Public radio’s ”Marketplace” ran a quick segment last week on the rise and wealth of ”fantasy football” leagues. These are formalized networks of fans who create their own fictional teams, and analyze the stats of their real-world players to determine the winners and losers.
The virtual leagues make real money, drawing membership dues, internet subscriptions, and other service fees from 15 to 30 million fans (there’s even a real professional association for the fantasy sports industry, for goodness sake). And, of course, the professional teams love the energy, the attention, and the obsession with the game that such leagues attract and advance.
It’s a form of fandom now being studied in academia, as well. Researchers at UW-Madison are exploring how such leagues convey knowledge and insight about the game, and how educators might take advantage of that type of learning.
How can arts managers ride the wave? I haven’t figured it out yet. Anyone out there have an idea or an example of engaging arts enthusiasts in a similar fantasy pursuit?
I’ve been thinking about this on and off for a couple years now and just can’t seem to make it work. The challenge is that musicians and concerts aren’t publicly “ranked” or “graded” so there’s no measuring scale to choose your fantasy orchestra from or to pick a winner. We have “baseball cards” for our musicians (that people love) but that’s not quite the same thing. Would *love* to figure this one out!
I proposed to a member of a string quartet recently that her quartet go out on tour with another quartet. Each could play a quartet before intermission, at which the audience would vote on which performance was better. The winning quartet would get to play after intermission and take home 2/3 of the proceeds. This idea would apparently not be particularly popular with string quartets.
I suggested this in semi-jest here:
http://spam-o-matic.org/culture/kapell.htm
but I do think competitions should allow betting somehow.
Great post, Andrew. While I am guilty of playing fantasy football, I’ve also enjoyed participating in the following:
http://fantasymusicleague.com/