THE ORIGINAL SOCIAL NETWORKING every week for a chance to win a cash prize.
Like Yahoo, the most popular sport is football, with baseball being a distant second.
The Internet has allowed fantasy players to get a live update of players’ statistics and the latest scores and news on injuries.
“It’s absolutely caused the explosion of fantasy sports,” said Alex Riethmiller, spokesman for CBSSports.com.
Even though they’re not played out in reality, fantasy sports are not immune to legal disputes. Just like in the world of professional sports, trade issues do arise in fantasy sports.
Enter Marc Edelman, founder of Sportsjudge.com.
A sports law professor at Seton Hall University and Manhattanville College, Edelman has been resolving fantasy sports disputes for eight years, presiding over several hundred cases.
While the decisions wouldn’t hold up in a court of law, that doesn’t stop a player from bringing a case against a fellow league member.
It started with a few favors, meeting at a bar and deciding a case over beer, both sides presenting their cases in several documents, which includes the league constitution. Then in January 2007, Edelman launched the Sportsjudge.com. He charges $15 per dispute.
He upholds about 75-80 percent of the trades.
“My rationale in doing that is not that I was looking to make money off the site, but I firmly believe fantasy sports should be regulated in a court of law much like any other business industry,” Edelman said.
Though the viewing demographic for sports has increasingly changed to include more women, the fantasy version sure seems to be a guy thing.
In a 2007 study, the Fantasy Sports Trade Association found that approximately 93 percent of fantasy sports players are men. The average fantasy sports player spends an average of $467.60 per year playing fantasy sports, is 40 years old and lives in the United States.
Though money is at stake in many fantasy sports leagues, players say what they love most about the game is having fun with their buddies.
Quigley jumped around the country as a youth, growing up in New York, Florida and Illinois. He initially joined in order to stay in touch with his friends from back east.
More than 10 years after he started fantasy football, Rosales is still playing the league with the same friends from high school.
“In general, what kept me going through the years is it helps me keep in touch with my friends,” Rosales said.
Many users find that playing fantasy sports forces them to keep up with games.
“I’m a sports junkie,” said Quigley, who watches the games online. “It gives me one more way to watch sports.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 10, 2007. Read the original PDF.