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Sidelines Kalani Simpson |
Playing fantasy sports
like a bat out of hellYOU may think that this "fantasy" sports business has really gotten out of hand.
You may be right.
Forget co-workers talking trades during breaks or sneaking peaks at fantasy standings during moments of down time or even TV sports guys talking on the air about how their teams have tanked. The latest sign that stat freaks will soon rule the world is the "National Fantasy Baseball Championship," which is going on now, after having held a live draft March 20 with picks being made simultaneously in Las Vegas, Chicago and New York.
"We had 232 people," says Fantasy Sports Trade Association president Greg Ambrosius, who is directing the league, "at $1,250 each."
That's no typo. They were divided into 15-team leagues, with each champion to take home five grand. The overall winner? He or she gets $100,000. It is, according to parent company Krause Publications, which is putting up the dough, the largest prize in fantasy sports history.
You have got to be kidding me.
Who does something like that? What kind of person spends more than $1,000 to play fantasy sports?
Two words: Meat Loaf.
Yes, that Meat Loaf.
"Meat Loaf really was kind of the demographic we had," Ambrosius says.
"Big-boned" rock singers?
"Fiftyish with discretionary income," Ambrosius says.
"Twelve-fifty didn't bother them at all."
Yes, fantasy hasn't just gone mainstream, it's gone high stakes. Ambrosius, who has been in the business 15 years, says the research shows the average player is male, professional and with the kind of money advertisers crave.
The leagues -- Major League Baseball and the NFL -- have even decided to get in on the act. "You're seeing the TV networks realize what this is," Ambrosius says. " 'This isn't this geeky niche audience that we thought it was. This is our hard-core fan.' "
Ambrosius is a story in himself. This -- fantasy sports, forecasting stats -- is now his full-time job.
"I was a newspaper guy for seven years," he says. (Great, now half the sports desk is going to quit to turn pro.) Well, he didn't make much money that way. "I'm living in my mobile home looking at the classified ads," he says, and there it was: editor for a debut rotisserie-baseball magazine.
"I've lived here my whole life and never heard of this damn city," he says. He thought it might be a joke.
But he took the job and he moved across the state to Iola, Wis., (population: 450) and the industry grew.
To the point where this fantasy-sports business has really gotten out of hand. And it's actually become socially acceptable. And Ambrosius is running a $100,000 league featuring Meat Loaf.
You can't make this stuff up.
But he, like so many others these days, loves it. Talk about dream job. And he's still in "six or seven" leagues himself, even though it's what he does all day.
"I'm still in my family league, where grandma drafts against the nephews," he says.
"I don't win a whole lot of titles.
"My cards are on the table when I lay out my magazine."
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Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com