Comments & Discussion

Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.

There are 7 comments on POV: Fantasy Sports a Scandal Waiting to Flourish

  1. This just has no grounding in fact whatsoever…there’s not a single quantitative or cited study in here. Fantasy sports are played against friends for the most part. What you’re referring to are daily fantasy leagues which are a different beast altogether. Fantasy is just fun between friends 80% of the time.

    1. I would argue the “grounding” for his opinion piece (not a fact-based news article) is simply that fantasy sports are clearly “booming” and “promote gambling,” which if you watch football you could easily make this connection with the total number of commercials on a given day dedicated to daily fantasy spots and the tag line constantly pushed about “winning money.”

      I agree with you 100% that season-long fantasy and daily fantasy are two vastly different things. I think this article is implicitly about daily fantasy leagues that promote gambling. Granted Professor Naylor fails to make the distinction, but his argument regarding the slippery slope fantasy sports are on is, in my opinion, well founded. Gambling and sports can lead to serious ethical dilemmas. I play season-long fantasy football but that doesn’t mean I can’t see the potential for possible problems associated with daily fantasy (again, just watch football on the weekend and count the number of commercial you see for it) and even ethical problems associated with the “big business” of season-long fantasy.

      The most important thing to take from this, however, is that this is an opinion piece, not intended to be taken as fact.

      1. “… this is an opinion piece, not intended to be taken as fact.”

        I respectfully dissent from this view. Though it’s not the same as a news story, an opinion piece should be grounded in evidence. Opinion writers do have leeway to interpret (spin?) the data they include, something that, ideally, news stories should avoid.

  2. TOTALLY agree with Mark’s comment. There is a VERY LARGE distinction between season long Fantasy sports and Daily fantasy sports which the author neglected to point out. Season long fantasy sports leagues have been active since the 1960’s.

    I assume this commentary is in reference to the recent DraftKings/Fanduel scandal which took place in Daily fantasy sports. I agree completely that this is an unregulated market with large sums of money at stake and it needs more structure and regulation.

    However, to lump ALL fantasy sports into the same bucket is unfair and naïve. Season long fantasy leagues do not need regulated as it is a collection of a small group of people (friends, family, neighbors, etc.) having fun together.

    The article makes some good points but leaves out the most important – this ONLY applies to DAILY fantasy sports.

  3. I don’t find this article being fair to daily fantasy sports. Yes, you pointed out how successful it has become but at the same time you also stated harmful information against the said sports fantasy. Everybody who is into sports will surely appreciate everything about it, if you are passionate about basketball, football and all other sports participating in daily sports then you will find time to learn what this is all about and they have a website that you can visit and easily sign up or register, in fact i have heard that they will be having a conference next year around March. Maybe the reason behind the writer’s opinion is all about the recent scandal that was never proven yet, these are all allegations. Fantasy sports has big time investors and i am pretty sure that they did their research before joining it. I have also did my own investigation and found out nothing but pure fun and it also gives us the chance to earn money.

    1. Sorry, but it’s the actual games that interest me. Sports, especially baseball, offer more than enough statistics for hard-core fans. True fans don’t require fantasy leagues & games. Fantasy sports promote irresponsible gambling & encourage addition. And consider that in football, they’re essentially sending players out to kill each other. Betting on such lethal sports, i.e. profiting from the violence, seems markedly unethical.

Post a comment.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *