“It’s not going to be the same and you’re not going to get the same amount of interest because the NFL is one of the most popular sports in America, but it will be a challenge to try to find ways to keep people engaged and try to have conversations and perhaps a lot of it could end up being in gaming.”
These are the words of Adam Rank, a fantasy football analyst and television personality with NFL Network, when asked what potential alternatives there might be to produce content if the NFL was forced to cancel the upcoming season.
The Covid-19 pandemic has put the entire sports world on pause as the major sports leagues, including the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Major League Baseball (MLB) continue to look for alternative ways to get back into action. The rumors around the leagues have been fast and furious, everything from the NBA starting in late May to the MLB starting in late June. However, there is still a lot of uncertainty in regards to when it will be safe enough to continue playing these sports given the social distance rules having a significant impact, not only considering the fans at stadiums, but also for the players themselves whose jobs include physical contact.
The National Football League (NFL), which doesn’t begin its next season until September, recently held its yearly draft entirely through a Zoom call. The commissioner, Roger Goodell, was announcing every pick from the basement of his home in New York with the players each in their homes, surrounded by family, celebrating their new status as a player. It was definitely a new and unique situation, but the NFL and ESPN, who together partner to make this yearly televised event possible, made the best of the situation and were able to make it through the entirety of the draft without any glitches or technical difficulties.
As we enter the summer months, the newly drafted rookies and the rest of the league would usually be getting ready for offseason workouts. That has all changed now, in this state of limbo, as the NFL waits to see how this pandemic progresses over the next couple of months, specifically when they get the green light to begin play.
The NFL is one of the biggest sports industries in the United States. The employees are not only players but also analysts, reporters and media personnel among other important jobs. These industry leaders make their living off the sport, so the potential for this upcoming season to be cancelled would be devastating for them.
Connected to this gigantic industry is the ever-so growing industry of fantasy sports, the largest being connected specifically to fantasy football.
According to the Fantasy Sports and Gaming Association, there are now nearly 60 million people who play fantasy sports, and of those 80% play fantasy football. They also added that the industry is now worth more than $7 billion a year. There are many people who make a living providing fantasy football advice and content. One of the influencers in this industry is Smitty Smith, who has been in the industry since 2002 providing written content on his website “SleeperU.” Members pay yearly subscriptions to read and view his articles, as well as receive direct access to him. This is a huge benefit to members as they can discuss any and all questions they have throughout the season.
“If there was no season, it would definitely hurt me greatly, more so on my content side but probably more so for 2021 and not 2020 because people are paying right now,” Smith said. “I’m going to offer free memberships to anybody for 2021 that had bought for 2020 [if the season is cancelled] so it is going to hurt me more next year.”
Smith also started up a YouTube channel where he focuses on video content, growing his channel to over 4,000 subscribers in just over one year.
“As I am doing that, I’m growing my other brand,” Smith said. “I have diversified, as I mentioned prior. I’ve got the YouTube channel which is going to be Ad revenue and sponsorships. When you diversify yourself, you can weather through different storms that don’t affect one aspect of your business but might affect the other. I might take a hit in my content next year, but I might have more sponsorships and so it might wash more than anything I am hoping and then maybe 2022 when it all comes back together, it will be a big year. However, it would definitely hurt me.”
The fantasy sports industry predominantly consists of men as 81% of the people who participate are men according to another 2019 study done by the Fantasy Sports and Gaming Association. However, that does not mean there are not women atop of the industry as well. One of the more well-known woman in the industry is Liz Loza, who also gave her views on this “new normal” with Covid-19 and how it could potentially impact her as someone who makes a living working full-time in the fantasy football industry.
“It obviously wouldn’t be great,” Loza said as she laughed and started knocking on wood. “If there was no season, then there is obviously no football to fantasize about.”
Loza goes on to say that if the NFL does end up having to cancel its upcoming season, the entire industry will have to pivot – which means providing different type of content until the sport is able to return.
There have been recent developments of the idea of fantasy sports in other avenues, including reality television shows. ESPN developed a fantasy challenge around The Bachelor called “ABC’s The Bachelor Fantasy League.” It has become more popular recently and is potentially another way people can play fantasy sports without their being actual sports on.
“The interesting thing about fantasy is that it has broken loose the world of not just sports betting,” Loza said. “Everyone obviously is talking about that because of the legislation that has recently passed, and that people are pushing for, but I think of the gamification of things. The fantasy movie league is something that has existed for a long time. I believe Matthew Berry was one of the first to bring that into the forefront. I think there could be a gamification of reality shows. There is a fantasy bachelor show. I have been begging Yahoo to do a fantasy bachelor show forever, but for whatever reason they are not. I think what it could do in a beneficial way is challenge those of us in fantasy to get more creative about that which we gamify and actually commit to something beyond the X’s and O’s.”
Loza talked about how she worked her way up from the bottom in the industry once running a small blog online to now working for Yahoo Sports.
“I started the blog, and then every year it was always like what is next and what’s the next thing I add and learn,” Loza mentioned in her path to getting into the industry. “What’s the next obstacle to mount and next challenge to accept. I kept building onto it, started with the blog and then I started adding video blogs; everything now is video, but back then having YouTube clips or vlogs wasn’t really a thing so I added video content.”
Loza went on to talk about other avenues of content she added to her repertoire, including podcasting, before she eventually got noticed by other people in the industry.
“I’ve done a couple of spots on Sirius and then someone listening to Sirius [Dr. Roto] who at the time was working for Scout fantasy heard me, reached out and said that he would like to talk with me more one-on-one,” Loza said. “They told me they are potentially hiring and asked if they can interview me one-on-one and of course I said yes, and Scout then brought me to a level to where Yahoo saw who I was, and saw a body of work that was consistently being created and produced. Yahoo offered me a job for the 2015 NFL season, so I will have been with Yahoo for five years this coming July.”
In agreement with the potential “new normal” for the 2020 season, industry leader Adam rank goes on to say, “There would have to be changes that will have to be made,” Rank said who has been in the industry for a long time as he recounts the 2011 season when NFL went through a a lockout. He goes on to say, “I have an interest in the history of the NFL, and I believe that we would find creative ways to continue to make content even if it is not based on real life games that are happening right now.”
We have seen many leagues turn to professional gaming as a matter of providing content for fans, which includes the NBA recently hosting an NBA2K tournament between the players which was aired on ESPN.
“You know you see some of the other major sports where they have their current players, I know Major League Baseball did this, with a bunch of guys playing [MLB] the Show,” Rank said. “We’ll have guys playing Madden, so you know it will be on us to find creative ways to do it and that’s not going to be impossible, but it certainly is going to be a challenge.”
It is unknown right now what the future will hold for the world of sports and the industry of fantasy sports specifically. It is a waiting game for everyone involved right now. However, there are lots of creative minds in the industry today and the world of fantasy sports is evolving ever so quickly, so it will be up to those people to develop new ways in which they can interact with people.
“I think in some ways this whole content desert that we’re in right now has forced a lot of us to get creative,” Loza said. “And that is, while a pain, also an amazing opportunity for personal growth.”
Sources:
Ari Talkin' Sports 