Before I even attempt to analyze John A. Fortunato’s
“The relationship of fantasy football participation with NFL television ratings”,
let me preface this by saying that this was by far one of the most boring
articles I have ever read. When Fortunato wrote:
“There were other
plausible, common-sense explanations that can be made for each rating beyond
the influence of NFL fantasy players starting in fantasy leagues, teams’
winning percentage, margin of victory, and outlier games that were provided
here.”
I immediately did a double-take and questioned
whether or not he even believed the study being conducted was of worth any
significant value. I understand it was the first of its kind and needs more
research to be conducted, however it was almost like pulling teeth trying to
get through this piece.
In his lead up to exploring whether fantasy football
ownership influences the television ratings of NFL weekly games, he provided an
ample amount of variables that could in fact influence the television ratings.
He writes that the teams’ combined winning percentages, margin of victory, as
well as people’s favorite teams or players and vice versa can influence the
television ratings of a weekly NFL game. However, he then had to make a stretch
and suggest that a high percentage of players owned in fantasy football leagues
potentially correlated to high viewing audiences for weekly NFL matchups. Which
seems plausible, but likely a stretch once you indicate that the majority of
players owned in significant portions of fantasy football leagues are likely
the best of the best and would probably be playing in primetime games.
Another issue I had with Fortunato’s study was as
such when he isolated primetime games such as Sunday Night Football as well as
Monday Night Football. I understand the whole outlier in which it is difficult
to determine ratings and its influences when there are regional broadcasts, but
the NFL schedules primetime games on NBC and ESPN with the likely belief that
these teams are good or will be competitive when the game airs.
I was just frustrated throughout this article
because I know he was attempting to tackle, no pun intended, something with
little scholarly evidence, however in my opinion it is just one of those things
that you truly cannot pinpoint as to being something that significantly
influences the television ratings. He says that:
“The purpose of this
study is to examine whether fantasy football participation can serve as an
additional motivating factor for fans to watch NFL games on television. The
results presented here do provide some evidence that there is a relationship
between NFL players starting in a high percentage of fantasy leagues for that
particular week and the television rating for that particular game.”
However, the key with this is “some” evidence. Once
again, I understand that this is the first study of its kind but I think other
factors such as rivalry games or those with likely playoff implications as well
as divisional matchups have more influence on television ratings than do
percentages of players owned in fantasy football leagues.
And one final note, if you are basing fantasy
football ownership in your decision to schedule a game for primetime viewing
then you are doing your job wrong. The author of the article cites Maurice
Jones Drew and the Jacksonville Jaguars as an example. I would be willing to
make a wager that if you asked 100 people if they wanted to watch the Jaguars
take on the Bills in primetime because of Maurice Jones Drew, perhaps only 10
would say yes.
As for Quint Randle and Rob Nyland’s “Participation
in Internet Fantasy Sports Leagues and Mass Media Use”, compared to the study
conducted by Fortunato, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this piece. There were a
few things I agreed with, while there were other things I disagreed with as
well as a few other statements that I had some commentary on that which I found
strikingly interesting.
For starters, as these two indicate, fantasy sports
are in fact a big business bringing in roughly $1.5 billion in revenue. With
that being said, I completely agree with the statement that media organizations
whether it be television, print, radio, or Internet should take advantage of
this profitable business model. Take the opportunity to sponsor a fantasy league;
in essence you would be killing two birds with one stone. Profit off the advertising
revenue and subscription fees, whilst promoting your product to ensure the
participants will likely advance their need for sports knowledge by further
exploring your product. This sentiment is reiterated when the authors say, “Hosting
a fantasy sports league would be a means by which a media company would be able
to engage in significant self-promotion.”
There were a few comments I found rather
interesting, primarily because I felt like they could be equated elsewhere
outside of the sports realm. One of those found in this piece went as such:
“Through fantasy
sports, these participants can play the role of an owner of a sports franchise.
Groups of friends or coworkers will get together and form a league, drafting
players whose performance is based on how the real-life players are performing.”
I found this rather intriguing considering the fact
that you can make this argument for people who say play such games as Dungeons and Dragons. And yet, those
that role-play by participating in that game are consistently mocked and laughed
at by mainstream culture. It is interesting to see that once a machismo label
is placed on something, it is seemingly accepted in the eyes of mainstream
culture.
Another comment, not essentially made by these
authors but quoted in their article, struck me as a little odd. That comment
was:
“Men spend more time
watching sports on television, have a greater knowledge of sports, have
different motivations for watching sports on television, and have a
significantly greater interest in sports than women.”
Considering we have spoken about gender and
diversity thoroughly before in class, I was taken aback by this statement
considering I feel as if this statement is not actually factual. However, it
was used essentially to set up the statement that the overwhelming majority of
people who participate in fantasy sports are in fact men.
And lastly, I agreed with four out of their five
hypotheses and the statements they made in regards to the outcomes of those
statements. The one I slightly disagreed with was Hypothesis 4, and that is
because I think it also has to do with participatory athletes as well. The
hypothesis was that those who participate in teams sports are more likely to
participate in fantasy sports. However, according to the survey conducted this
was not the case. The reasoning given behind this was the sense that those who
are less talented and such use fantasy sports to essentially get that high or
low you receive from winning and losing. However, I also think it is possible
that those who participate in team sports, but not fantasy leagues, do it
because they already experience the highs and lows of winning and losing. They
get to live that each day; the accommodation of fantasy sports leagues is that
it allows you to role-play.
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