The student news site of Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois.

The Daily Eastern News

The student news site of Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois.

The Daily Eastern News

The student news site of Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois.

The Daily Eastern News

Feature Photo: The cool kids

Feature+Photo%3A+The+cool+kids+

Over the last decade or so, the way we watch sports in America has been changing drastically.

From rule changes to team relocations, one thing stands out to me above all the others. This is the growing popularity of fantasy sports.

Fantasy sports has changed the way we watch sports, and alters the way we think about sports in general.

In the past, people who followed sports had their favorite team, typically the one from their hometown. Avid sports fans like me would follow those teams religiously, rooting for them and against their opposing and rival teams.

With fantasy sports, however, people often draft players from other teams, sometimes even teams within the division of their home-town team. I, for example, am a Bears fan with players from the Packers, Lions and Vikings on my team.

Also, the team you face can easily include players from your own favorite team.

This creates conflicts, do you continue loyally rooting for your home-town favorite, or do you pull for the players on your fantasy team?

With many fantasy leagues having monetary prizes, many people choose to root for their fantasy teams rather than their home-town teams.

I would personally find this disgraceful, but I do it myself, so finding it to be in poor taste would make me quite the hypocrite.

I still feel guilty about doing it, but what else can I do when Calvin Johnson is available in the second round?

Another thing fantasy sports changes is our interest in games that otherwise wouldn’t make a blip on our personal sports radar.

We switch between Fox, CBS, NBC and perhaps even the NFL Network to track games we would normally never care about.

Teams from other divisions and conferences are gaining new followings by people carrying their starting running back in fantasy leagues.

All of this would have been unheard of 10 or 15 years ago, but now fantasy sports are changing all of it.

Football in particular is changing the landscape of watching sports, with fantasy football growing in popularity by leaps and bounds.

I’m personally in four fantasy football leagues this season, and I have noticed myself caring considerably more about games that I would otherwise pay absolutely no attention to.

I pay more attention to the scores, stats, and performance of my fantasy team as well as the team I’m facing on any given week.

In addition to this, I pay a lot more attention to circumstances, injuries, suspensions and match-ups than I otherwise would.

If my experience is any indicator of the experience of the average football fan, and I feel that it is, then fantasy sports have permanently changed the way we watch sports in general, and I don’t know if our viewing experiences will ever be the same.

Brad Kupiec is a freshman journalism major. He can be reached at 581-7942

or [email protected]

Feature Photo: The cool kids

David Bell presented the film “Blackboard Jungle” to the Eastern Community to show the positive effects teachers can have on their students.

(more…)

Leave a Comment
Navigate Left
  • Eastern Illinois University President Jay Gatrell opens the presentation on several faculty updates and Plan 2028 on Tuesday afternoon.

    News

    Gatrell, faculty update the university on Plan 2028

  • Christian Campus House students had a couch story time open talk about God. Emily Thorpe, a senior music major (front), Harrison Walker, a graduate student in cybersecurity (front right), Ashton Fifield, junior philosophy major (left on couch), and Gabriel McElroy, sophomore, sit in the South Quad Wednesday.

    News

    CCH returns conversation couch post protest

  • Honey bee (Apis mellifera) collects pollen from flowers in one of the Urban Butterfly Initiatives gardens in Charleston. Charleston, Ill. Oct. 10, 2023.

    News

    The two sides to early warm temperatures

  • Upcoming events to celebrate DEI

    Entertainment & Culture

    Upcoming events to celebrate DEI

  • Several gizzard shad piled up on the shore of Lake Charleston on February 25, 2024, following a sudden drop in temperature earlier in the month.

    News

    Hundreds of fish dead at Lake Charleston

  • Freshman education major, Alyssa Vergara works on her math 1160 homework in the bridge lounge of the Martin Luther King Jr. Union Monday. Vergara continued to work on her homework after a tutoring session from a math professor. She listed the campus being close to home, a small and the professor to student ratio as the reasons she chose Eastern.

    News

    How EIU students manage busy majors

  • Different perspectives at Society of Womens Engineers meeting

    News

    Different perspectives at Society of Women’s Engineers meeting

  • Charlie Burtell is a freshman business analytics major student.

    features

    EIU student finds self in the military

  • Nola Klepzig Hagen, the owner of Nolas Naturals store on Madison Avenue, stocks the shelves.

    News

    Nola’s Naturals: more than a wellness store

  • Cicadas shells collect on mature tree just west of Eastern Illinois University campus, 
 May 8 2011 Charleston, Ill.

    News

    Cicadas incoming by the trillion

Navigate Right

Comments (0)

Commenting on the Daily Eastern News web site is a privilege, not a right. We reserve the right to remove comments that contain obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language. Also, comments containing personal attacks or threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
All The Daily Eastern News Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest