Fantasy sports are virtual games that are also known by the name of rotisserie or roto. In these sports players act 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 that is responsible for compiling the points as per the roster which has been selected.
The Fantasy Sports Trading Association is in charge of hosting conferences of these sports and is also responsible for ensuring their continuous growth. This bet to win association includes almost 120 members ranging 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 number of companies committing to this domain. However when this dot-com bubble burst, many of these companies went bankrupt. A few 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 a few with new marketing strategies and business models such as 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 per week compared to 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 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 which have gained prominence over 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 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 especially with online exposure which it seems to have. 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 gives fantasy sports players all the news and information which they need from 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 involved in fantasy baseball in terms of the players involvement for the length of time and the 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 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 provide it on the table for fantasy sports enthusiasts..