Hi, I’m Ryan Dorfman. I’m 24 years old and have been playing fantasy sports since I was a kid. I don’t know it all — no one does. At the end of the day, what makes me different is how I communicate knowledge: in a fun, edgy and outspoken way, but not overbearing. I’m here to share my opinions because I love fantasy sports, and someone once told me that your dream job is the one thing you’d continue to do in your free time, after work, or even if you had all the money in the world. I’d still be playing fantasy sports.
When I was 9 years old, I first started to play fantasy sports. This was back in 2004. Shaun Alexander was the best running back in the NFL. The Yankees were the best team in baseball. The Patriots Dynasty was just beginning. The Spurs and Pistons were ruling the NBA. LeBron was not the King.
I lived in a small neighborhood in a small town called Weston, in South Florida. The internet was barely a thing at that time, at least for me. My dad took me to my first fantasy football draft — a live draft with a lot people from our neighborhood, in someone’s house. Everybody seemed to know everybody. I’d walk up to the draft board and place the stickers for the players we drafted. I really didn’t have a say in who we picked, but my dad made it seem like I did, and that was good enough for me.
Fantasy sports was this… weird thing… at the time. I didn’t understand what it was, but it made watching the games on Sundays way more enjoyable, since my dad is a Jets fan and it wasn’t too much fun watching them play every week. It was innocent. It was an escape for him. And soon it would be for me as well.
In 2006, my older brother, who at the time would’ve been 16, was a huge Gators fan. Football and basketball. A great time to be a Gators fan. The Gators college basketball team would go on to win back to back titles and Tim Tebow would be introduced to Gainesville. I knew nothing about college basketball. But my brother spotted me money to enter a March Madness pool with his friends. Despite being a Gators fan, he didn’t choose them to win it all. And me, knowing nothing, assumed he knew everything, so naturally I did a chalk bracket, picking all the top seeds to win, with the Gators winning it all, because that was my brother’s favorite team. I ended up winning the pool, and he ended up winning the money. I remember thinking, that’s what brothers do. And it was fine with me.
Over the years, I began to continue to play fantasy sports, religiously, but something began to change. Now there were experts. On ESPN, CBS, FOX, Yahoo and then Twitter came along. And so did the trolls.
I wrote this as I was set to embark to Las Vegas to attend the annual Fantasy Sports Gaming Association Conference, and I couldn’t help but look back and wish for the older days. Fantasy sports is about community. It’s about an escape, the man cave of man caves, so to speak. It’s produced hit shows like “The League.” It’s sparked a billion dollar industry and created titans like DraftKings and FanDuel, but it’s also made people forget why we started doing this in the first place.
It wasn’t for the money. If anything, it was for the bragging rights, because before the internet we couldn’t just join a random league on ESPN. We likely played with people we knew. It was for fun. It was to connect people together. One big family.
Fantasy sports is supposed to be fun. It’s not about yelling or chastising analysts for making the wrong start/sit picks. It’s your team, guys. If you don’t like their picks, don’t read their articles. You are in total control of your teams and your destiny. If you totally abide by what a certain analyst says and they are wrong, don’t blame them. They are human beings who happen to love the game just like us. And chances are if you swapped roles, you’d probably miss on some of your picks too.
The whole point of this is that I feel like we’ve lost touch on the roots of fantasy sports. Yes, it’s only natural that eventually, no matter what it is, any business or industry can change. People saw a way to truly monetize fantasy sports, and I think it’s taken us away from why we play at all.
Matthew Berry is famous for his love/hate pieces. I’m not even sure if he realizes this, but ironically, I think the theme of those articles is the very same theme that can be said of his relationship with his readers. They either love him, if his advice led their team to a win, or hate him, if it led their team to a loss. Now, fantasy football isn’t just about one position, but sometimes — a lot of times — fantasy owners will blame a loss on a single players production, or the advice of an analyst.
Usually, it’s a combination of things. Maybe you faced an opponent who had a player explode for 40 points. Maybe that opponent’s kicker had 20 points and you lost by 4 points and push the blame on a certain person. Nobody likes to lose, but when played the right way and with the right people, fantasy sports is an amazing, fun experience.
A lot of you may not realize this, but a significant reason why a ton of people are afraid or hesitant to pursue careers in fantasy sports is because they are afraid nobody will listen, or they’re afraid of getting attacked or called out for their picks. If the point of fantasy sports Is to be beat your buddies, and you rely on someone’s rankings to set your lineups every week, who’s really winning or losing those games?
We have to get back to the roots, where looking up rankings wasn’t a thing, and all we had on draft day was a cheat sheet, and we pinned our knowledge of the game against someone else’s. May the best man win. I’m not saying let’s abolish rankings. But, fantasy sports was simply more pure back then. We wanted to look up stats, we would buy a magazine. I for one, miss those days.
The moral here is, let’s stop all of the anger. Let’s stop all of the trolling. Let’s play these games the way they are meant to be played. It’s not about who has the best rankings on draft day. It’s about who knows the most about the game. Let’s take full responsibility for our teams, win or lose. Whether we follow rankings or go with our guts, let’s own it. No matter what, it’s ultimately up to us.
