Five Suggestions to Improve Fantasy Sports

For the last eight years, engaging in various fantasy sports has become a ritual for me. In a normal year, I participate in at least four fantasy football leagues, two basketball leagues, one baseball league, and one hockey league. For me, fantasy sports enhance my sports viewing experience and gives me incentive to learn more about the players and teams in my favorite professional leagues.

Throughout my "fantasy career" I have used Yahoo as my online venue for leagues. Over the years, the site has made small changes and improvements to their system, but for the most part has avoided expanding their offerings. In this regard, I feel the site has failed to capture their full potential. There are fantasy games that I have often wanted to try, but have not simply because Yahoo does not offer them. Here are five fantasy games not currently offered by Yahoo, or ESPN for that matter, that I am hopeful to see next year:

1. Fantasy Football (NCAA)

2. Fantasy Basketball (NCAA)

It is somewhat unbelievable to me that Yahoo failed to build on the popularity of fantasy professional football with a similar college game. I assume most fans of professional football also enjoy the NCAA, especially those who are students/alumni of Division I teams.

Sportsline, a sports site owned by CBS, offers college fantasy football. Their version of the game allows leagues to be split by conference. In other words, if you are a USC alumnus, you could form a Pac-10 league with your friends, only drafting players out of that specific conference. Considering the number of competitive conferences in the NCAA, college fantasy football could offer not just one new fantasy game, but six to seven.

On a lesser note, fantasy college basketball would also be a welcome addition to the fantasy lineup. As the game is now, few care about the regular season as sixty-five teams make a win-all tournament in March. I myself barely watch any regular season NCAA basketball games. But if I had fantasy incentive to tune in, I can guarantee I would watch more often.

Of course, one could also propose fantasy baseball and hockey for the NCAA as well. But let's be reasonable for now.

3. True Salary-Cap Fantasy Football (NFL)

I have seen this variation of fantasy football offered in various locations on the web, but never have seen a version to my liking. Adding salaries to fantasy football adds another dimension of realism to the experience. After all, when real general managers make trades, they must take into consideration what the deal does to their team salary, as well as how it improves their teams.

Of course, what I am describing is not what "true" salary-cap football is, at least not what can be found on the internet. The actual version values players week to week and allows teams to pick teams each week. As long as the team's total value is below or at a certain set amount, they are allowed to be. Often, this means that two teams in the same league have matching players.

The league I want would put a value on players during the offseason and hold that value throughout the season. Teams would draft their teams as they would in normal fantasy football, but would have to consider their salary levels while doing so. This would put a higher emphasis on drafting well, avoiding high-priced busts and finding low-valued surprises. Additionally, player values would not change week to week, just as they do not change in real life and cutting players would result in cap penalties against teams that do so. In short, this game would offer the ultimate football experience for die-hard fans.

4. Dynasty Fantasy Leagues

This is something that has actually already been done, to a certain degree, for football this year. Keeper leagues are nothing new. In fact, for the last five years I have been in a dynasty league with my friends. The problem is we have had to maintain our rosters and reenter them into Yahoo each and every year, while having our annual draft, which mostly only consists of rookies and free agents not on any team, offline.

Building a team from the bottom up is much more rewarding than normal fantasy football, where you get a do over every year. My dynasty team was a catastrophe for the first few years of its existence. My dynasty quarterback, whom I drafted in the third round of our initial draft, was Michael Vick. But this season, I was able to completely revamp my roster, using smart draft picks, good trades, and key free agent pickups. Suffice to say, my dynasty league is the one I care about most out of my four leagues.

Of course, dynasty leagues are not just good for football. Basketball, baseball, and hockey are all good candidates for this addition as well.

5. Fantasy Leagues with Divisions

In the four major sports leagues in the United States, teams are separated by divisions and often play schedules based on their divisional opponents. Why can't we have leagues, with sixteen teams minimum, that do the same? Split the league into two conferences, each of which contains two divisions of four teams. Each team would play their three divisional opponents three times and the teams in the other division in their conference once (assuming a thirteen-game schedule.)

All four division winners would make the playoffs, as well as one wild-card team from each division. The playoffs would conclude with the winners of the two conferences squaring off, just as in real-life.

As you may be able to tell, adding realism to fantasy is a common theme among my game suggestions. In my opinion, fantasy sports are popular because they give normal, everyday people, such as myself, the opportunity to experience running a sports team of their own. But in truth, current fantasy football as offered by Yahoo does not have enough options to appease die-hards, such as myself. Some of my suggestions are unlikely to happen, but others, such as divisions (which really comes down to being able to have control over scheduling in leagues), seem plausible. And while I don't expect any of my suggestions to come to fruition immediately, or perhaps ever, I would be disappointed if I found the same-old offerings next season on Yahoo. Maybe even disappointed enough to get over my inherent laziness and try a different site.

I'd be interested in hearing other suggestions in the comments section if anyone reading has any.