58 Anniversary Fantasy Sports Games Catching On in Korea
By Kang Seung-woo
Staff Reporter
When Ahn Hong-joon, a 28-year-old salary man, arrives at the office on Monday mornings, the first thing he does is rush to his desktop computer and log onto Yahoo.com.
Not that he is interested in exchange rates or international economy, but he is busy crunching statistics for Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo's games.
Jessica Simpson's boyfriend is a starting quarterback on Ahn's fantasy football team.
Like Ahn, who likes American football, especially legendary wide receiver Jerry Rice, fantasy sports buffs are increasing in South Korea.
Fantasy football is a computer sports game in which participants, called ``owners'' or ``general managers,'' are arranged into a league. Each owner drafts or acquires a team of real-life American football players and then scores points based on those players' statistical performances on the field each week.
Leagues can be arranged to where the winner is the team with the most total points at the end of the season, or in a head-to-head format in which each team plays against a single opponent each week. At the end of the year, win-loss records determine league rankings or which teams qualify for a playoff bracket.
Along with American football, fantasy games feature baseball, basketball, golf and even auto racing.
Fantasy sports started in 1980, when Daniel Okrent, who served as the first public editor of The New York Times, invented the first fantasy league, but the games took a big leap in the mid-1990s as the increase in Internet access made leagues easy to join.
Until last month, Lee Seung-hyup, another fantasy sports geek, spent about 20 to 30 minutes every day calculating numbers to figure out how his imaginary baseball team fared against the other 11 opponents in his league.
The 28-year-old management-majored student played fantasy baseball at Yahoo.com, which became the first major media company to offer fantasy games for free in 1999.
``Whenever I am free, I spend time with my face glued to my computer, checking the updated numbers of players on my squad,'' said Lee, who began the fantasy baseball two years ago.
``Even if I sometimes felt obssesed with it, I was fine with my players posting good records.
``I think it is another newly-rising habbit in the Internet era among sports fans.''
Following Yahoo, a great number of sports Web sites provide free games. A few months before a new season of each sport begins, those sites, such as ESPN, Sports Illustrated and CBSSports start recriuting participants.
According to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA), representing the fantasy sports industry with more than 120 fantasy providers, 29.9 million people in the United States and Canada played fantasy games in 2007.
However, considering increasing users outside North American, the number is expected to be much higher this year.
In South Korea, NHN, the operator of the country's most popular search engine, Naver, opened its fantasy baseball game, titled ``My Baseball League,'' in April.
The first local fantasy game used 487 players from eight teams in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) and about 80,000 South Korean fantasy sports buffs made 113,891 teams ― one user can make two teams with one identification ― assigned to 4,833 leagues.
The company plans to attract more players for next season by adding another recruiting format.
``The current league is only based on salary cap in selecting players,'' said Lee Hye-jin, manager of the Sports Service Team at NHN. ``We plan to introduce a draft next year.''
Despite an increasing number of players, fantasy sports games can cause a conflict because they can reduce your love for your favorite team.
For example, a die-hard New York Yankees fan may have a pitcher on his fantasy team who plays against the Yankees. The Yankees fan would be inclined to want his favorite team to drive in runs only after his fantasy pitcher is lifted.
In addition, fantasy sports could put the New York fan in a dilemma to cheer for a player from a rival team, like Boston Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz, when that player competes against the Yankees.
This situation can cause others to call fantasy owners names such as ``numbers crunchers'' or ``stat freaks,'' and say they are not real sports fans.
But despite these setbacks, many fantasy owners insist the games have plenty of value.
For example, fantasy sports enable their users to gain knowledge of sports and players. Many sports fans are only familiar with their favorite teams and players, but by playing the games, fantasy owners can learn about less-heralded players, too.
Fantasy sports also increase viewership for sports. In order to find out their players' statistics, fantasy owners often keep their eyes on TV screens or computer monitors in Korea due to the absence of NFL broadcasts on regular television.
``Fantasy games can be a good hobby if they are taken in moderation,'' said Ahn, whose team has struggled recently due to Romo's finger injury.