The Two Most Intense Nerd Groups In Sports

When it comes to sports, there are always two types of fans. The mainstream fans and the die-hard fans. The die-hard fans are the ones who have emotional issues that last up to 72 hours following a loss. Within the die-hard fans, there are now varying degrees of intensity (or nerdiness). For example, the two nerdiest groups in sports are the college football recruiting fanatic and the die-hard fantasy sports guy.

It is my belief that the die-hard recruiting fanatic and the die-hard fantasy sports guy come from the same bloodline. Both of these guys are characterized by the following:

Excessive mis-allocation of time during work hours – The beauty of the recruiting and fantasy space is that most of the work takes place during work hours when you are getting paid to do something very unrelated to sports. Cubicle dwellers spend hours alternating between client emails and high school running back highlight videos. Heavy use of the internet – The bottom line is that fantasy and recruiting blew up as a result of the world wide web. Message boards, blogs, live chats with ESPN fantasy gurus, these are all crucial to your success as a die-hard fantasy recruiting nerd. Heavy use of spreadsheets – Nothing is more awesome than spreadsheets. If you have expert skills with spreadsheets due to working in the financial sector, consider it a blessing. There’s nothing better than a well-designed mock draft spreadsheet which tracks your 50-60 mock draft results and spits out a nice report which comes handy on draft day.

Add all of the above together and you have a serious productivity problem in the American workplace. It is my belief that our economic ills are not due to offshore labor, a skills gap and/or pension liabilities. No, the structural economic woes in this country are more tied to the rise of recruiting and fantasy sports. It is my belief that CFB recruiting and fantasy sports are the #1 and #2 productivity killers for men ages 18-54. The official list is as follows:

Fantasy Sports – This is #1 because it has become hugely mainstream. Football, baseball, basketball, Nascar, golf, etc. you can do fantasy in just about anything. College Football Recruiting – This is probably the most intense, but also confined just to a specific segment of CFB fans. March Madness – If you don’t waste enough time contemplating who will win a first round matchup between Xavier and Murray State while you fill out your miserable brackets, you then waste time watching live games via the internet. I’m convinced if March Madness were year-round, the economic output of America would grind to a halt. Special props to CBS for designing that screen w/ the “spreadsheet” button that you can click which switches the live game video to a spreadsheet when your boss comes by. Master’s – The Master’s is best known for accomplishing three things. 1) It’s the one time of the year where regular guys talk about golf (other than when Tiger sleeps w/ 50 women). 2) It’s the only time ever where men demonstrate how awesome their new LCD TV is by showing flowers – “Look at how good my TV shows the azaleas!” 3) It’s the one time a year that men attempt to watch live golf at work. At first it was just live streaming video of Amen Corner, now, it’s expanded wasting further time. MLB Day Games – MLB is the only major sport which has games on during work hours regularly. Normally, this would be fantastic and even more of a time waster, but nobody under 65 watches baseball. If you happen to play fantasy baseball, you might watch StatTracker if you have a key guy playing during the day.

As we continue to look at the similarities of fantasy sports and CFB recruiting, there are a few key components which drive each of these areas of fanaticism.

The Message Board

We start with the message board. Old and outdated technology by today’s standards, but the message board still plays a central role in the fields of fantasy sports and recruiting. The boards drive a feeling of community and provide a venue for hugely important conversations like the following:

Fan 1: What are the chances we sign <insert recruit’s name> ? Fan 2: 80%. I’m hearing he had a good visit last weekend. Fan 3: Yes, but his coach is pushing <insert other school>, while at the same time, <insert recruit’s name>’s mom wants him to come here because of academics and she feels the coach will look out for him. Fan 4: You’re all wrong. His ex-girlfriend attends <yet another school> and word is that they are rekindling the flame if you know what I mean.

Meanwhile, these clueless fans are doing nothing more than regurgitating want they read other clueless fans read on other threads of the same message board. In reality, they are wrong about the coach, the mom, the visit, the ex-girlfriend and the recruit and have no clue. Frankly, the recruit himself has no clue where he is going. Yet, grown men talk each day about where they think the recruit is going to play college football. This is amazing.

