You might have indeed, at the very least, heard about fantasy baseball, fantasy gridiron football or fantasy cricket. And of course, these are all fantasy sports. But what are fantasy sports, and how did they come into being?
Rotisserie sport, roto or fantasy sport is a sport that permits you to play virtually any season or tournament of a sport, where you pose as both the general and field manager of a team. Fantasy sports are often played using the Internet.
In this virtual game, you assemble virtual teams with proxies of real players of actual professional sports. The teams are then compared against one another using statistics of the players’ performances in real life, which are then converted into points. The points are then totalled and compiled based on the fantasy manager’s roster. A league commissioner (the coordinator and manager of an overall league), manually calculates this point system and computers that track actual results of professional sports are used to compile and calculate these points. Finally, team managers draft, trade, and drop players in all fantasy sports like in a fantasy cricket game which is very similar to real sports.
Due to its detailed and accessible scoresheets and long statistical records, baseball was the first sport used for fantasy purposes. And fantasy baseball originated from Rotisserie baseball, invented by author Dan Okrent and a group of baseball-minded friends in 1980 who met regularly at the Manhattan restaurant Le Rôtisserie Francais. All of them together formed the core of the first rotisserie league.
The popularity of Fantasy baseball gave rise to new statistical services and publications that analysed players from the perspective of fantasy sports and also started to offer team-management strategies. Moreover, advanced statistics, known as sabermetrics in baseball, and a standard in all sports in the late 20th century, created better-informed fantasy players and a more extraordinary array of statistics in fantasy scoring.
The rise of the Internet helped many other fantasy sports gain popularity worldwide. For example, Fantasy sports included the more common team sports like basketball and ice hockey and individual sports, like golf and auto racing.
These fantasy sports that originated in the US slowly caught on in other countries, particularly in Canada, where fantasy hockey is predominant, and the UK, where fantasy football is the most popular sport. Another fantasy sport growing in popularity recently, especially in India, is cricket. As cricket is a beloved sport loved by many in the country, it is no surprise that the cricket fantasy app has become an instant hit since its debut in 2001.
Fantasy cricket players use these applications to become a part of all the fun and action by participating in various tournaments like the T20 and IPL through their devices. Indians, especially cricket fans, adore these apps, and the hype is yet to simmer down.
