Fantasy sports are virtual games which are also known by the name of rotisserie or roto. Within these sports players act 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 in accordance with the roster that has been selected.
The Fantasy Sports Trading Association is in charge of hosting conferences for these sports as well as being in charge of 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 the year 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. 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 like 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 per week as against watching the NFL on TV. 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 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 over time are fantasy golf, fantasy cricket, fantasy auto racing, fantasy hockey and wrestling.
Fantasy baseball is considered 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 has been said to generally be inspired from fantasy baseball. Ever since the 1990s fantasy basketball continues to be increasing in its popularity especially with online exposure that it has got. NBA has gotten 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 also launched a program called Fantasy Hoops that offers 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 become more popular then ever and has 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 number of days as well as the far too many number of matches which are played. Fantasy football, on the other hand, gives its players and managers a lot more flexibility especially in time since the games take place only once a week when compared with 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..