Fantasy is a sport that accepts all genders.
Until you play it and realize it’s strictly drafting male players.
According to Randle, the entrance of fantasy changed the addiction of football. First he considered the role of fantasy football. Suddenly people craved watching every game and knowing every statistic. He introduces the connection between fantasy and mass media. Although he only spends a page on the topic, he provides the idea that fantasy has boosted the drive for mass media. Suddenly we have created experts on fantasy and writers analyzing the best players to pick up.
Fantasy is a booming phenomenon which boosted the appeal for sports. One such crazy change was the sudden advertising for fantasy sports. Direct TV began playing commercials for fantasy football and then advertising where people should look for information. This drives the economy because people are putting money in and are looking up professional information so they can win their league. So how this craze of fantasy playing begin and why did it work out so well?
To understand, he broke down these thoughts by looking at the main audience of fantasy. It seems the relatively younger crowd seemed much more intrigued by the thought of running their own team. In a surprising twist, he also shared the breakdown of gender in fantasy. Before playing fantasy, he provided statistics of the overall interest in sports. It seems that early teens are very into playing and watching sports. The gendered interests were similar which was surprising. Most girls genuinely wanted to participate in sports. So how did we lose this audience in transition to fantasy? Only 1/3 of “owners” are female today, thus losing the drive to watch and participate with fantasy sports. Kinder states that although the numbers look promising as an equal audience, males drive more to learn numbers and compete; thus stating females are still the ultimate minority. While Randle does not provide evidence as to why we lose the female audience, he does provide the different reasoning as to why the genders play.
He determines there are a few reasons as to why people enjoy fantasy football. He states that being a sports fan for males involved knowing the numbers and analyzing each game watched. The definition of a sports fan for females is cheering and attending the games. Girls may not want to play fantasy because it is more about knowing the numbers.
To understand the new craze with fantasy, Randle made a couple of hypothesis as to the overall connection between watching sports and enjoying fantasy. After comparing viewer numbers, the three out of five that were completely supported were: fantasy sports participation and watching sports, more participation came from hours engaged and the constant checking of scores meant more watch time. These appear obvious because in order to have a successful team, one must understand the variables leading into the player.
One of the unsupported hypothesis was the connection of playing sports and playing fantasy. This would show evidence that although many females play sports, it does not mean females desire to play fantasy.
The overall realization is there is an increased connection between playing fantasy and watching sports; however, we are still unsure what the true effect fantasy plays on all levels of sport appeals.
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