.4 hours of surveying the NFL each week as against watching the NFL on television. NFL was able to recognize the opportunity that lay in fantasy sports and began to run ads for fantasy football featuring existing players. They were probably the first to recognize that it was fantasy play that drives T.V. viewing.
Probably 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 one of the oldest fantasy sports and is one of the hardest and time-consuming sports. It follows the Major League Baseball season of 162 games. Fantasy basketball is said to be inspired from fantasy baseball. Ever since the 1990s fantasy basketball has been increasing in its popularity especially with the internet exposure that it seems to have. NBA has gotten benefit of its immense popularity by launching a worldwide competition called the Premier Fantasy Championships. This competition is regarded as being among the largest and most exclusive fantasy sports competitions. NBA has also launched a program called Fantasy Hoops that gives fantasy sports players all of the information and news which they need from the happenings within the world of fantasy basketball.
Fantasy football on the other hand has become more popular then ever and has taken over the mantle of popularity from fantasy baseball. This is mostly associated with the complexities involved in fantasy baseball with regards to the players involvement for the length of time and the far too many number of matches which are played. Fantasy football, on the other hand, gives its players and managers considerably more flexibility particularly in time as the games take place just once a week as compared to daily in fantasy baseball.
Probably the most popular fantasy sports players and games news providers are Yahoo.com and ESPN Fantasy Sports. They gather all the news, reviews, statistics and players performance and provide it on the table for fantasy sports enthusiasts..