Fantasy football better than reality football

by Kerwin Arenas, sports editor

Football season is back and already reaching week five, and seeing all those Fanduel / Draftkings commercials people begin to wonder, have people lost sight in what football is really about?

There isn’t a single football game where you don’t see a commercial advertising fantasy football. “74.7 million Americans plan to participate in fantasy football this year, spending $4.6 billion,” stated by New York post, with statics that came out this year. So the big question is, are people watching football to see how well their players are doing in their fantasy league, or are they are still watching to root for their teams?

Fantasy football is when a group of friends (normally 6-10) take turns picking out football players they think will do well extremely well this year. Each week they will go against one of the  members of the fantasy group and each player is given points by how well the player does that week. The amount of points is determined by how many yards that specific player has run, or how many touchdowns and catches were made. Teachers like Mr. Tesler like to call fantasy football, “dungeons and dragons for football maniacs.”

“I think fantasy football is a good way to bond with people. You get couple of good friends to get in the league and literary you guys can talk about fantasy football for hours. I dont think it gets away from the sport and it helps people actually get a lot more into football and be competitive about it,” senior Frankie Debonis said, “The only thing that sucks about it is losing, and all I keep doing is losing, I’m 0-5.”

But does fantasy football get away behind the true meaning of the sport? With huge corporations like Fanduel and Draftkings. Is Football just becoming another way for football maniacs to gamble?

“No, I don’t think so and I think they are people who take it too far but i feel like it actually enhances the sport and makes it more enjoyable to watch. I feel like our school should start going behind fantasy football and do it for classes like statistics,” special education teacher Mr. Nisonoff said.

While writing this article a major breakthrough occured with major fantasy websites like Fanduel and Draftkings lead them to shut down their websites and companies. This has brought major speculation from the FBI and also from congress. They are being prosecuted and sued for having employees participating in live action fantasy leagues. Nevada recently passed a law banning the use of fantasy football websites in their state.