Internet, Sports Business, and Sports Media: No Internet, No Fantasy Sports!!

Is it real? or Is it fantasy?

According to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, Fantasy Sports steadily grows 10-12% to reach revenue 1 billion per year. But do you know the beginning of this 1 billion industry?

Beginning of Fantasy Sports

Many people do not realize that fantasy sports have been around since the 1980s. While at a restaurant in Manhattan named La Rotisserie Francaise with friends, a sportswriter named Daniel Okrent invented the first fantasy league. At the time, because of the name of the restaurant, it was given the name “rotisserie baseball.” The friends had their first draft, kept up with statistics through “The Sporting News” magazine and recorded those statistics by hand.

How can fantasy sports be successful?

In the past 30 years, fantasy sports have become one of the most popular games related to the professional sports world and earned over 1 billion each year. Why?

Answer: Internet and Mobile device.

Using these two "magic" makes fantasy players easier to manage fantasy teams and trade with other fantasy players. When players use internet and mobile device to enter the website, there are more chances that they will see the related advertisement. This industry generates most of its revenues from advertisements and posts double digit growth rate from 2007.

Industry Leaders

While Yahoo!, ESPN and CBS are the most visible industry players, online fantasy sport platforms are relatively simple to develop and that is the reason why the internet can promote fantasy sports to earn more and more revenue. The market of the industry is still growing and the internet and mobile platforms will play the most impotant role to attract more and more fantasy players.

Today and Future

An estimate provided by the Fantasy Sports Trade Association showed that 29.9 million people age 12 and above in the U.S. and Canada played fantasy sports in 2007. With this growth, channels like ESPN now broadcast hour-long shows devoted to fantasy sports and players prior to major sports seasons. There are magazines specifically about fantasy sports along with major sports magazines devoting entire issues to the game.

There are now fantasy leagues for all types of sports, from baseball to golf to auto racing, with millions of men and women joining in each day. With this gaining popularity, fantasy has also grown to include non-sports related games, instead focusing on celebrity gossip, movies, politics and reality TV. No matter the chosen sport or hobby, fantasy leagues have become a big business today and in the near future.