MLS Fantasy Boss A Fantasy MLS Community
Guest Author: Josh Wardini
The roots of the game that we are going to write about in this article date back to the middle of the 20th century. Surely the Oakland based businessman Wilfred Winkenbach didn’t think that he was laying the foundations to a multi billion dollars industry when he devised fantasy golf. Even though at first it didn’t become a widespread hobby or business, it was the starting point of something really big.
After spreading to other games such as baseball and football, the first glimpse of the modern game that fantasy sports are today was in the 1980s when a guidebook was published and more than a million people started playing fantasy sports.
The game got its biggest boom with the introduction of the commercial internet in the last decade of the past century. In USA and Canada there are more than 59 million people who play the game in which you need to create a virtual team out of real players and compete based on the performances of the players in soccer, football, basketball, baseball or hockey.
Is it similar to betting? Yes, in many ways it is, but there is a sufficient amount of research and strategizing involved to label fantasy sports a game of skill. Luckily, as betting sites at large are banned in the US, but fantasy sports thrive.
There are stats which point to the fact that the 32 million Americans who play fantasy sports spend a total of $15 billion dollars per year and given that money prizes can reach up to $2 billion it is no wonder why people are starting to get addicted to it. As a matter of fact, 80% of players plan to play fantasy sports in the next 10 years, and 44% say that they will play for life.
Another factor that can explain the huge popularity of the online game is that fans feel that they are a part of the game they love, as they create their teams.
Take a look at the infographic which follows to find out something more about the game that has taken online gaming to another level.
