"Kramer goes to a fantasy camp. His whole life is a fantasy camp."
The topic is fantasy sports. In particular fantasy football. I've been wanting to write about this subject forever, and there is no better time than now as the season has started (thank god that lockout is over so everyone can get back to their 7 leagues at an average of $5 a piece!) In reality, I could go on, and on, and on about this, and when I eventually don't write a book, this could easily be a chapter, or two, or be the entire book. That being said, I will try to limit this blog to things you may not know or things you hopefully want to hear about.
I'll start off by admitting I'm as guilty as anyone. Why? Because I play fantasy football, albeit reluctantly. That's about where my commonality with the rest of fantasy football players ends though. Many of the things I will write about throughout this blog I do not do. Still, every year, I swear that I'm never playing again, and every year, people ask me to be in, I say no, and they ask again and again, and I say fuck it.
The popularity and prevalence of fantasy makes perfect sense to me, and at the same time, makes no sense. What would be the lure of playing fantasy? The answer: The dream come true of owning your own team, a chance to prove you're knowledgeable about the game (which in reality has nothing to do with it), and getting to compete with your friends. How it blossomed into being bigger than the game itself, makes no sense to me.
We all know how big fantasy is, but let me illustrate it by putting it this way. Think of Bill Parcells. If I told you after Super Bowl XXI, or Super Bowl XXV, or even Super Bowl XXXI where they were runner-ups, that Parcells, one of the best coaches of our generation, would one day be on ESPN's pre game show, you would say "makes sense." If I told you he would play a side role, and would have the same amount of screen time as Matthew Berry, some nerd who never played football and advised people on a game that is played in conjunction with the NFL, you would be thoroughly confused.
(Berry aggravates me more than anyone. Not just because he gets paid to tell people the most obvious things, like Aaron Rodgers is good and Matthew Stafford gets hurt often, but because he is even aware of his meaningless existence. On his twitter he says "I can't believe I get paid for it either." I've reached my boiling point with self-depreciating humor. It was funny in the 90s in Seinfeld when Costanza would sit around and say no women like me, Im unemployed, Im a loser, etc. But when Berry does it, it isn't funny. Additionally, Costanza was a character and had no effect on anyone's life. Berry is real. He does get paid. So he can do his self-depreciating act like "I can't believe I get paid for this," but the fact is, he does. And he's laughing all the way to the bank. And everyone who reads his articles is perpetuating this cycle. It isn't funny - its nauseating.)
So how did fantasy become bigger than the game? How did Berry's opinion become as important and sought after as Paracells or Ditka's? Let's assume that ESPN (and the other networks) did research and found that fantasy is what people want to hear about (if its the other way around, and ESPN is forcing it down our throats, then that's the end of the discussion.) So if it's what people want to hear, again, why is that? As someone who grew up on the game of football, and someone who considers himself somewhat knowledgeable about the intricacies and strategy of the actual game, I find this balance of coverage infuriating.
Again, there is probably an easy answer to this. That is, people dont really care who wins the Jaguars Panthers game, but they care about the impact of the game in their lives, namely, their fantasy teams. I picked two less popular teams, but the reality is, people probably didnt care who won the fucking Packers Saints game last week - they just cared about if Mark Ingram was starting and what they should do with Jordy Nelson. They only care about things that affect them.
But this leads to one of the funny ironies of fantasy football. We assumed that people did fantasy football to prove they're intelligent and know something about football, right? If that's the case, why do they just copy Matthew Berry, or listen to the sage advice of Chris Mortensen or whomever? Doesn't that defeat the purpose? I'm not interested in what Berry thinks you should do with your team, I'm interested in what you do with your team. But that's whats funny (read: stupid and annoying) about fantasy football, people will follow what Berry says and what the projections are, and then act as if it was some stroke of genius on their part.
People get to play their fantasy football teams the same way they play poker and golf. That is, everyone is an idiot or sucks at the game, but everyone thinks they are awesome. You know how people go to Vegas, suck out on Hellmuth, then talk shit to him like they're better than him? That's like losing to the girl in your fantasy league, and then her saying she knows more, or something...(the golf and poker thing is a blog post for another time, one I've been thinking about for a while).
The best thing about fantasy to people is that it offers only reward. If your team sucks, it's the players fault. Eli threw a fucking interception. MJD fell down on the 1 instead of scoring. Cutler got hurt. But if you win, it's all you. The owner is a genius. I lost a game this week because Tom Brady broke the passing record, and the owner said to me "thanks for playing," - like okay, you did it. You're the only person on the world who believed in Brady.
Along those same lines, there is really no knowledge base needed to draft a team. I say this for a few reasons. One, a "ESPN standard" league is 12 teams with a roster of QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, W/R, TE, K, D. So, a total of 108 players. The top 12 QBs. Who the fuck in the world cant name 12 QBs or 100 players in the NFL? So on any day, the 12th best QB (Flacco, Eli, Ryan), could outperform Vick or Rodgers. So what's the point? You might as well play russian roulette. (Conversely, theres one league I enjoy playing in regularly. Its a fantasy baseball league, with I believe 21 roster spots, and 18 teams, for a total of just under 400 players. To illustrate, I am in the final four of the league, and last week Brad Lincoln, Dana Eveland, and Wade Miley were on my starting roster. Im not saying Im some genius in picking those players up, but it shows the depth needed - I don't think we're going to see Billy Bajema on a roster anytime soon.)
