Fantasy Sports

This is a little different form of social media but to me it can be classified as a type of social networking for sports fans. What I am talking about is fantasy sports. Fantasy sports is people getting together (from anywhere) online and building a team in sports that they think will be the best. These teams are created by real people and compete in real competition every week.

I play both fantasy football and fantasy basketball so those are the two that I am most familiar with. These leagues can consist of families, friends, or random people. They can be found on a lot of different sites, but the two main ones being ESPN and Yahoo. This could be a great way for people to test their sports knowledge and be competitive. This is not just a game, it is taken seriously by most people. Some people even host draft parties to pick the players that they want on their team. The players even offer trades between each other, and pick up players from waivers throughout the season. If a player gets hurt in real life than they are hurt on your team as well, and they need to be replaced in order to continue getting points. Even the top teams go to the playoffs seeing who will become the champion. Lastly, players can communicate with each during game times through something that is very similar to instant messaging.

Fantasy sports are very unique because it is just another form of social networking, but in a competitive sense. It can be linked with social media and pr because fantasy rankings are talked about every week before games on sports shows, even press releases are written about the ever changing ranking of players. Also, these rankings can be found a lot of different places online. Here is an example of the top ranked quarterbacks in fantasy football this week. If your a sports fan and want to compete you should join a fantasy league.