"A Rich Fantasy Life: Sports Fans Dream of Making a Living Off Games"

From The Wall Street Journal

Review by Cara Yaworske in SRM 435 (section 2)

Fantasy sports are a booming industry. With football being the most popular sport in fantasy, people will play in leagues regardless of their interest or knowledge. Players participate by joining leagues, either with their friends or random. Some require buy-ins and others are free. There is a set date and time where the league will complete their draft and players will take turns creating their fantasy team. Each player will act as though they are the general manager for their team by making executive decisions such as drops and pick-ups each game. Some leagues are just for the social fun whereas others have monetary prizes. One lucky man defied the odds and took his winnings further than anyone would ever think of going.

The article chosen primarily talks about Drew Dinkmeyer, a 31 year old male, who felt that he was successful enough in fantasy sports to quit his full time job and make a living off of his earnings. Dinkmeyer began playing fantasy sports when he was 9 years old and now plays every single day with up to $500 on the line per game. He became very popular for his decision that he now writes and hosts his own radio show about fantasy. The article goes on by talking about how in 2012, $1.7 billion dollars were spent on fantasy sports and daily-fantasy games, like the ones Dinkmeyer participates in, contribute $492 million of that total. Fantasy sports have gained up to about 30 million participants in North America alone and the percentage of women participants have increased to 20%. A small handful of people in 2012 won at least $40,000. While the number of people winning that much money is very small, the fact that it is still a possibility is what is making this industry boom.

Fantasy sports are a very smart aspect of the sport marketing industry. It is exempt from the law forbidding online sport gambling, which makes it legal to participate. It increases viewers during every game of every sport and also increases the use of social media and apps so participants can watch their results. It is a booming industry because there are plenty of free leagues available. There are leagues with different buy-in amounts and different grand prize winnings that it is almost guaranteed to find one to please everyone.

This subject is very important to our course and our subject because there are many aspects to the sport marketing industry and it does not always include physically being at a sporting event. Fantasy leagues alone promote teams, players, apps, social media, and the game day providers. It is an industry gaining more and more participants every year and hopefully working to continue to grow.

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Review by Matt Kaiser in SRM 435 (section 2)

Fantasy Sports is beginning to become more than just a hobby in America. With what started as a group of friends competing against each other, people all over the world have begun making serious money playing a tactical game behind their computer screens. So much money in fact that jobs are being quit in order to focus on this game of luck. The article we chose talks about this exact phenomenon that is sweeping the country and some of the few that have already left their jobs to become professional fantasy sports players while offering their expertise and helpful insight on fantasy radio shows and websites. The two individuals discussed were working more than decent jobs as a stock broker and investment analyst, where interestingly enough both jobs deal greatly with numbers. Fantasy sports is an industry that brought in $1.7 billion in 2012 alone with $492 million of that coming in the form of daily fantasy games. It says that up to a quarter of the 30 million fantasy players engage in daily games and that around 100 people earned as much as $40,000 last year, slightly less than average national income. Certain websites have available winnings of $2 million weekly and even held a $200,000 fantasy baseball championship in August of last year. Buy-ins for websites like these are usually $1 to $500 and considering the amount of players and amount of big winners, numbers will prove the same people keep winning while millions of others leave empty handed. Which is where this game of luck suddenly seems to be a game of talent. The main players look in to many statistical factors before putting together their team, which shows that maybe there is an actual science behind what these “pro’s” are doing.

As the fantasy world has exploded, many more commercials are popping up promoting fantasy sports. Almost all of the major television stations offer their own version of fantasy sports and while airing a national game they will promote their networks fantasy games. Certain channels even offer their own television shows geared solely towards fantasy sports and websites where daily money winnings are available have begun promoting on major television networks through cable and radio ads. Marketing campaigns are more than viral now, as they are now featured on billboards and magazines. If you go to the sports section of a magazine rack you will most assuredly find more than a few different magazine publishers version of fantasy sports filled with expert predictions and analysis. Whether through paper or fiber optics, fantasy sports is becoming a cash cow and everyone seems to have taken notice. Potential earnings are being realized in this booming business and I truly feel there will only be a heavier emphasis on marketing and sales in the very near future. Fantasy sports are relevant to this course because of the increase in marketing promotions that have taken place over the last several years. TV shows are being made focused around fantasy football and with what started out as one or two players featuring in fantasy commercials a season has turned into several players running many different commercials. As the business begins to grow and more people start playing for money the sales will go through the roof.

SRM Alumni Updates - September 3, 2013

Elle Bunn (’11) is now the Director of Community Relations for the Charlotte Checkers.  Elle has held various positions with the organization since May 2011.

Dana O’Brien (’13) accepted a position as Assistant Soccer Coach at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania.

Patrick Pelletier (’12) has been promoted to Food & Beverage Manager for the Salem Red Sox.  He has been with the team since January 2012.