Second, when it comes to bench spots, people usually end up taking "best available," - really hard. Finally, in a recent draft, a person who ended up having one of the better teams, selected "Matt" Stafford, and "Chris" Wells, neither of which I heard of before. Fantasy is great to the owner because it takes something that takes no skill or knowledge, masquerades itself as if it did, and then lets the people playing boast about that perceived knowledge.
This isn't to share all my personal horror stories with you, however. I'm certain that you reading at home have gone through several similar incidents in your life. What I wrote was simply to illustrate the allure of fantasy football. If we know what the allure is, we can begin to analyze why that allure exists. That is, why does this fantasy exist?
People love the power/fantasy of owning a team. People love to be knowledgeable. People love to be right. People love to win. It is my theory (and remember I'm not Freud), that people are so attracted to this because they are lacking it in the rest of their life, and are certainly lacking it in the realm of football. You know how when you go to the bar, the loudest person is always the person who knows the least? Well looking at the opposite of that - I'm sure Ditka has no need to own a fantasy team. The person who works in a cubicle all week and reports to his superior and has no creativity/voice and comes home to a nagging wife - fantasy is his outlet. Finally a chance to prove he can do something right!
It may sound like I'm being an asshole, but ESPN thinks of you like this too. Remember when ESPN first got Monday Night Football approximately 3-4 years ago? They featured a series of ads where people suffered through the monotony of their job, all the while they looked forward to MNF. MNF is not fantasy, I know, but close enough. Think of how insulting this is. ESPN thinks of their viewers as a group of people who work at a gas station, animal control, and sit around playing Dungeons & Dragons. They think that their viewers' only excitement in life comes on Monday nights when they view their broadcast. Yeah, my life is so void of joy and excitement that I set an alarm to make sure I don't miss seeing Mike Tirico. What a bunch of condescending bullshit.
But I guess people do think like this. I pity those people. Not because they work dead end jobs at the gas station or for animal control (because after all, Im unemployed and have no room to talk), but because of their need to prove themselves through a fantasy game that has no bearing on real life. It doesn't matter what you do, if you work as a janitor, a teacher, or even for ESPN, you shouldn't have to prove your self-worth through fantasy fucking football. Hate to sound like a parent, but get in the fucking real world.
I was thinking of something the other day that seems unrelated. That is, why people dress up or have theme parties. I never, ever, ever understood this, and probably won't until the day I die. I bring it up because I think it has a commonality with playing fantasy football. While the individual is not proving anything, they're entering a world of fantasy by dressing up.
I understand why women dress up on Halloween. They become sluts because they want to be sluts and show off that they have boobs and it isn't socially acceptable 364 days a year. On Halloween, they can do whatever they want with no rules. Thats easy. Why men ever dress up, I don't know. Men usually dress up in a comedic way, but I still don't get it.
Worst yet is themed parties. I have heard of not one, not two, not three, but five 1920s parties recently. The idea being, you dress up like the Great Gatsby, and.....you go to someone's apartment and drink. Whatever happened to, putting on jeans and a T-Shirt and going to someone's apartment to drink? I can't believe anyone has the time, inclination, or money, to go out and buy a wardrobe fitting for a 1920s party (or any theme), and do this. Fraternities had this every single week in college, where every week would be a different theme (and it was one of 91,085 reasons I didn't join one), and I didn't understand it then. I guess if you were the type of person to join a frat, you're also the type of person who has to wear a funny/slutty outfit to the bar to attract the opposite sex.
What does that have to do with fantasy football? Probably nothing, I think I lost my train of thought. But, I think there is an inherent condition of escapism and insecurity that is prevalent in people and this causes them to take fantasy football very seriously, and makes them enjoy dressing up for parties. I'm not perfect, as I of course am insecure and do things to escape. I just don't act those things out in fantasy football and by playing dress up like most people do. That doesn't make me any better or worse, it just makes me different.
So I think my quote at the beginning is almost exactly right on - Except, its the opposite. So many people's lives are so un-fantastical that they have to live fantasies out in another way. I want to clarify that I'm not pinning this on people's careers. I think careers have a small part in this, but there are other outlets for people to get their fill. Relationships, girlfriends/boyfriends, spouses, friends, colleagues, etc, can lead to a fantastic life. So I'm not a degrading piece of shit like ESPN (and the rest of the world) who sums up everyone's net worth based on their career. (Although, since most of the world looks at people's careers and answer to the question 'what do you do' to be the end all be all barometer of a person's worth, maybe people in 'low end' jobs do feel a pressure to be more vocal and are more insecure.....that's society's fault, not mine). That all being said, I think a majority of people have put themselves in a position in their lives where they are not satisfied, and therefore have to live out these fantasies.
People are the opposite of Kramer (which is obviously what made him such a great character). Think about it, would Kramer need to talk shit on a fantasy football message board, and take it to be the end of the world, and listen to Matthew Berry? No. But his whole life is a fantasy camp (he doesn't even wear a tuxedo to the opera). Most peoples lives are so un-fantastical, that they get their fill by participating in the shit I listed above.
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