Fantasy football leagues score big with fans

(continued from previous page)

Last season, ESPN was forced to apologize to users after network problems shut out some users for long periods. This season, the company has worked to improve performance, said John Kosner, ESPN's senior vice president and general manager of new media.

"It's a challenge to keep things working flawlessly every week, even for the best sites," Kosner said. "We've had a better year, but almost everybody has issues from time to time."

David Katz, head of Yahoo Sports, which has been the leader in online fantasy football for years, says few Web sites face the technological hurdles that confront fantasy leagues.

"Fantasy is hard," Katz said. "You think about how many pieces that must work in concert. Data feeds need to populate each individual team, and every person has a different profile. Millions of people are hitting the site at once to see their live stats. Think about the processing power needed to deliver information to millions of fans at the same time."

"I can't tell you how addictive the whole thing is. It's what made football interesting and accessible for me."

--Simone Kaplan, fantasy football competitor

Daniel Okrent, a magazine editor, is typically credited with being the father of the games when he started Rotisserie League Baseball in 1980. While fantasy baseball leagues took off first, they have been eclipsed by the popularity of football leagues. More than 12.8 million people participate in fantasy football, compared with 4.8 million in baseball, according to the FSTA.

How it works
The most basic fantasy football leagues typically are made up of 10 players, or "team owners." Each drafts between 16 and 20 NFL players. An owner will then be allowed to activate nine players; usually a single quarterback, tight end and kicker, plus four players at the running back position and four at wide receiver.

They are also allowed to draft an NFL team's defense.

An owner earns points based on the performance of the individual players and team defense. Quarterbacks typically earn six points for each touchdown they pass for, as well as a point for every 25 yards in passing yardage they accumulate. Some leagues will award bonuses for touchdowns or passes longer than 40 yards.

The most prized fantasy league players aren't always NFL all-stars. Former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman was considered one of the best NFL quarterbacks of his day but was a terrible fantasy pick because he threw for relatively few touchdowns. His teammate, star running back Emmitt Smith, did most of the scoring for the team.

To learn how a quarterback fares against a certain defensive secondary, or which of their running backs is likely to come off injured reserve, fantasy team owners pore over statistical analysis, read sports headlines, and follow games online and on television. Kaplan said that on Sunday morning--game day--you can find her and Cote sitting in front of their TV set, each with their laptops open as they fine-tune their lineups.

"I can't tell you how addictive the whole thing is," Kaplan said. It's what made football interesting and accessible for me."

Where is all this leading to? The fantasy craze is expanding to unexplored territory. Leagues are cropping up that offer competitors a chance to pick which Hollywood starlet will receive the most mentions in magazines such as People and Us (Weekly)," said FSTA's Thomas. Another is based on picking the winner of the television show American Idol.

And fantasy leagues have only begun to catch on with international sports fans.

"I got a chuckle the other day," Thomas said. "Some guy from India wanted help starting a fantasy league for badminton."