"Social media communication has changed baseball -- but not for better"

From the San Jose Mercury News

Review by Justin Graves in SRM 334 (section 2)

After the Oakland Athletics beat the Texas Rangers in a game of small ball, Rangers starting pitcher Matt Garza went on a Twitter tirade, even calling out the wife of one of Oakland’s players. Throughout the game, A’s infielder Eric Sogard and others laid down bunts that Garza is known having trouble fielding. Apparently at some point, Sogard’s wife said something to get under Garza’s skin, and he lashed out on Twitter, using severely sexist and even misogynistic terminology. Garza has since made his Twitter account private and “apologized” for his inappropriate actions. 

The article goes on to talk about how social media is changing the way players communicate in baseball, but not for the better; at least in this case. Before the game (ironically), Rangers manager Ron Washington was interviewed about the whole concept of Twitter. Washington admitted to not even knowing what Twitter was, which can potentially be a major problem for his players’ sake.

Looking at this issue, it could not apply more directly to this class and what we are learning about. Matt Garza provided a prime example of exactly what not to do with social media. By now, we are all following our favorite athletes on Twitter, Vine, Instagram, and every other possible social media platform. We use these platforms to feel a part of these athletes’ lives, and they use it to interact with their fans and each other. This can be a risky platform because, as Garza so wonderfully demonstrated, athletes can get caught up in the moment and say things they don’t mean. Or maybe they mean exactly what they mean, but it isn’t meant for the public to hear or see.

A’s manager Bob Melvin was also interviewed before the game about Twitter, and he unintentionally pointed out the pivotal downfall in players using Twitter so avidly; once you write a post, there is no going back. Sure, you can delete it later, but you’ve already sent that tweet out for thousands of fans to read, and take screen shots of. You can make your account private, but people have already seen, and taken screen shots of those tweets you sent. Matt Garza both deleted the tweets and made his account private, which really didn’t change anything. I was able to search Google Images and within seconds I had thousands of pictures of the tweets that Garza sent out. Other than the fact that the tweets were mildly disturbing, they were immature, inappropriate, and childish.

The problem with athletes using social media, specifically Twitter, is that they get frustrated, grab their phone, send an angry tweet and five minutes later they immediately regret what they just did. However, as was just mentioned, there is no turning back from what is now available for the entire Twitter universe to see. The other problem is that baseball managers have no way of controlling their players from doing so; they are too old to even understand what Twitter is or how to use it. Baseball is one of many sports that is adjusting to the online world, but they have yet to figure out a way to lay down a sort of “code” on the etiquette players should take on to the social media world. In fact, this isn’t the first time that Garza has gotten “in trouble” for his tweets. Earlier this year Garza went to Twitter calling out Cubs (who he was playing for at the time) fans being “fake” and being excessively negative. While Matt Garza may be somewhat of an extreme case, it seems as though the MLB needs to try to pull in the reigns a little on their players and what they post on their social media accounts. However on the other hand, they are simply humans that have strong emotions as the rest of us, but they have much more of a spotlight on them. Maybe Matt Garza just needs some anger management courses.

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Review by Kenta Kuroki in SRM 334 (section 2)

As we talked about the class for the print media, we have been seeing tremendous changes in providing contents from a paper to a screen in the web. Because of the progress of technology, everybody could be a part of media, which is good. Of course, players could say everything if they want to do. But, at the same time, it becomes more difficult to keep their privacy. Here is an example of bad case for using social media as celebrities. 

Texas starter Matt Garza insulted A’s infielder Eric Sogard and his wife by using the Twitter on the weekend after the game. He tweeted badly because Sogard did a bunt to score knowing that Garza has a trouble with his fielding. Garza said that “It’s a man’s game so keep you trap shut!” apparently to Sogard’s wife. After a while, he seemed that he deleted his tweets, but that was too late. Followers, reporters, and fans knew what he did it.

The article also talks about some problems related to sports communication in baseball by using the current technology. The manager Ron Washington in Texas Rangers did not what the Twitter was before the scandal happened. I think this could be really problematic because the boss should know what is happening in this world as a responsibility of their work. Moreover, the article says the bosses in the sport team might have lack of knowledge how to treat with the Internet things for players, which they should fix that as soon as possible. As another problem with the social communication including the Twitter, the article says “Once you write or say something and post it, there’s not going back.” As I mentioned about the Garza’s case, it is really right. As I found his tweets on the Google images, possibly every baseball fan might know what he has done even if he deleted his stuffs. As a last problem, baseball has many games and more games than other sports have, and that makes baseball get troubles to talk about a lot of things related to games according to the article.

Before going to the conclusion of this paper, I need to mention that other sports players besides baseball do the same thing like the Garza’s case, and actually put the video into our Powerpoint. I found interesting because athletes says something which is not appropriate to speak up as their life standpoint. I mean that celebrities have less privacy and more limitation, so they should be careful on the statement.

This article is relevant to our course because we should know what is happening around us, even if it is a basic level just saying that be careful to use social media as athletes. Lastly, to avoid the Graza’s case, we need to educate players as well as possibly coaches, managers, and maybe everybody related to sports industry. For Garza’s case, he should not use social media as my opinion because he cannot draw the line whether it is ok or not.