Spring training is underway, and for millions of baseball fans that means it’s time to start over-analyzing players and stats to fill their not-real, totally-made-up team rosters. Welcome to a new season of fantasy baseball.
Today, fantasy sports is a multibillion-dollar industry. According to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, 56.8 million people played in some sort of fantasy league last year-about 14% of the entire U.S. population. Two-thirds of players are male, according to the trade association; most are college-educated and almost half earn more than $75,000 annually.
So how is it that educated, high-paid sports fans get sucked into high-tech games of make-believe, games that often keep them obsessively checking scores and tweaking lineups? It’s about the love of the game, camaraderie-and maybe a strong shot of dopamine in the brain.
WPTZ
Inside the Brains of Bros on Fantasy Sports
By Nadia Kounang