subject: Make money playing fantasy sports [print this page] The American male's obsession with sports activities is nothing new, however do this on for dimension: Greater than half of fantasy sports fanatics spend over an hour a day just desirous about their teams.
So how a lot money is spent on Fantasy Sports activities? That finding, along with the fact that one in 4 fantasy gamers spends greater than $500 a yr on the games, comes from the primary-ever sociological analysis of on-line fantasy sports activities members, conducted by Don Levy, an assistant sociology professor at West Virginia Wesleyan College.
These video games, burgeoning in reputation and run by Web sites like ESPN.com and CBS SportsLine, enable regular Joes to create and run teams of actual professional athletes in sports like baseball and football. The teams sq. off in opposition to one another in leagues shaped by friends or workmates, with teams incomes points based mostly on the on-discipline efficiency of, say, Derek Jeter or Peyton Manning.
With upwards of 15 million players in the U.S., fantasy sports are a billion-dollar market. CBS SportsLine, for instance, generated $15 million in gross sales from 1.three million fantasy football prospects last year.
Since fantasy players are inclined to linger on websites -- reading participant profiles, pondering their starting lineups, and sending messages to others in the league -- they attract blue-chip. Responding to fantasy gamers' insatiable need for content, CBS and ESPN are additionally doing extra to include fantasy storylines and themes in their TV coverage of sporting events.
Who's the fantasy sports fanatic?
Whereas fantasy's viability as a enterprise is now unquestioned, little has been heretofore known about the individuals who play fantasy sports.
For starters, the one-year research, made exclusive to FORTUNE Journal, discovered that they are principally male, white, married, properly-educated (over two-thirds of Levy's pattern had a school diploma or higher) and earn a good living.
Of the almost 1,200 individuals queried, three out of 4 earn at the least $50,000 a year, nicely above the national average.
"These are usually not social misfits residing in their mother and father' basement," mentioned Levy. Not surprisingly, the bulk rated their sports activities "fanship" very excessive, with fanship being defined as energetic consumption of sport.
Most attention-grabbing, although, was Levy's discovering that 60 % of fantasy gamers spend over an hour a day just interested by their fantasy team, and eighty five % spent over 30 minutes.
Granted, Levy's sample was skewed towards rabid fantasy players like Larry Dobrow, 35, a Manhattan-based freelance writer who thinks the one-hour-a-day figure may be understated.
"Through the days main up to a baseball or football draft, [fantasy] is pretty much your major concern -- together with work, relationships, and typically hygiene," he said.
Employer beware
Office consultancy Challenger, Grey & Christmas estimates that fantasy football alone will cost employers $196.1 million in misplaced productiveness throughout the present NFL season. That determine may show to be conservative, since it was based mostly on fantasy gamers taking solely 10 minutes out of their work day to manage their teams.
"Productivity goes down the drain," stated CEO John Challenger. "It's like a virus."
Regardless of the impression on productiveness, Challenger says companies shouldn't quash fantasy participation throughout work hours, as the effects of a ban might be far worse than the damage caused by enjoying fantasy games.
Levy's examine quantifies that damage: Two-thirds of his sample spend not less than 5 hours a week managing their fantasy teams, and greater than an third are busy with fantasy sports activities for more than 10 hours a week. These hours can come at any time. During his eight-day Mediterranean honeymoon cruise, Mark Del Franco, 36, recalled logging onto the ship's Web connection to make every day lineup changes. "At that point, my spouse was asking herself if she made a mistake," he said.
The injury extends to fantasy gamers' wallets as well. Since most gamers pony up dollars not just for league entry charges but additionally subscribe to fantasy information and evaluation websites, the money spent by fantasy players yearly can really add up. The common amount spent was $360, Levy found, however 24 % spend greater than $500 a yr on their varied teams.
