“Fantasyland is dedicated to the young, and the young at heart, and to all those who believe that when you wish upon a star, your dreams do come true.”
– Walt Disney
Yahoo Sports has done some clever branding of its fantasy football program for Fall ’12. It’s probably a pretty good idea. The title for the Yahoo marketing campaign for Fantasy Football is “This is Your Family Now.”
For those who aren’t familiar with the concept of fantasy sports, it’s really quite simple. You pick a team of real players (for the sport of your choice) and then you convert real-time statistics to a point system in order to compete with other teams in your league.
At Fantasyland at Walt Disney World, It’s a Small Small World. But Fantasyland, for you, is a make or break proposition. Win or lose. Do or die.
But when you boil it down to the essence, it is probably just a few numbers and names on an excel file or a spreadsheet. That sounds pretty dry, I know. But the truly intriguing aspect of any fantasy league lies in the personalities. In every league I’ve ever been involved with, this has been the case.
And it is the basis for Yahoo’s branding for the fall football league. Yahoo has developed a number of characters in its fantasy fantasy football league. It was fun to check them out and read their back stories.
The characters rely on basic stereotypes of the kinds of opponents you might run into in a prototypical fantasy sports league. In my years of playing fantasy baseball and fantasy football, I encountered a real-life version of these stereotypes many times.
One of my favorites is “Trader Finagler” and it reminds me of the old Smokey Louis Baseball League and a guy named Dave. Dave got a real rush out of making a trade. And the rush got bigger the more one-sided his trades would be.
Make no mistake. He wasn’t interested in improving YOUR team; just his.
His typical offer was something like three marginal players (who would have next to no value for your team) in exchaange for a marquee player. He’d argue “Hey, I’m giving you three for one.” My response was always, “Yeah, but if you say you’re giving me three one dollar bills for that $10, it’s not exactly a great deal for me.” He’d just cackle. He realized he was busted and he’d move on to the next unsuspecting victim.
Another stereotype is “The Rookie.” I can think of many versions of him. The one that comes to mind is a guy I knew from my work life. We asked him to join our league one year when we had a last-minute vacancy.
He showed up late to draft night in the old FFL (always a red flag) without any reference materials, spreadsheets or anything to write with. It was clear he had done no preparation whatsoever. He just showed up. His entire draft ‘strategy,’ if you could call it that, was to draft rookie players who had played college football in the SEC.
Again, next to no value.
Some of the good-natured guys loaned him a sheet of paper, a pencil and a Pro Football magazine. There were lots of exchanged glances, as in “Who is this guy and Where did you find him?,” as he made pick after disastrous pick.
He quit the league mid-season that year. I’m not sure he won a game.
One of my good friends and former co-owner of the Commanders-in-Chief, Derek, is a great example of “The Researcher.” He had a series of formulas and researched tons of players for our Smokey Louis team that won the title in our last year.
Our friend, Will, joined us to make it a trio on draft night.
I’ve often said he was the brains of the operation (Will, too). And his formulas and research were key elements of us winning it all. But, man, he put a lot of time and effort into it.
That year, we had the draft in my office at Maryville College. By the time draft night was over, we were all physically and emotionally spent!
In the FFL, I was ‘The Commish,’ - a leader and well-liked! Naturally…except by the Garbage Talker! He didn’t like any of us.
There are many other examples of these fun stereotypes on the yahoo football page. And if you are looking for a league this fall, it’s not a bad low-impact, no-cost option (and no, I am not a paid spokesperson!).
As for me, I wouldn’t exactly say that I’m “ready for some football” just yet. But, I will admit that reading about this cast of characters on the yahoo page did provide me with a nice, quick stroll down Memory Lane.
JG
(Source: Yahoo!)
Originally posted 7/23/2012
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