Does your paper write about Fantasy Football?

Didn't see this topic, but wondering-

With the emergence of fantasy games, has your paper (in the 5,000-50,000 range) tried (or planning) to build readership through fantasy football columns/advice? Did it work? Will it ever work?

 

This hasn't become an issue at my shop, and I don't see it becoming one, thank god. Because I would go ballistic if it did.

Regardless of your personal feelings on or participation in fantasy sports, it's not a sport. It's a hobby at best.

And there are dozens of print publications, not to mention the online resources, for fantasy fanatics. They're not going to pick up the Daily Bugle for fantasy information.

 

We do. And it's about as useful as sports collectibles columns once were. But I think fantasy columnists are here to stay.

 

Yes. Baseball, too. We don't have an NFL or MLB team in town, but we do hae a weekly baseball or football page and in it we include a small notebook item about fantasy players that are hot, not and might be good pickups. Small 5-inch thing taked onto the bottom of a notebook column.

 

Unfortunately, we do. And the kicker is it's not a sports guy who writes it, but a columnist from our "lifestyles" section or whatever you want to call it. On top of that, the column runs on Sunday, so even if his advice didn't suck, it's too late for anyone to act on it. Waste of space.

 

OK, I understand that a lot of these are poorly done. But if readers want it, and it's done decently, what's the argument against this? Aren't we supposed to give readers stuff that they want to read? Fantasy sports, and football especially, is huge. Why is it such a big deal for a sports section to put in a little something that appeals to a large chunk of readers?

I can see if there's no feedback or all negative feedback, ditching it. But if readers say they like it, then I don't see why those of us in sports deparments have to act like it's such a bad thing.

 

Personally, I wouldn't want to write stories about fantasy sports.

But I have to agree with JRoyal. If it's something that's going to improve circulation and make the sports section more relevant to our readers, I'm all for it. Same with covering the World Series of Poker.

 

We have a Fantasy Football column and the guy that writes it is a football fanatic - the last several years he's hosted an NFL Draft party/cookout at his house to celebrate the NFL Draft.

If the columnist says stuff like playthough wrote, the column is worthless. If the columnist says something like "you might want to consider benching Joe RunningBack this week because his yards per carry have declined the last three weeks in a row against mediocre run defenses and this week he faces the No.3 run defense in the league" then it might be worth something.

 

I agree- if you have the stuff that playthrough suggests, it is garbage and is not relevant. As is injury reports and stuff the hardcore fantasy geek wants - it's all useless Sunday morning in print. Those players will go to the web to sporting news/insider etc.

I'm talking about appealing to the more average fantasy player who does not want to spend the time pouring through statistical websites.

The way I see it, the right way to write FF columns is analyzthe stats - compare and contrast - and in the end point out the trends that might help the AVERAGE reader make a decision. You can predict who wins games and why anytime during the week.

Besides, don't we, as writers, in preview stories do essentially the same thing by highlight previous stats(games) and hint how a team will win?

I'm not saying that a whole section/page needs be devoted to Fantasy because as someone mentioned - it isn't a sport, it's a hobby. But I would make the argument that if you don't have fantasy, why publish the betting lines?

 

as a former sports writer who is now just a reader i think people who look down their nose at the idea of a fantasy column are out of touch with reality. technically i realize they're right that fantasy football itself is not a sport any more than betting on sports is a sport.

but you guys need to use common sense. newspaper circulations are plummeteing. millions of people play fantasy football and fantasy football fans follow football, obviously. if your paper had a smart and insightful column (with comments like EStreetJoe suggests--not crap like 'bench daunte culpepper because he broke his ankle last week) then you draw in more readers.

 

It's the same as having your columnists/reporters picking the games each week. It's nothing more than filler (albeit less self-important). People who want such information can get it so much more easily and sooner than in the paper late in the week when most fantasy columns run.