Ryan Ireland
Written By: Ryan Ireland (@ry_guy22)
Anyone who has a greater than recreational interest in fantasy sports is familiar with that look you get when you bring up your fantasy teams. It’s an eye roll, with a hint of “I don’t get it” and a whole lot of “lets change the subject.” Anyone who is invested in fantasy sports has seen it. It could be a friend, family member, or your spouse who you told all the leagues you’re playing in are for free. You could talk about this stuff for hours but everyone else looks at you like you’re twelve years old and they just nod and smile until you move on.
What is It about fantasy sports that rubs people the wrong way? Why are we hesitant to tell our friends, coworkers and spouses that we love to take part in this multimillion-dollar hobby? This past year was the first year that I joined social media (specifically Twitter). Between the pandemic, the birth of my first child and having shoulder surgery, I was looking for an outlet. It didn’t take long before my feed was all things fantasy baseball. I was liking, retweeting and even making my own tweets about my beloved Blue Jays. To my surprise people were noticing, but not always in a positive way. At times it felt like I was being judged. Why did I think people cared about my random baseball tweets? Who were these strangers I was commenting to, or supporting online? It was clear not everyone shared my passion. I didn’t know how to respond to that. Should I care? No one should apologize for wanting to socialize with people who share their same passions, no matter what they are. Especially during a global pandemic when we are all locked inside. It was weird. Fantasy sports have always been something I loved but sometimes people make me feel like engaging in them is juvenile or just downright sad.
I’m not a writer. That is probably obvious to you already. But for some reason I felt the need to explain why I enjoy playing fantasy sports because I’m sure I’m not the only one out there who feels like an outcast at times for playing this game. I hope to reflect on my journey that got me to fantasy sports and what it is that keeps me coming back and wanting more. It’s not about the money. As much as that helps in preventing a divorce, it is about so much more than that.
I am a thirty-six-year-old physiotherapist who was born and raised in the greater Toronto area. I guess I would qualify as a weekend warrior, whose sports glory days (if you could call them that) are clearly in the rearview. But I look back on my life in sports with fond memories despite my lengthy injury history, which is the reason I do what I do. I’m still involved in some recreational softball and hockey leagues. Playing these days is equally about the social aspect of the game as it is the competition. But things haven’t always been that way. As a child my life was all about competition.
I grew up playing fairly high-level organized sports, mainly hockey and baseball. At a young age it takes extreme dedication to compete on a travelling rep team. Generally, you’re playing or practicing 3-4 times a week and driving all over the country after school and on weekends, wearing your little suit and tie. It’s something that effects your entire family. My mother was a single mother of three and even though taking me to my 9 pm hockey practice on a Wednesday night was the last thing she wanted to do, she knew there was no missing it. I had been playing sports since the age of four. She understood that I needed that competitive outlet, which I thought only sports could provide.
As much as I was completely obsessed with sports, I always knew professional sports were not going to be a part of my future. That didn’t stop me from wanting to compete. It didn’t matter if it was hockey, baseball, golf, track and field, or being the one who could climb up a tree in the backyard the fastest, I wanted to compete and I wanted to win. It’s that shared commitment to winning and accomplishing something that is the basis for most of my childhood friendships. Your teammates are your closest friends and in most cases are more like family. To this day my closest friends are those I grew up sharing the ice/field with. We still love to compete. But it’s a lot different now. Priorities change and time with our families take the place of random pickup hockey games or Friday night baseball under the lights. The outlets we used to have as youth athletes seem to dry up more and more as the years go on, leaving our competitive drives unfulfilled or in some cases, misdirected.
Once you lose sports, you lose a piece of yourself. Something that once consumed you can soon come to feel like an empty void if not fulfilled in other ways. Everyone who plays a sport knows that there will come a point in time when they have to leave the game. We see the raw emotion that professional athletes have when they choose (or are forced by injury) to retire. But those emotions are not just sacred to professional athletes. Losing something you love will always leave a scar. Unlike professional athletes, recreational players lack the many avenues’ professionals have to continue to live within the sport they love. For most of us, we end up quitting cold turkey, which can be extremely depressing. Enter fantasy sports.
When I was 15 years old, I badly injured my knee in a freak hockey incident. It was one of the first times I had experienced an injury significant enough that I had to stop practicing and participating alongside my teammates. It was a major blow to my self-esteem and the first time I truly thought about what my life would be like without sports. It was terrifying. For an entire calendar year, I was rehabbing and trying to find my way back to the sports and people that I loved. It was during that year off that I discovered fantasy sports. I first began to play in the salary cap leagues run through The Sporting News. You would manipulate players stocks to build your teams. As a player’s value increased so did your payroll and the reverse was true for a decline in “stock price.” I was fascinated. Consuming as much sports information as possible, through watching games on TV or reading through box scores and game logs. The internet was not what it is today but there was enough out there to keep a 15-year-old sports-obsessed teenager busy each night of the week. This was a perfect new hobby.
While my friends were out playing and practicing without me, I was living vicariously through my fantasy teams, exercising my competitive drive in a way that kept both myself and my family sane. It wasn’t the same, but it was satisfying enough. I have an addictive personality, so it didn’t take long before I was totally emersed in it. Even though there was girls and eventually more school and jobs, etc I never stopped playing because I needed that competitive release. By the time I graduated from my bachelor’s degree I was playing in a handful of fantasy leagues with friends from university, or from back home. It was around this time, after my bachelor’s degree that I really became re-invested in fantasy sports. I had the time, the money and was looking for a way to stay connected with friends as moved out on my own in Toronto. I was now 25 and plodding along through my Masters program when I suffered what turned out to be a life-changing concussion. It certainly wasn’t my first, but I sure hope it will be my last. Another hockey injury, innocent enough. Didn’t think anything of it at the time. Little did I know that it would cause significant memory impairments, sleep disruption, light sensitivity, fatigue, headaches, the whole nine yards. For someone who always had a near photographic memory it sure made things interesting when I couldn’t study for more than 15 minutes without needing a break.
It was only further down the line that I realized all these things were happening. My friends and girlfriend at the time were noticing changes in my behaviour and personality. I lost enjoyment for most things. I was having difficulty remembering co-worker’s names even though I had worked with them for years. Needless to say, it was a scary time. Almost two years after the original incident I had significant enough concerns for my health that I finally got tested by a neuropsychologist. In the end things are mostly fine now, but those were certainly some dark and trying times. I again wasn’t playing any sports at the time given what had happened and all over again it felt like I had lost a piece of myself. A big piece. So once again, I buried myself into fantasy sports.
It was funny to me that even though fantasy sports rely on the performance of players we in most cases have no relationship with and have never met, it still gave me a sense of control over something in my life. While everything around me seemed like it was falling apart, fantasy became my new reality. It was my safety net. Sports were my comfort zone. I was never into video games so If I couldn’t play sports physically, I would still compete mentally. It seems ridiculous to look back now and see how important this game was to me but at the time I needed it. It was an escape from school and relationships while also allowing me to bond with my peers who were still playing sports.
Fantasy sports are an outlet. It’s a game that allows people to socialize and come together with like-minded sports fans, all the while giving people an opportunity to exercise their mental competitiveness when maybe their bodies can no longer keep up with the real version of the game they love. For those who have given up sports because of age, injury, or family commitments, fantasy sports afford them an opportunity to stay a part of the game. We can remain passionate about the sports we love and feel that same sense of camaraderie we once had back in our playing days. Life gets busy and fantasy sports give us a reason to stay connected to friends and strangers, near and far. There are so many positives that fantasy sports can provide that allow our new realities to partially resemble our idealistic pasts. I am thankful that I had fantasy sports in my life during some of my more challenging times. Otherwise, who knows what I would have done with my time and energy.
The moral of the story is, if you enjoy fantasy sports, that’s your reality. It may not be what others enjoy, but who cares. If it gives you a break from the daily world news, an excuse to talk more with friends, or provides a competitive outlet for a void that has been left unfulfilled, do what makes you happy. Bantering with strangers about the sports I love on a daily basis is a blast. I now find myself competing with some of the best in the business and Its exhilarating. Win or lose this season, or any other season for that matter, I will continue to play as long as I am having fun and feeling passionate about sports. I hope you continue to do the same and I hope that we can apply this to more than just fantasy sports. If someone enjoys something, don’t judge them. Indulge them. Try to understand why something is important to them. You may learn something.
Thanks for reading along. Here’s to seeing you in the draft room!
Cheers.
Ryan Ireland
