It’s Saturday, game day, and a couple are on their weekly supermarket trip. Suddenly, the man checks his phone and sprints out of the store. Was it a burst pipe at home that prompted him to flee? No, far worse. He’d just received an SMS update telling him his star player is injured and he has a matter of minutes to get home and change his team before play begins.

Welcome to the world of fantasy sports, where enthusiasts spend hours of their time every week agonising over the players and formations that will propel their team to the top of the league. Players, also known as “owners”, form leagues in sports ranging from basketball to horse racing. They will either have a certain amount of money or credit to choose a squad rotation, or pick their players via a draft system. Their team’s fate is then based on the real life performance and statistics of the players they picked, and squads are changeable to allow for injuries and dips in performance. 

Some games are free and others are subscription based, with a varying degree of sophistication involved. Interfaces, rules, the number of players, cash prizes available and the number of statistics that are used differ from game to game. And while winning money is a factor, many commentators say the most compelling motivation for players is the prospect of being top dog.

The growth of the industry has also brought with it a flurry of services, from magazines and newswires dedicated to fantasy sports, to specialised algorithmic programmes that help players make the right choices every week. Despite the sophistication and range of niche services, forget about this being a pursuit solely covered by a small group of fanatics. AOL, ESPN, Sky Sports, Telegraph.co.uk, Times Online and Yahoo are among the major players that run games, with a range of sponsors including Barclays, Budweiser, Coca-Cola and Toyota.

“Fantasy sports have been embraced by professional sports and mainstream sponsors. They are no longer thought of as a stat geek’s game or some weird half-brother of fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons,” says University of Mississippi professor Kim Beason, a leader in research on the industry.

According to research commissioned by The Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA), which comprises representatives from more than 140 companies in the US market, 16 million people over 18 years old play fantasy sports in the US. Of these players, 59% make US$50,000 or more annually and 71% have a bachelor’s degree or higher. These players are in the perfect place to engage brands, taking between three and five hours per week to manage their teams, and willing to spend money to get the best possible chance of winning.

“Fantasy sports are a killer application for the savvy marketer, but not many current brands or marketers have figured out how to really harness their power,” says Jeff Thomas, president of the FSTA and founder of SportsBuff.com, a company that has run fantasy sports games for more than 300 partners since 1993.

Andrew Hall, head of product for cricket website Cricinfo.com which has just been acquired by ESPN, sees the potential of fantasy sports on a global level. The website runs games according to cricket competitions that are taking place and has changed its fantasy game formula from a paid- for model to a free-to-play game.

Charging for games had brought in many UK subscribers, but had made it less attractive for players from other parts of the world. Cricinfo.com started its free game formula with the International Cricket Council’s recent World Twenty20 competition, and had 20,000 subscribers sign up within a week. 

Hall says fantasy cricket clearly has major potential: “With a free-to-play model, advertisers are attracted because of the potential of gaining a wide audience, and we are now seeing more users from India, Australia and the rest of the world. It’s too early to say if we will gain significantly more ad revenues, but the signs look very positive.” 

FSTA research shows that 40% of fantasy sports players say that participation increases camaraderie at the workplace, while 16% say playing fantasy sports allows them to make valuable business contacts. Simply put, “getting in” with fantasy sports players opens a whole network of new contacts and potential consumers for marketers. In a sense, fantasy sports playing also acts as an unofficial networking device.

Martin Axford, manager of premierleague.com, the site for English Premier League football, is witnessing this networking happening on a global scale. The site’s fantasy football game has 1.32 million players and while more than 50% are based in the UK and Ireland, there is significant market growth across the world. He points out that 70% of actual traffic on the site comes from international users and that the true challenge is getting those users to play the fantasy football game.

This effort should be helped by the Premier League’s plans to provide its website in a number of different languages to further capture the global audience. For premierleague.com, having a multilingual fantasy football game offers a larger segment of the global audience new ways of engaging with the Premier League. “The fantasy element engages our fans in a way that they will view matches differently, and perhaps take interest in games that they previously had no interest in,” says Axford.

Starting in 2002, the premierleague.com fantasy football game attracted 74,000 players in its first year, which is projected to rise to more than 1.5 million by the end of this season. For the Premier League, a fantasy game is the perfect vehicle to sell their brand to fans across the globe. The message is clear for organisations, sponsors and service providers in the sports market: fantasy games hook fans into your sport and your brand. Just be careful about how you engage them.  

Dan Grogan, who writes American football magazine Athlon/Grogan’s Fantasy Football with his brother Kelly, says: “Fantasy fans are really what you would consider to be in the top tier of sports fan and they are very loyal, especially if you can become a reason for their success.”

But Grogan points out that although he has made many friends through producing the publication, people will remember when you become a reason for their failure. “I feel a ton of pressure with our magazine, and definitely lose sleep over our weekly Scouting Report, where it often goes down to the wire between recommending one player over another,” he says.

Bob Harris, senior editor for Fantasy Sports Publications, a suite of five fantasy American football titles, says fantasy audiences want every angle covered. “They want to know about all the minute things that will mean the difference between winning or losing; if there is a pimple on a footballer’s backside that makes him a step slower, fantasy players want to know about it,” he says.

One such operation providing players with tips and breaking news is RotoWire.com. Peter Schoenke, a co-founder and former reporter for Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, says marketers need to work closely with these companies to understand the various pitfalls that can occur with badly executed projects.

Schoenke, who is also secretary for the FSTA, points out that fantasy sports players are a quirky audience, and that you have to work closely with people that know the industry to get attuned to their needs. “Producing offerings takes time and money, complex database applications and hard work on the tech front. It’s not a piece of cake,” he says. He adds that the product needs to be well made and target the right audience. “Either you make a basic product for beginners or pitch to the hardcore gamer, don’t fall in between,” he adds.

FSTA president Jeff Thomas says that brands already receive strong value just from sponsoring major college games, pointing out that there are huge vacancies to be filled in the fantasy market: “Aggressive brands will get in now and try to own a market segment. Once a major brand makes a significant commitment to creating an image in a market segment, others will not be able to follow.”

What’s your fantasy?
The fantasy industry is growing worldwide and some unexpected niches are opening up

Celebrities - If you read gossip magazines, put your skills to the test in the Tabloid Fantasy League. Select your team based on who has the most photos appearing in a selection of top celebrity rags. So if you know who’s been in the latest custody battle or scrap with the paparazzi, get started at www.tabfl.com.  

US Congress - Show elected officials how it’s done on the Fantasy Congress at www.fantasycongress.com. Choose politicians for your team and get points based on their legislative success, media coverage, speeches, attendance and a “maverick score” for taking a stance against their own party.

Formula One - Choose your drivers and constructor and in certain games, engine and chassis. Zoom up the league based on their performance, you wannabe speed demon. 
 
Investment - Broke in real life? Don’t sweat it, join a fantasy investment game where you can get virtual cash and prove your trader potential. It’s almost better than making real money!