Fantasy Football is now played by nearly 25 million Americans according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. Fantasy football owners gather with like-minded comrades spending upwards of half a day “drafting” imaginary teams that they obsess over for the rest of the year. The ultimate dream of any fantasy football owner is to end the year as champion, hoist a cheap plastic trophy and revel in the accolades and jibes of their friends.
What they don’t realize is that they have become what they once mocked. What they don’t see is that fantasy football is really just Dungeons & Dragons (or World of Warcraft for you younger folks) for sports nerds. Doubt this theory? Here are five reasons why this theory will soon be accepted as law.
Both Are Obsessed with “Imaginary Beings.”
Okay, I hear what you’re saying. NFL players are real people and a Mind Flayer is the mental offspring of D&D creator Gary Gygax the long reigning king of all nerds. While any rational being knows fantasy from reality, your average fantasy footballer has as much chance of meeting Arian Foster as they do a Mind Flayer and at least Mind Flayer would show interest in meeting you, if only with the intent of slurping your brain out of your skull.
Yet this does not prevent a fantasy footballer from reveling in Foster’s 140 yard and two TD torching on Sunday. The bylaws of the man code state that this feat of skill allows the Foster owner to gloat and temporarily claim Alpha Male status.
Both Have Insider Lingo That Outsiders Don’t Understand.
PPR, HP, IDP and DMG are just a few of the innumerable acronyms that fill the hallowed halls (and alternate worlds) of fantasy football and Dungeons & Dragons. This lingo becomes like a second language to the initiated members of these subcultures. They converse, often at socially inappropriate volumes, around water coolers and in comic books shops with all the intensity of a meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
These secret languages act as a bonding device and make devotees feel that they are part of a bigger picture that may or may not have designs of world domination. Tread in these realms without this secret knowledge at great risk.
Both Allow Participants to Vicariously Live Like Action Heroes.
Your average Dungeons & Dragons players were the outsiders who found in the imaginary sword and sorcery roleplaying game a place where they could be the well-muscled hero who saved the princess. In many cases this is the only time these dice wielding heroes get the girl.
Fantasy footballers however, may once have been star athletes, but time has taken its toll and the only way they can taste the glory of old is to dominate their fantasy football league. They rest beer cans on well-developed guts while high fiving friends when Calvin Johnson crushes that poor defensive back enroute to yet another TD. And like Al Bundy they may exhaustively retell their moment of glory story before slipping their hand into the waist band.
Both Pastimes Call for Congregating in Caves.
Dungeons & Dragons players often find themselves descending into caves in pursuit of treasure. In the deep bowels of the earth they are forced to battle everything from trolls to giant spiders. If they have chosen well then they will come out of the cave with experience, riches and perhaps a +1 mace.
Fantasy football drafts also occur in caves. Dubbed man caves, they are most often the one room in the house that the wives have allowed them to “decorate” as they please. Man caves are usually in basements and are often dingy, damp and inhabited (at least in the case of my fantasy football draft) by at least one hairy beast with suspect hygiene that could legitimately be mistaken for a troll. If players perform their task well they will emerge from the cave with the elixir of a great fantasy football team.
Both Have Online Communities Dedicated to Their Widows.
Like Dungeons & Dragons ( and World of Warcraft), fantasy football can quickly grow from hobby to obsession, which has led to the recent proliferation of websites and online support groups dedicated to offering solace and advice to the women who get left behind.
Birthdays are missed. Anniversaries are forgotten. These WoW widows and Fantasy football widows often fail to understand the greatness to which their husbands strive and in fits of anger often banish them to their man caves, to live among the filth and the squalor.
Chris Carney is a freelance writer and longtime fantasy football fanatic. He is a proud, former Dungeon Master and earned many guffaws and a few angry comments when he first suggested this theory at his last fantasy draft, which true to form was held in a dingy man cave.
Originally Published in the August 2010 Issue of Drink Magazine.
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