Sometimes a fantasy

I have a confession to make. I play a game whose very name polarizes almost everyone into fans or haters. The players of this game know full well that we could lose our girlfriends over it, that we'll get scorn, hear derisive laughter, and just generally be thought less of. And so we hide in our communities of like-minded gamers who understand us, and we have to accept that the people who don't play look down on those of us who do.

No, I don't play Dungeons and Dragons. I play fantasy football¹.

Okay, I'm being overdramatic, and the stigma and stereotypes of fantasy football are not nearly as strong as those reserved for players of for Dungeons and Dragons or other computer games (some of which I've experimented obsessing over). Still, I've found that admitting to playing fantasy football can pull out some shocked and disappointed looks in those who have difficulty understanding the appeal of the real-life football, let alone the kind of football whose name suggests is make-believe.

Maybe that's the problem: it's called "fantasy", a word that suggests daydreaming at best and delusion at worst. And let's be honest, it's a word that always carries at least a slight insinution of sex, much to the delight of those people who want to believe that the entire sport of football is nothing more than a mask for homosexuality: "Oh, so it's not just enough to watch those guys in the tight pants, huh? Now you have to fantasize about them, too?!"²

The frustration over fantasy football is one that I can partly understand. If you're not interested in something, and someone you know is, and talks about it a lot, and it takes up a lot of their time, it's going to be a source of frustration, no matter what it is.

But still, it's a game that holds plenty of appeal for a lot of people. Why?

1. It's a game, like any other. Some people couldn't care less, and some people love it to the point of obsession. And even among those people who are only slightly interested in any game, how easy is it for any game to turn ugly? Who among us hasn't been involved in a game of Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit that's ended with someone at the emergency room getting plastic pieces surgically removed from a body cavity?
2. There's a great element of community to it. Maybe the word "community" romanticizes it a bit more than it deserves, but talking about and competing in any game with close friends is something that has an appeal that shouldn't need describing. There are a couple of guys in my league that I haven't seen in years who I would never have contact with if it wasn't for this game.
3. It gives more importance to the games you wouldn't otherwise care about. If you're already into a sport, the fantasy games let you care about those real-life games and players that you wouldn't even give a second thought. Maybe this only increases the dislikablity of it for a lot of people, since it encourages more time spent on something they don't like in the first place, but for those of us who enjoy the sport in the first place, it's great.

For those of you who don't like fantasy football—everyone from the eyebrow-raising skeptics to the five-minute-ranters—I'm not trying to encourage you to like it. If I could not care about football both real-life and fantasy, I would. It's a timesuck that I enjoy, but would be just as happy to live without. But I'm just amazed at how much vitriol and disdain some people reserve for something that, at its heart, is just a game.

¹ I was going to link this to the wikipedia entry for fantasy football until I saw that the entry said that it's "sometimes called Fairy-tale Football". In my years of playing fantasy football, I have NEVER heard it called Fairy-tale Football, and I think that's an edit from someone was laughing hard as that was written. But if you need a description and explanation of the game, here it is.

² I wonder if gay football fans are ever accused of supressing their latent heterosexuality ("You're watching football again?! Admit it: you're hetero!! Stop lying to yourself and go find a woman!").