Week #11

Matt Snider

    In the Randle piece for this week, the hypothesis of whether fantasy football participation impacted sports viewership was tested. In contrast to last week, this focused more on whether or not fantasy players would watch sport highlights and spend more time soaking in sports information than their non-fantasy playing counterparts.  The findings of the study resulted in the conclusion that there is a correlation between fantasy sports and the increase of other sports information gathering activities like watching highlights and internet research.

              
               To me, it seems as though the result that the trials proved were already common sense. It seems as though most participators in fantasy sports are bigger sports fans than non-fantasy sports fans and therefore, would be more inclined to spend more of their free time soaking in sports information. Although there are undoubtedly some fantasy players that wouldn’t consider themselves “hardcore” sports fans, they most likely would at least have an interest in sports. It is very similar, in my perspective, in discussing the people who would buy a sports video game such as Madden. Sure there are people who play video games that are sports fans but if you are a big time football fan and own a video game console, chances are you own a Madden video game. It’s similar in that both mediums consist heavily of major sports fans, yet do include their own outliers.
             
                The results that were founded were also slightly skewed in my opinion, especially considering hypothesis three. Hypothesis three dealt with the relationship between the amount of time people spend researching fantasy sports and the time they spend discussing sports outside of internet. I feel as though if a person spends a significant amount of time invested into fantasy sports, they are going to be motivated to try to win. Therefore, that in turn means that they know to obtain as much information as possible to make a more informed decision regarding their teams. Again, this means that they will seek any form of media offering information on fantasy which will undoubtedly turn their attention to forms like the radio.