Fantasy Sports Programming
This past year I have been taking part in a variety of fantasy sports leagues for the first time. I started with a fantasy baseball league last spring and now I am hooked. I learned that in addition to being very fun fantasy leagues are often free. So why not create some sort of library program around a fantasy league for the teens in the library.
This would be a very easy thing to do. You can find these leagues through a variety of sources such as Yahoo, ESPN, CBS, as well as a host of other places, and as I mentioned above, many of them are free. The librarian would have to establish the league and act as commissioner, which means they control the league settings and rules. Then it is simply a matter of getting an email address for any teen that wants to play and inviting them to join the league. This is all that is necessary to have a fun ongoing program throughout the season of whatever sport you are using.
There is however a lot more that could be added to make this even more fun. The commissioner can choose any type of draft they want for the league. This could simply be an automated random draft. However it can also be a live draft. Live drafts can take two forms. One has nothing to do with computers, the players would all simply meet together and choose their fantasy players and then the commissioner can send in the information. Perhaps the best way, however, is an online draft. All the players simply need to log on to the fantasy league at the same time and they can participate in the draft. The computer will automatically pick the best available players for anyone who can’t find the time to get to a computer during the draft. So why not host a live draft using the computers at your library. Invite everybody in the league to come in and draft their players live. You could offer food, and even have sports magazines and books available for people to use for research.
One other thought would be to have a local professional athlete come in for the event. I live in Michigan, so I think it would be great to have one of the younger players on the Tigers come in to talk about what it is like to become a major league baseball player, or their experience playing in the World Series. This athlete visit could be great before or after the draft. It would be even more fun if you could somehow convince the athlete to take part in the fantasy league, although I would admit this idea might be a little far fetched.
These are just a few of many great ideas that could surround a fun fantasy sports league for your library. It could be a great opportunity to draw in some high school athletes who, do to time constraints, are often hard to get into the library. If anybody out there has used a fantasy league for programming please leave me a comment as I would love to hear about it. I hope to try this in the spring for the next baseball season and more ideas would be very helpful.
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I’ve run a fantasy baseball league for teens for the past two years. It’s been a great success and I highly recommend it. We get 7-10 guys each year, which is the perfect size. The first year I did it, I wasn’t at all familiar with fantasy sports, but it was fairly simple.
We do a live draft in the library. We get the fantasy baseball magazines for the teens to look through, although most come already knowing who they want on their team. After the draft, I input all the teams into Yahoo, including my own. I’ve found Yahoo easy to use and I like their options for changing the leagues settings. Once the league is set up, it’s a very easy program to maintain. The teens really like it and I’ve had numerous requests to run fantasy football too.
If anyone is interested in trying this program and has any questions, feel free to e-mail me at rauseo@noblenet.org.
Is there any concern about the connection of Fantasy Sports to illegal gambling, and the appearance that the public library therefore is giving illegal gambling a stamp of approval?
Just a thought, not meant to be alarmist.
I can see where you might be concerned about that but to be honest, if we were very worried about illegal gambling there are bigger issues that need to be considered. Many people use the computers every day and it is very simple for them to participate in online gambling services if they so choose, so why would this be any different. I think that as long as that is not part or your leauge and not encouraged in any way by you or your staff it shouldnt be a problem.
This is a great idea. It’s a very good way to get boys into the library (which can be difficult). I will definitely be looking into doing this at my library. Thanks for such an awesome programming idea.
Do these fantasy leagues have to occur at certain times of the year (ie draft times for the sport in question)? How do you find out when fantasy league starts?
The league would take place at the same time as the sport it is replicating. Therefore a draft would take place sometime shortly before the season starts. Most Fantasy providers, ie Yahoo, CBS Sportsline, ESPN, etc… will allow you to start a fantasy league sometime around a month or two before the actual sport starts. For instance, this year I was able to start my Yahoo Fantasy baseball league sometime at the end of February, and the begining of Baseball season started at the very end of march. Your league will not start competeing until the sport officially begins, but the league members can trade players and build there team once teh draft is complete even if the season has not begun. Hope that helps.