'Fantasy' has become rich reality

By Bill Griffith, Globe Staff, 9/28/2003

The injury plague that hit the Patriots last week was felt -- although in a slightly different way -- in the world of Fantasy Football.

All last week, fantasy "players" employing Tom Brady as their quarterback, David Patten as a wide receiver, or the Patriots' now-decimated defensive unit as their defense were scouring their leagues' waiver wires and free agent lists, pondering changes to their "lineups" for today's games.

Listen to team "owner" Cory Thomas of Melrose on this game within a game: "Fantasy Football takes a great TV sport and makes it even better. You get together with your buddies and watch the games and you are hanging on every play. Something always is happening, whether it's a player on your team scoring or a friend's player getting injured. It's all about bragging rights with your friends. Plus, the advent of the Internet has made it so easy for anyone to play. Our league has been up and running since 1995, but the last few years we've gone to Internet-based websites for help running our leagues, and it's great."

He's hardly alone. The NFL estimates that there are 12 million-15 million fantasy players out there. And, best of all for the league's TV partners, when they tune in to watch football on TV, they tend to watch at least twice as long as the average viewer.

J.W., a team "owner" in the No Name Football League, said, "It's awesome to come to work a little bit early on Monday or stay in at lunch and go online to check out how your team did. It also keeps you away from any serious gambling on football."

But, he said, there can be a downside. "The advent of DirecTV made five people drop out of our Sunday night basketball game in Stoneham because some guys would rather flip the channels all evening monitoring their fantasy teams."

While that isn't so good for Sunday night basketball, it's just what the DirecTV people want to hear, as they have exclusive rights to air out-of-market NFL games around the country via the NFL Sunday Ticket package. An "enhanced games" feature provides four additional channels where subscribers can watch one game and see scores and stats from others on the same screen. In addition, the viewer gets an alert when teams in other games are in the "red zone."

All of the above is great news to the folks at www.espn.com, www.nfl.com, www.cbssportsline.com, and thousands of other websites that cater to fantasy players, many of whom are willing to subscribe to the site for information.

But it may not be such good news for employers who use software to track the websites employees are visiting during working hours. Misuse of company computers was one of the offshoots of Fantasy Football examined in a segment of HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel," which was on last Tuesday and re-airs tomorrow (10 a.m., 8 p.m.) and Friday (6 p.m.) and is on HBO2 Tuesday (6 a.m.) and Wednesday (3:30 p.m.).

The networks have taken notice, too. Fox Sports New England airs FSN's national "Ultimate Fantasy Football Show" at midnight Saturday (re-aired Sunday at 10:30 a.m.) with analysis by former NFL quarterbacks Warren Moon and Erik Kramer.

"Fox NFL Sunday" runs a complex graphics package for its first 20 minutes, geared to late injury and weather news, and ESPN runs a crawl during "Sunday Night Football" giving statistical updates on players. CBS cut a deal with Stats Inc. to provide both pregame and in-game material for the network.

The folks at nfl.com, citing figures from the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, estimate that fantasy sports has become a $1.8 billion industry.

This week, nfl.com is offering a free preview of NFL Fantasy Extra's customized video highlights -- which features highlights and the local radio calls of the players on "your" team. Normally, the site charges $9.95 per month or $34.95 for the season.

In the old days, cheers would erupt any time the Patriots scored or made a big play; these days, they can break out any time a highlight is shown. Because in the fantasy world, the concept of "team" is very individualized.

Patriots vs. Sox

Deion Sanders looks at the changes on his former Redskins team on "The NFL Today" (Channel 4, noon) before they take on the Patriots (Channel 4, 1 p.m.). Meanwhile, the Red Sox wrap up the regular season with the final NESN telecast of the year at 1:15 from Tampa, going head to head with the Patriots for a second straight week. ESPN2 has cleared this afternoon for baseball (playoff previews if all the participants have been determined) . . . To the many who have inquired into the whereabouts of Sterling Sharpe (his contract wasn't renewed on ESPN's "Sunday NFL Countdown"): He'll surface as an analyst on "Playbook" Nov. 4 when NFL-TV launches on DirecTV. Solomon Wilcots will host the hourlong show (Tuesday through Friday at 10 p.m.) with Sharpe and Glenn Parker. The show will preview the weekend's games with -- yes -- emphasis on servicing Fantasy Football players . . . Mike Gorman and Tommy Heinsohn host "Road to 17," a preview of the upcoming Celtics season, tomorrow on FSNE at 7:30 p.m. New boss (that's a shorter title than "executive director of basketball operations") Danny Ainge goes one-on-one with Heinsohn to discuss the newcomers, the returning players, and the team's plan for the future.

Bill Griffith's e-mail address is griffith@globe.com