Rated R Superstar
Well-Known Member
Jonathan Stewart is not a fan of your fantasy football team.
“It’s not a fantasy, it’s real life,” Stewart, the Carolina Panthers running back, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “These are guys who have actual families. This is a job. It’s not fantasy.”
The regulation posse is taking a hard look at two major daily fantasy sports companies, FanDuel and DraftKings, over the central question of whether they offer games of skill or a way to circumvent laws against online gambling. We can debate the merits of their arguments endlessly, and on Wednesday that fight moved to a New York courtroom.
The more troubling issue about fantasy football to me, though, is that its increasing popularity is masking something darker: the desensitizing effect it is having on fans, numbing them to the pain and injuries that are the stock in trade of a violent game.
I’ve seen it time and again: An injury to a player evokes moans and sometimes profanity in the moment. But it is not out of concern for the athlete on the field. It is because the player — often a quarterback, a running back or a receiver — is central to someone’s fantasy team.
”You see somebody when you go out and they say, ‘Hey man, I need you for my fantasy team,’ ” Stewart said. “I’m like: ‘Wait, I need this for my job. Forget your fantasy.’ What’s important here? You making a couple dollars in an easy format or me providing because this is my job?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/26/s...eal-crime-dehumanizing-the-athletes.html?_r=0
“It’s not a fantasy, it’s real life,” Stewart, the Carolina Panthers running back, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “These are guys who have actual families. This is a job. It’s not fantasy.”
The regulation posse is taking a hard look at two major daily fantasy sports companies, FanDuel and DraftKings, over the central question of whether they offer games of skill or a way to circumvent laws against online gambling. We can debate the merits of their arguments endlessly, and on Wednesday that fight moved to a New York courtroom.
The more troubling issue about fantasy football to me, though, is that its increasing popularity is masking something darker: the desensitizing effect it is having on fans, numbing them to the pain and injuries that are the stock in trade of a violent game.
I’ve seen it time and again: An injury to a player evokes moans and sometimes profanity in the moment. But it is not out of concern for the athlete on the field. It is because the player — often a quarterback, a running back or a receiver — is central to someone’s fantasy team.
”You see somebody when you go out and they say, ‘Hey man, I need you for my fantasy team,’ ” Stewart said. “I’m like: ‘Wait, I need this for my job. Forget your fantasy.’ What’s important here? You making a couple dollars in an easy format or me providing because this is my job?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/26/s...eal-crime-dehumanizing-the-athletes.html?_r=0