Fantasy sports: The silent economy (and grades) killer

The NHL season is almost upon us, and so too is fantasy hockey. My buddies and I have passion for fantasy hockey to the point that we often have to cheer against our favourite teams because we have fantasy points riding on the game. I even managed to get my dad involved this season. Not that I think he actually has a shot at winning. I just wanted to build up the prize pool a little. So, last weekend we had our annual fantasy hockey draft kegger where we all sat around and picked our teams. It just happened to be the same night that my mother broke her foot. Needless to say, I was in no condition to give her a hand (or foot) as she hobbled off of the trampoline. Anyway, that's a story for another day as I'm still trying to piece together the night's events.

Apparently, my friends and I aren't the only fantasy sports fanatics out there. Actually, we're far from it. There aren't any solid participation numbers out on fantasy sports, however there are some estimations as to how much it's costing. According to some sources, participation in online fantasy football can be costing businesses in the vicinity $275 to $435 million a week. That's potentially more than $7 billion for the football season alone. That's a shit load of money and they haven't even considered fantasy baseball, basketball, dog fighting... the list goes on (it's an American study, so I doubt hockey would make much of an impact). They've also assumed the average person only spends 10 minutes a day checking their fantasy team. That scared me a little. 10 minutes a day is nothing. I spend 10 minutes every hour checking out my team, and the season isn't even started yet. So, it's a good thing I'm not the average fantasy football player. Because if I was, it'd be costing closer to $60 billion. It's also a good thing I'm still in school and not out in the workforce full time. This way, at least for now, I'm not being a burden on the Canadian economy, it's just my grades that suffer.