Fantasy football (association)
Fantasy football (less commonly referred to as fantasy association football worldwide but known as fantasy soccer in the United States) is a game in which participants assemble an imaginary team of real life footballers and score points based on those players' actual statistical performance or their perceived contribution on the field of play. Usually players are selected from one specific division in a particular country, although there are many variations. The original game was created in England by Bernie Donnelly on Saturday 14 August 1971 and is still going strong 45 years later. Fantasy football has evolved in recent years from a simple recreational activity into a significant business due to exposure via the internet.
Fantasy football (American)
Fantasy football has also created several complementary and derivative industries. Team managers will spend on subscription-based information sites such as rotoworld.com, draftsharks.com and Football Guys to gain an informational advantage. Fantasy leagues may also engage services to make their things run smoothly and settle disputes. Leagues may deposit collected fees with fantasy football specific escrow companies, and settle disputes regarding trades or scoring by using lawyer-run fantasy football arbitration websites for a flat fee per resolution. The excitement of drafting a team each year has led to a new derivative of fantasy football: Day or week leagues, which offer the opportunity to draft a new team and play a single game each week. Fantasy football has worked its way into pop culture with an estimated $1.67 billion contributed to the economy as of 2012. TV sitcoms about groups of friends playing each other in fantasy football, cable networks dedicating blocks of programming specifically to fantasy football, 24/7 satellite radio channels reporting fantasy news, and services designed to provide team managers with alerts about their player’s status to their phones.