In-Game Fantasies

Written By: PatWalker on October 1, 2009 No Comment

nfl Football is once again underway, which for many fans, means the season within a season is off to a 3-0, 2-1, 1-2 or 0-3 beginning. Those of you at 0-3 are pulling your hair out because you thought the draft went so well and now you’re left scrambling to get back in the playoff race. Those of you off to a good start are entertaining the trade offers in an effort to solidify your bench, but only if the right deal comes along. No, I’m not referring to the Jets, Eagles or Bears…but rather teams with names like the Bronx Bombshells, Brotherly Love and the Midway Marauders…that’s right, fantasy football is also in full swing.

Given that over half of the attending NFL fans are actively involved, the question to examine is how much focus should the in-stadium experience receive with regards to fantasy football? Here are a few examples of how teams around the league provide their fans with a fantasy experience…

1. Pregame events that broadcast all of the current games at once. 20 years ago, this would have been a draw for hardcore fans who track the entire league, but now every fan is watching to see if their RB just broke the 60-yard run.

2. Some teams prefer to keep it plain and simple with a rotating out of town scoreboard. Then it’s up to their fans to check the correlating stats on their iPhones and Blackberrys.

3. Other teams utilize a full-blown fantasy stats boards or an up-to-date Bottom Line-esque stats crawler on their main board. This gives their fans an opportunity to stay up-to-date while also staying focused on the home team.

4. Another group of teams script video highlight features into their game presentation. The brief recaps show updates from the other games and give fans a quick peek at the stats and big plays…so they can then either continue to focus on their NFL team or pull out the PDA to check up on the fantasy squad.

Personally, I don’t think there’s one correct approach…like many areas of game presentation, it should be customized to the market and each organization’s entertainment philosophy.

-Patrick Walker

Patrick Walker is the President of Pat Walker Productions, a Seattle-based event production group. Pat shares over a decade of expertise in Game Entertainment and Operations in a monthly column called Walk & Talk and blogs twice a month on Gameops.com.
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