Online Fantasy Sports

Online fantasy sports are games that sports lovers can play on the Internet. Fantasy football is a game that has been around for decades and has nearly 30 million participants. Other major sports such as basketball, baseball and hockey also have online venues where people can go to compete against friends or foes nationwide. Even minor sports like auto racing and tennis can be played online. When playing online, fans join leagues at various web sites and select teams made up of players from professional athletes in each sport.

Online Fantasy Sports Overview

Online fantasy sports can be found all over the Internet. Major web sites like ESPN, Yahoo, and CBS Sportsline are all well known for their fantasy sports pages. These sites dedicate many pages to the major and minor sports, and they employ many full-time writers. People like ESPN’s Eric Karabell and Yahoo’s Brandon Funston cover the major fantasy sports for their respective web sites. They write blogs and report stories that impact the games that are important to fans. If you are drafting a fantasy football team or a fantasy basketball team, you might turn to one of these experts for advice.

Fantasy Sports Sites

There are literally thousands of web sites dedicated to online fantasy sports. Some sites not only offer tips on how to play your favorite fantasy sports, they even offer to host the league in which you play. When looking for a place to play your favorite fantasy sport or a place to host your own league, there are many considerations. Some web sites will host your league for free. Others charge a small fee, putting some of the money toward prize money. Some host tournaments paying thousands of dollars to the winner. If you’re already in a league but need a place to run it, you can find a host and simply invite the members of your league to go to the site and join. As league commissioner, you would set up the league in advance and simply input the e-mail addresses of league members. The system will take care of the rest for you.

Other Games

In addition to the more well-known fantasy games, there are less popular fantasy sports that are equally exciting. Online NCAA Tournament pools, for example, are extremely popular in some circles. Like your typical NCAA Tournament office pool, online pools allow you to play a variety of styles without the annoying hard copies and tallying of results. These sites let you pick your winners with other competitors, and the system calculates the results for you. There is much debate about other online fantasy games and whether they fit the category of fantasy sports. A game like Avalon certainly offers the competitiveness of a sport like fantasy baseball, but since it involves role playing, classic fans may not be willing to call it a true online fantasy sport.