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I've been asked by my lovely female counterpart to write about guys and our relationship with fantasy football (or all fantasy sports, for that matter).  The name alone is probably enough to make our female-readership cringe at the thought of missed chores, broken appointments, or, worse yet, general annoyance at the fact that the man in your life puts forth so much time and energy into something that's fantasy.  Not to say that the popularity of fantasy sports is strictly a male-perpetuated phenomenon (there are always some women in my football leagues every year), but there are an overwhelming number of Y-chromosomes in these parts.  So.....why?

1.  Camaraderie.  The best fantasy football experiences come in leagues played among your friends....high school or college buddies, co-workers, family, neighbors...whatever.  The internet is the greatest thing that could have ever happened to fantasy sports--all you need to play is an email address, some form of connection (yes, even your parents' 28k dial-up will suffice), a couple clicks, and BAM...you're drafting a team in a matter of minutes.  You could decide to fly solo and be placed in a "public" league (sort of the 8th grade dance of fantasy sports....the lights are on, everyone keeps their distance, and it's over relatively quietly.  Or you get a bunch of your friends together (Ed. note:  friends, used in this instance, constitutes anyone that you know in real life and are comfortable trash-talking) and let loose:  build hype, make free-wheeling trades, leave ridiculing messages...what's not to love??  Not to mention getting together for a draft.  A lot of leagues will make a day/night of it...get everyone together at someone's house, drink a ton of beer, and pick teams.  And thanks to this internet fad, drafts don't need to occur in one location!  I've been in the same baseball and football leagues for almost 10 years with the same group of guys, and we're spread around the world (our league manager is in Switzerland, just to give you an idea).  But we pick a date and time when we can all be available (see "some form of internet connection") and do it there (Yahoo! or ESPN).  She was even nice enough to wake up with me reeeeaaaal early on a Sunday morning in August for my draft--if that isn't love, I don't know what is.  

2.  Competition.  The best part about playing with your friends is beating your friends.  There.  I said it.  Am I horrible?  Hell no.  Just ask any other guy in a fantasy league.  Wait, scratch that.  The best part about playing with your friends is winning your league and, hence, gaining bragging rights over your friends until the next season.  Ah, sweet, sweet victory.  Weekly matchups carry a little more weight when you're in a private league against your buddies--take this case, for example.  What phrase carries more weight?  "Team Megatron has some studs at RB," or "I need to kick Rich's ass this week if I'm going to stay in playoff contention."  Maybe you and your friends like to throw down some stakes or a wager...not that this blog condones gambling, but maybe you guys like to play for jellybeans (and the winner receives a whole s*&^load of jellybeans).  Just makes things more fun.

3.  We're going to watch sports anyway.  We might as well have a hobby to go along with..our hobby.  Being part of a fantasy league (if you're a responsible fantasy owner) means staying up on players and stats, and for a lot of us, playing fantasy sports is a way of validating our knowledge--like there's a good reason as to why we memorize yards per carry, batting average, or the dreaded WHIP (if you know what that means, chances are you've been in a fantasy league).

4.  Finally, let's be real about fantasy sports.  They're as close as we'll get to the actual sport.  Ladies, ask your man what he wanted to be when he was a little kid...chances are baseball/football/basketball player was the answer at SOME stage of his childhood (my answer would be soccer player, but then again, I'm an outlier).  So now that we've all accepted our athleticism for what it is (and the fact that steroids can be on the $$ side), we've moved on to more realistic goals.  But that little kid in us will never go away (and all those times you get mad at us for being immature, that's just him popping out to say "hey!") and some dreams never die.  So when we're given the opportunity to pick a team of superstars (and a clever team name to boot), we get to feel like the owner.  We can set our lineups, bench players that we think are underachieving, and even "fire" someone because we don't like their face!  Bahahaha!  Now we're in control of sports, and when the players on our team do well, WE do well.  We hitch our little fantasy wagons to their stars in hopes that we can make our friends look pathetic and weak (thus incurring more ridicule and smack-talk--see points #1 and 2).

Shout-out here to ESPN's "Fantasy Focus Football" podcast...Nate the Hate and TMR forever (but not you, Pod Vader).