A close friend, visiting from out of town, signed up for his first game of ESPN Fantasy Football. Unbeknown to me, I decided to sit and watch the all-important Draft to learn about the popular virtual sport. Sander, my friend, explained to me the basic premise: A person starts a league, becoming the League Creator, and invites friends to join their league. The team creator in this case was Allison, a friend’s sister whom Sander has never met before. After accepting the email invitation to join the “Click Clack II” league, Sander logged on to espn.com where he followed the link to the Fantasy Football page, created an account, and then created a name for his personal team, the “South Park Cows.” Each player within a Click Clack II league drafts a team of fifteen players (8 offensive, 1 defensive, and 6 backup players). The players then look at what teams are playing on a given weekend (based on actual football games) along side what players they have drafted and pick 5 players to “start”. These are the 5 players that they think will perform best during the games and who the will accrue points for that week. Each league member is given points for every good play their starting players make. At the end of the football season the league player with the most points wins the game.
Just before the scheduled Draft, Sander and his friends logged onto the website and went into a private room where they would draft available football players. Within the window is chat room where they can interact before, during, and just after the Draft. In the beginning, conversation among the players/friends is friendly and casual. While everyone personally knew at least one other player, not everyone knew everyone else. When one player made a reference to smoking marijuana, he was quickly and reprimanded by other players who knew that there was a more mature member of the league in the chat room. As the draft began the players put on their poker faces in an effort to mislead others about their top draft picks, thus creating a competitive yet still playful atmosphere. When the system started freezing and other glitches became apparent, messing up everyone’s top draft picks, the players became frustrated and anxious. Despite the frustration, there was no fighting. The Draft concluded and the players quickly logged off, saying their goodbyes and complimenting others on their draft picks.
The interaction I observed was different from any theories we’ve discussed. While there were environments outlined by Wallace such as email, synchronous chats, and asynchronous forums, the game itself was all together different from any that Wallace discussed. Because everyone in the group was considered a friend there was no lying, real fighting, sexist comments, or any behavior out of the ordinary. Even with a female present in the group there was not the slightest hint of special treatment. Sander explained that this was probably because she was both a friend’s sister and because she was the League Commissioner who has the power to veto anyone’s draft pick(s) and trades. Ultimately, a theory developed to accommodate this online space and its psychological elements is in order.
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3 comments:
I think you have me confused with someone else. But thanks for the info!
Melissa, I like how you wrote on this topic. It's very different from what everyone else chose to explore for the assignment.
I've heard of Fantasy Football before, but I've never entirely gotten details on what exactly happens in the game. Do you think fighting between players would occur if they did not know one another? Or do you think they would still choose to be polite and respectful because those are the few traits they felt right expressing (selective self-presentation)? Also, I think a lot of social association is involved with this particular case, because everyone associates themselves with the players because they are all interested in the same thing, the reason they all came together: Fantasy Football.
Sounds like it was a fun experience, keep up the interesting topics! This was refreshing.
Hello Melissa, I'm Brendan Suhrland. I wanted to say that I really enjoyed reading your post, because I love football, and I have played fantasy football in the past. I found your reference to everyone putting on their "poker faces" very interesting, because that was the kind of experience I recall. I would always have a league with only a handful of my friends from real life: the other players were usually friends of my friends that I did not know well. However, I would say that the dialogue was almost identical to that of a poker game: friendly, but serious.
As you mentioned, there definitely needs to be an applicable theory, but I think we already have one. From my past experiences, I would say it matches the CFO perspective, because just as in poker, the less your opponents know about you, the better off you are.
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