Football Dominates

It's the beginning of June... Well, its early-mid June... And while some of us are still deep in battle with fantasy baseball, it's almost hard not to notice that fantasy football is right around the corner. I couldn't help but to notice that Matt Berry and the crew from ESPN has already come out with fantasy football rankings and has even aired a fantasy football special. This was the last week in May and it made me think about how much love fantasy football gets while fantasy basketball and baseball are kind of left on the back burners.

I first noticed it when the fantasy football season was over and I started playing fantasy basketball. Due to my own negligence, I had drafted two fantasy basketball teams but I didn't really pay them too much attention to them until after the fantasy football season was over. Once I did turn my full attention to fantasy basketball, I noticed how there wasn't a flood of information on things like who to pick up, who's hot, and projections. If there was something about fantasy basketball, it consisted mostly of game recaps. Most of my strategy for fantasy basketball was based on stats, game results and keeping an eye on injuries. I ended up coming in second in one league and winning the other league.

Fantasy baseball wasn't too much different, but it did get a little more attention than fantasy basketball. There was a little more talk online about fantasy baseball than fantasy basketball, but not as much as fantasy football. My strategy in fantasy baseball has been similar to my strategy in fantasy basketball as far as just keeping up with stats and trends.

Even though baseball pioneered fantasy sports, football gets the most fantasy attention. I believe it has to do with the frequencies of the game. In football you have one game a week which allows fantasy experts more time to do more research and come up with projections and predictions. In baseball and basketball, they game is played everyday. There isn't much time for projections and predictions when the next game is tomorrow. This also affects the fantasy player. In football you have all week to set your lineup up. If there is something you don't like, someone gets injured, or you find out someone is not playing you have ample time to make an adjustment. If this happens in fantasy basketball or baseball, you have a minimum amount of time to tweak your lineup. In fantasy baseball and basketball, you have to be on it, consistently monitoring your team for last minute updates. You have to set your lineup everyday as opposed to every week like in fantasy football. You can't skip a day of not checking on your team without it having an impact on your team. I did myself just today by not benching Yasiel Puig. This discourages people from playing fantasy basketball and baseball because they may feel like it's too much maintenence, even though I know most of these players over manage their fantasy football teams. What I mean is they check their team about four times a day. Therefore, with less people playing fantasy basketball and baseball, there isn't a need of an influx of resources for these games.

Over the next few weeks, fantasy football is going to get bigger and bigger. They'll talk about it on social media, there will be draft parties, you'll get advertisements in your e-mail inbox, they'll even talk about it on SportsCenter. Even though fantasy baseball is still in season, you'll notice how much more attention fantasy football gets over fantasy baseball. When it all boils down to it, it's easier to watch 17 football games than it is to watch 82 basketball games or 162 baseball games.