Name: Fantasy League, Fantasy Draft, PokerOrg Fantasy Freeroll, Rotisserie League
Age: 60+ years
Appearance: Ink-stained pages filled with numbers… then spreadsheets… then web pages and interactive apps.
Fantasy sports? Like that great idea I had for ice-tennis? No, this may have ‘fantasy’ in the name but it’s rooted in real life.
Oh, so more like the time I dreamt I could still touch my toes? Think bigger. Fantasy sports use real-world results and statistics from professional sports, allowing people to create their own dream teams to compete in theoretical leagues and competitions.
Sports have become so data-driven lately, I miss the old days. How old are the old days? The first fantasy leagues date back over 60 years. It’s thought the first one involved selecting a group of real-world golfers, collating their scores across a tournament and comparing each team.
Ah, golf, that famous team sport. Baseball and football would soon follow, then pretty much every other pro sport, from soccer to hockey, basketball and more. League sports like these have the benefit of regular games, a season structure, and of course lots of statistics to track in order to rate performance and award points.
At least you don’t need to track all those statistics by hand. These days you don’t, but you used to. That was how the original rotisserie baseball league operated.
I’ve heard of rotisserie baseball but I’ve never eaten it. No one has, it’s not a food, it’s a fantasy league concept that was invented in a New York restaurant called ‘La Rotisserie Française.’ It started around 1980 and grew quickly — not least thanks to the 1981 MLB strike, which meant sportswriters had less real-world baseball to report on, but could still write about their fantasy teams.
And that set the template for all fantasy sports since then? Yes, but things have evolved significantly. For one thing, the internet has made the fiddly process of collating scores and compiling teams infinitely easier and also means you can compete with anyone in the world. Then there are daily fantasy sports, where instead of managing a team for a season, you can just focus on a single day. Each day of a season brings another opportunity to pick a team and compete for prizes.
Prizes, you say? Oh yes. Depending on the type and size of the fantasy league, prizes can reach six or even seven-figures.
Okay, now you’ve got my attention, but where does poker come into this? While not quite as old as the NFL, MLB or Premier League fantasy leagues, poker does have its own version thanks to annual World Series of Poker fantasy drafts.
Isn’t that just for folks who are rich already? The top-tier league has an entry fee of $25K, which makes it more than just a fun sweat for the series, but there’s also a $500 ODB League run by David ‘ODB’ Baker. The $25K league operates with a draft day, so each player in the draft can only represent one team. In the ODB League anyone can draft any player, so long as they can afford them — each player has a price, and each team has the same capped budget of $200.
Is there a way I can play for free? Funny you should ask! The PokerOrg Fantasy Freeroll is set up pretty much just like the ODB League, with which we’ve officially partnered. Ours is completely free to enter and will award prizes, including a $10K main event seat or package.
Is it difficult? Good lord, no. Just make sure you’re signed up as a member of The Org, register and pick your team by noon PT on May 29. You can even let our super-smart system pick a team for you. Then we’ll track the progress of your chosen players and your team all through the series.
Do say: “I’ve picked the perfect fantasy line-up…”
Don’t say: “...I’ve got a Paladin, two Wizards and a Barbarian. We are still playing D&D, right?”
