The Football Fallacy
I’ve heard it a million times. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but I’ve heard it a lot: “Baseball’s just too random. I can’t wait for football.” The implication in that statement is that it will be easier to win playing daily (well, weekly) fantasy football than daily fantasy baseball. Fellow Grinders, that ain’t the case. Here’s why:
Popularity
Fantasy football is by far the most popular fantasy sport in America. Really it isn’t close. The latest figures I’ve read show 18 million people played fantasy football last season while just 11 million played fantasy baseball. Anecdotally, how many people do you know that played fantasy football last season? How many of them had multiple teams? Now, ask the same questions about fantasy baseball. See what I mean? More people have played fantasy football. The population of your competitors will be more familiar with the game this fall while the baseball gamers likely have less experience. That’s not to say everyone that plays fantasy football is good at it, but once you’ve played it, it’s about getting better, not learning it from scratch.
Similarity
Weekly fantasy football is much closer in terms of strategy and preparation to its seasonal counterpart than baseball is. The adjustment in going from playing seasonal leagues to weekly leagues is minimal in football while the leap from seasonal baseball to daily is immense. Think about it, Adrian Peterson facing a weak set of linebackers is a solid play in any fantasy football format. Fantasy baseball forces you to mine the depths of rosters to find favorable matchups for a scrub catcher facing a suspect starter. Again, the new convert to weekly fantasy football won’t be at a significant disadvantage.
Preparation Time
To me, this is the most significant one. In daily fantasy baseball, you have 24 hours (or less) to cram a ton of research into your day to set the best lineup you can for the day. With football being a weekly sport, you will have 5 days or so to look at matchups and check injury reports. If the players you like have no injury concerns, you can literally be done with your prep work Tuesday afternoon. Baseball takes a lot more prep work, both in the form of researching stats and matchups and being a hawk to find the day’s lineups to make sure your players are starting. A daily fantasy baseball player can have a significant advantage over his competition if he can spend more time preparing for the day.
Available Information
Being a naturally weekly game, the mainstream fantasy sports industry churns out all manner of positional rankings and stats every week. How many daily rankings do you see for fantasy baseball? The next one of those that Yahoo or ESPN churn out will be the first. Okay, there are some daily starting pitcher rankings, but how about a daily shortstop ranking? Outside of daily-specific sites, they don’t exist. My point is, you can be lazy as hell and still be serviceable at fantasy football. There is a large enough “expert” (don’t get me started on this title) community covering fantasy football that there is really no advantage to be gained by doing more and more research. Baseball, on the other hand, has no such built-in set of cheat sheets.
At this point, you’re probably asking, “What’s the #*&(ing point?”
Here’s the point:
Your competitor is going to be much better prepared for fantasy football than they are for baseball. Putting in some extra work and really getting to know MLB rosters can lead to a significant knowledge advantage over your opponent(s). In a game where the juice drains your bankroll to zero without a 55%+ winning percentage, gaining the upper hand on your competition is critical. On a completely level playing field, only the house wins.
So, are you waiting for football to finally become profitable? That’s a fallacy, my friend.
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RotoKevin is a Top 100 Ranked Grinder, who started climbing the rankings during MLB season of 2011. Rotokevin’s been playing fantasy sports long enough to have owned two generations of Griffeys, Barfields and Fielders. He’s captured seasonal league glory in all four major sports, though claims no particular knowledge of the NHL. He’s dabbled in non-mainstream fantasy sports such as soccer and golf and once attempted NASCAR with spectacular failure. He’s a man of the people and you’ll frequently find him in the $5 and $11-level games at your favorite daily sports site…you know, provided your favorite site is DraftStreet.