The fifth episode of The Elusive Fan Podcast went live today. The subject of this week's show is fantasy sports, and we talk about their humble origins as labor-intensive amateur hobbies and about their transformation into a billion-dollar business. The Commissioner of the CRAS fantasy football league, Adam Grossman, spends a little time revealing the ins and outs of this league, demonstrating that the game itself is far from the only thing that drives the obsessive behavior of some fantasy sports fans.

In light of this week's show, there was a small piece in this weekend's USA Today sports section about Rick Kamla, the NBA's new fantasy television guru. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2006-10-12-nascar-announcers_x.htm
Kamla was a financial advisor but decided to fully devote himself to fantasy basketball. He began writing about fantasy full-time and his production and insights ultimately led to the NBA hiring him. As Kamla's story suggests, there are careers in fantasy sports that were simply non-existent even five years ago. And as the industry continues to expand, the job opportunities promise to increase, as will the demand.

But it's not just in the working world where fantasy sports are becoming legitimate. There are new school curricula being developed to teach math and decision making through fantasy. For example, Fantasy Sports and Mathematics was developed for grades 5-12 as an alternative teaching module for students. Here is their website: http://www.fantasysportsmath.com/index.htm. I wish my middle school math teacher could have used this program.

What was once a home-bound leisure activity is now invading work and school. It's a real sea change in how society is viewing spectator sports activities, and this trend will only become more permanent in the future.

This entry was posted by Ben Shields on Saturday, October 14. 2006 at 14:31. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own blog.