Fantasy sports are virtual games which are sometimes known by the name of rotisserie or roto. In these sports players behave as owners of the teams which they build. They compete against other such payers on the basis of statistical information that 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 as per the roster that 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 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 during the dot-com era with a variety of companies investing in this domain. But once this dot-com bubble burst, many of these companies went bankrupt. Some of the more established and long standing companies did find a way to survive these turbulent times and remerged, some with new names like RotoWire.com and a few with new marketing strategies and business models like Yahoo. Over time, notwithstanding the unstable economy, it had been noted that the average American fantasy players spent almost 8.4 hours of surveying the NFL per week as against watching the NFL on TV. NFL was able to recognize the opportunity that lay in fantasy sports and began to run ads for fantasy football featuring existing players. These people were probably the first to identify 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 also among the hardest and time-consuming sports. It follows the Major League Baseball season of 162 games. Fantasy basketball has been said to be inspired from fantasy baseball. Ever since the 1990s fantasy basketball has been increasing in its popularity particularly with the internet exposure that it has got. NBA has taken advantage of its immense popularity by launching a worldwide competition called the Premier Fantasy Championships. This competition is considered to be one of the largest and most exclusive fantasy sports competitions. NBA has additionally launched a program called Fantasy Hoops that offers fantasy sports players all of the news and information which they need on the happenings within the world of fantasy basketball.
Fantasy football on the other hand has become increasingly popular and has now taken over the mantle of popularity from fantasy baseball. This is mostly attributed to the complexities associated with fantasy baseball with regards to the players involvement for the number of days and the many number of matches which are played. Fantasy football, however, gives its players and managers considerably more flexibility especially in time since the games take place only once every 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 of the news, reviews, statistics and players performance and bring it on the table for fantasy sports enthusiasts..