I’m a huge fan of all fantasy sports. For better or for worse, they make watching just about anything more interesting. Hell, Grantland has a Fantasy Reality TV League where team owners select reality TV stars and get points for how much their “players” cry, hook up, fight, and abuse drugs.
I’m not sure if fantasy sports simply make sports more interesting because they get us to root for teams and players we wouldn’t otherwise support or if they appeal to an inner-gambling problem in all of us. Either way, there is something inherently entertaining about fantasy sports.
Having said that, there is a glaring weakness in fantasy soccer. Many people love soccer because it is so different than American sports. Other people hate it for this same reason. But what can’t be argued is that fantasy soccer would benefit from American fantasy sports’ draft format where each player can only belong to one team.
Every fantasy soccer league I’ve been able to find – and I’ve searched high and low – uses what I’ll call a salary cap format. Under this format, you can select any combination of players so long as their cumulative “prices” are less than or equal to each team’s total salary allotment. What’s important to note about this format is that you can select the same players as other people in your league as long as you don’t go over your salary cap.
The problem this creates a couple of problems:
#1 - Fantasy soccer lacks variety. Because you can select the same players as your competitors, many teams end up with the same players. If a relatively unknown (and therefore cheap) player gets off to fast start, maybe scoring ten goals in the first half of the season, you can count on about half of your league picking this player up. The result is that there is little variety in teams and it is difficult to distinguish yourself from your competitors.
#2 – Fantasy soccer doesn’t reward knowledge and foresight like fantasy football and baseball. In live draft formats, doing your homework and identifying players primed for a breakout year pays dividends because selecting that player blocks other teams from picking up a breakout player.
Quite simply, live draft formats create a better, more engaging brand of fantasy sports. If anyone knows of such a soccer fantasy league, please let me know.
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