Sanderson Nicholas David Bowman - Fantasy sports and the changing sports media industry: media, players, and society

Fantasy Sports and the Changing Sports Media Industry

Fantasy Sports and the Changing Sports Media Industry

Media, Players, and Society

Edited by Nicholas David Bowman, John S. W. Spinda, and Jimmy Sanderson

Lexington Books

Lanham Boulder New York London

Published by Lexington Books

An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

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Copyright 2016 by Lexington Books

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bowman, Nicholas David.

Title: Fantasy sports and the changing sports media industry : media, players, and society / edited by Nicholas David Bowman, John S. W. Spinda, and James Sanderson.

Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015051315 (print) | LCCN 2016002334 (ebook) | ISBN 9781498504881 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781498504898 (Electronic)

Subjects: LCSH: Fantasy sports. | Mass media and sports.

Classification: LCC GV1202.F35 F35 2016 (print) | LCC GV1202.F35 (ebook) | DDC 793.93dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015051315

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Acknowledgments

T he inspiration for this volume came from a short e-mail conversation with representatives at Lexington Books who took an interest in our published researchthat short e-mail led to longer phone calls and crowded hotel lobby conversations, and eventually a multi-national collaboration of editors and authors that I can truly call my friends. I sincerely appreciate: Lexington Books and their insistence that our project had some honest economic and social value (specifically Kasey Beduhn and Nicolette Amstutz, as well as Alison Pavan); my co-editors, for their friendship and hard work throughout the process (and for not blocking me on social media when I hounded them for book feedback); the many chapter solicitations that we received, which helped us refine the focus of the volume; the published authors, for their diligence and open-ness to our editorial comments on their work; our anonymous reviewer, for her or his sharp-but-sincere criticisms of the volume; my family (two- and four-legged ones), for their willingness to allow me to work in the living room while watching baseball.

Nick Bowman

Morgantown, West Virginia

W orking on this volume has been a pleasure. I would like to thank my co-editors, John Spinda and Nick Bowman for their work in putting this volume together. Nick, in particular has been the organizer and facilitator and kept everyone working within the timelines. Shaun Anderson, the editorial assistant, has been invaluable in handing the various administrative tasks required by this project. Without his assistance, this project would not have been able to be completed. The contributors to this volume have provided some excellent commentary and perspective on fantasy sport that will be influential in this emerging research agenda. I also would like to thank the team at Lexington Books for believing in this project and for the editorial team in their assistance in getting this project from conception to reality.

Jimmy Sanderson

Phoenix, Arizona

C ompleting this edited volume took a lot of long work days and sacrifices, I would like to thank those that have been so vital in me being able to help bring this project to completion, my wonderful, supportive wife Shanna and my daughter, who always brings a big smile to my face, no matter what. I want to thank Nick Bowman, Jimmy Sanderson, and Shaun Anderson for all the support and patience they have had with me throughout my first book editing experience, it is greatly appreciated. Lastly, I want to thank all of our wonderful authors, who are truly the stars of this show.

John S. W. Spinda

Clemson, South Carolina

Finally, all three editors owe their deepest gratitude to Shaun Anderson for serving as the editorial assistant and head cat-wrangler of this project. Shaun volunteered his time with this book while completing his Ph.D. in Communication Studies at West Virginia University, and his efforts were nothing short of spectacular.

Introduction

F rom amateur statistics tracking to augmented reality technology, fantasy sports play has established a prominent and promising foothold in the larger sports ecology. Often considered an isolated activity for the hardcore sports fan, fantasy sports play have since been incorporated into sports broadcasting and editorial coverage, sports marketing and promotions, and even into the very sports themselveswith athletes and teams using the activities to draw fans further into the sports experience. This edited volume collects emerging research and scholarship from leading scholars and sports professionals from several different fields to share historical and emerging perspectives on the importance of fantasy sports as an artifact of theoretical and empirical importance to larger issues of sport and society.

The volume is organized into five separate themes, all drawing from a different area of scholarship and each informing some of the various ways in which fantasy sports have permeated the larger Mediasport infrastructure. The first section historicizes fantasy sports by exploring its earliest roots in fan communities, both in the United States (the genesis of fantasy sports) and more recently in Europe and abroad. Chapters on the earliest fantasy sports games by Anderson and Bowman (chapter 1) and Spinda (chapter 2) provide a comprehensive review of fantasy sports from the mid-twentieth century to today, cumulating in a discussion by Wanatabe, Yan, and Wicker (chapter 3) of the fantasy sports spread beyond the United States, and the costs and benefits of that spread.

The second section focuses on sports fans, and explores their usage of and motivations for engaging in the activityexamining the cooperative and competitive aspects of fantasy sports as a community-based activity (both online and offline), the risks and responsibilities adopted by fantasy sports players in terms of economic and social capital, and the unique role that gender plays in understanding fantasy sports play. Spinda and Havard (chapter 4) discuss the unique role that competition and schadenfreude play in how fans engage each other over fantasy sports, and Westerman, Boyan, and Daniel (chapter 5) provide a compelling argument for using fantasy sports play as a vehicle for understanding social presencethe sense of being there in a social interaction with others via computer. Baerg (chapter 6) provides a novel argument as to how fantasy sports play can be rhetorically understood through the lens of neoliberal capitalism by encouraging players to engage the space less as sports fans and more as entrepreneurs, and Lavalle (chapter 7) critically explores the ways in which women are positioned in fantasy sports spaces. This section is capped by Gearhart, Keaton, and Ruihley (chapter 8), who present data on the ways in which fantasy sports players self-disclose while engaged in the contests.

The third section examines fantasy sports through the lens of traditional and digital media organizations, including the manner in which legacy newspapers and broadcast stations have incorporated fantasy sports coverage into their daily operations and discussions about the role of social media in the larger fantasy sports discussion. This section will also include a discussion of how fantasy sports players select and attend to various media sources as a function of their fandom. Specifically, chapters by Hardin and Bien-Aime (chapter 9) discussion the intersection of legacy media and fantasy sports; Dwyer, Shapiro, and Drayer (chapter 10) explain fantasy players broader media consumption habits; and Sanderson (chapter 11) explains the unique position that social media plays in the fantasy sports players media repertoire.