Fantasy sports are virtual games which 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 on the basis of statistical information which 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 in accordance with the roster that has been selected.
The Fantasy Sports Trading Association is responsible for hosting conferences for these sports as well as being in charge of ensuring their continuous growth. This association has got 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 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, many 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 such as RotoWire.com and some 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 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. These people were probably 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 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 has been said to generally be inspired from fantasy baseball. Since the 1990s fantasy basketball continues to be increasing in its popularity especially with online exposure which it seems to have. NBA has taken advantage of its immense popularity by launching a global 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 of the information and news which they need from the happenings on the world of fantasy basketball.
Fantasy football on the other hand has grown to be more popular then ever and has taken over the mantle of popularity from fantasy baseball. This is mostly attributed to the complexities associated with fantasy baseball in terms of 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 a lot more flexibility particularly in time since the games take place only once every week as compared to 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 the news, reviews, statistics and players performance and provide it on the table for fantasy sports enthusiasts..