I Quit Fantasy Football And So Can You!

Technology has ruined fantasy football

For the first time in 18 years, I won’t be playing fantasy football (FF). Even though I was roped in at the last minute last year, I have been resolute in my conviction, so this is finally the year I step back. I will either experience catharsis or will itch like an addict suffering major withdrawal, but I won’t know until I try.

I started playing fantasy sports in 2000 when I was 15 and have played every since. As my “trophy case” shows, I was a dynasty in my early years. I won at least one trophy every year and 10 trophies in total between 2002–2006. In 2007, I entered the real world and my drought began. Like the 49ers, I have yet to recover my past glory.

At its core, I love fantasy sports. I fancy myself an arm chair general manager, so I enjoy analyzing players in preparation for the draft, finding sleepers, strategically playing the waiver wire priority, and formulating trade proposals. I enjoy this more than the social elements of playing fantasy sports. (Sidebar: If I could start my career all over again, I would go all in on making a career in sports with the ultimate goal of becoming a GM . Given the analytics wave that has taken over professional sports, it would not have been that far-fetched of a goal. But I digress.) Unfortunately, a few monumental shifts in the past 10 years have caused me to quit cold turkey this year:

• Mobile technology & real-time scoring: I started playing FF in the dial-up, desktop era. In those days, scoring was only available on Mondays, once games were over and the systems had time to process the stats. Eventually, sites enabled real-time scoring, but we were still confined to desktop. More important than the ability to check stats on demand, the hurdle to finding a desktop was high enough that I wouldn’t even have the desire to do so. Smart phones changed that. Now that I have ubiquitous access, I constantly check my phone for scoring updates even though I know I have ZERO control over the outcome. Given my personality, I don’t have the self control to not check my phone, so I need to quit cold turkey.
• Running stats ticker (corollary): Equally annoying is the fantasy stats ticker across the bottom of the screen when watching games on TV. Even if I want to just watch a game and not think about fantasy, I can’t avoid it because of the damn ticker that’s running the entire game! Not only does it draw my eyes there, it serves as a trigger to check my phone for a more comprehensive update.
• Information ubiquity (i.e., reduction in information asymmetry): When I started playing, FF was a niche that was frowned upon by the NFL given its pseudo-gambling elements. As a result, finding player rankings and even basic stats required some level of effort to research. Now that FF has become a multi-billion dollar industry, every major publication provides robust coverage. Furthermore, there are even aggregator sites like FantasyPros that provide composite rankings, making it even easier to obtain fantasy information. The FF platforms themselves now integrate data into their platforms and features like auto-drafting make it extremely easy for even the most amateur players to field a competitive team. If I were Billy Beane and I lost my competitive advantage once Moneyball was exposed, I would look harder to find that next edge. I’m not Billy Beane and this is just a hobby, so the “ROE” (return on effort) of research has diminished to a point where it’s not really worth it anymore given my time constraints.
• Increased randomness: I don’t have hard data behind this, but it feels like variance has significantly increased in FF. This could be due to parity at the actual NFL level and its trickle-down effect on FF. I believe this is also being driven by fundamental changes in the way the game is played (e.g., the shift towards a passing dominated league, the integration of spread offense concepts). Whatever the case, it seems like randomness (or “luck”) is now a larger factor in determining the outcome of fantasy games, which I don’t like.

Many people play fantasy football for social reasons and could care less about the above (@FBD — replicating “Little Giants” as a draft strategy and choosing Eli Manning in the 1st round) . I am not wired that way and even though I don’t play for money, I take winning/losing too seriously for what is ultimately a trivial game. I have realized that I can’t control my impulses. If I play, I will spend way too much time each week analyzing match ups, checking my phone early Wednesday morning to see which players slipped through waivers, and second guessing bad decisions. As a result, I have decided to walk away this season.

It is a near certainty that I will play fantasy football again at some point (perhaps as early as next year), so I’m not breaking up. We’ve just agreed to test the waters a little bit.

But to those who are about to kick off a new season: Good Luck!