If we turn to fantasy sports, you get the same intelligent banter on message boards.

Fan 1: Hey guys, I’m in a 5X5 H2H mixed fantasy baseball league. I’m thinking of trading SP Chris Carpenter, OF Juan Pierre, 1B Prince Fielder for RP Jonathan Papelbon, OF Nelson Cruz and C Victor Martinez. What should I do? Fan 2: Carp is poised for a rebound year, don’t make the move. Fan 3: I disagree. I’m hearing that VMart has a new hitting coach and a new swing; he should make nice strides this year. He’s undervalued.

Of course these conversations happen in person also. I once was prepping for a fantasy baseball draft engaged in a serious discussion about some mid-level pitchers and discussing my concerns with their WHIP levels. After 20 minutes of going back and forth about WHIP, ERA and other pitching statistical categories, a non-participating third person had enough. Who discusses WHIP for 20 straight minutes? Sports nerds of course.

The Draft, The Mock Drafts; Signing Day, The Announcements

The two cornerstone dates for fantasy sports and recruiting are the draft and signing day, respectively. The hours logged on message boards and on research all point to these days. Thankfully, we also get warm ups for these major days. For the fantasy draft, the warm up is the ever-so-important mock draft. It’s quite impressive that sports fans have created fantasy versions of fantasy versions of drafts. How do you prepare for your fake draft? By doing fake versions of the fake draft. Because with repetition comes excellence.

In recruiting, we have the press conferences and commitment announcements that occur throughout recruiting season. Signing day itself is just a high volume of announcements all on one day. The beautiful thing here is that most announcements don’t mean much, are made at the last minute, are performed simply for the sake of getting on television, and often don’t stick. Sometimes a recruit announces one school on live television, decommits days later and then has another announcement. Heck, we’ve even had players announce for schools that haven’t even offered a scholarship for that player!

The draft is the epitome of drama in fantasy world. It represents a moment when the sports fan gets to be king and assemble the perfect roster. It allows you to heckle your close friends over terrible picks in front of others. It is the make or break moment of the year, because if your draft sucks, you have to deal with a terrible season and wait another year to make up for it.

In recruiting, every die-hard fan sort of feels like they are a contestant on the bachelor. The fan is hoping the recruit gives him a rose. And yes, I mean him, not the actual school. Recruiting is personal. If a player picks another school, it reflects poorly on you, not just the program. When a highly touted five-star chooses you and your school, clearly you, the fan, are doing something right.

The Experts

Because of the insane fanaticism of both fantasy sports and recruiting, we’ve raised up experts to guide us through this web-based land of emotion and drama. Should I start Victor Cruz or Reggie Wayne this week?! Is Arik Armstead going to pick Auburn? Should I go pitching first in my draft or focus on power hitting? Will Landon Collins flip and come to LSU after all? These are very important questions and ones we need guidance on around the clock.

The fantasy experts like Matthew Berry and recruiting gurus from Rivals and 247Sports are there to help us not just with black and white decisions but they are here to keep us calm during volatile times. Nothing is more volatile when you draft Peyton Manning and he goes out for the year due to a neck injury. Or when Gunner Kiel failed to show up for classes at LSU, Tiger fans were close to driving to Indiana and bring him to Baton Rouge themselves. The experts are crucial to maintaining fan base stability.

The funniest part is that the experts are essentially just the nerdiest of this entire group. In fantasy, you’re an expert if you participate in a 16-team AL-only fantasy baseball league. These guys are drafting third string second basemen to fill out their rosters – players that the real MLB manager’s don’t even know about. This is insanity. In recruiting, experts often brag about “going deep” – in recruiting lingo, deep means obscure. Need an example? Recruiting expert guy: “Today, I’m ranking the top 100 kickers from Rhode Island.” Have fun with that.

Social Media

If we didn’t have enough ’round the clock action or nonstop access via the web, social media has assuredly given us plenty. Not only can lunatic fans now hunt down potential prospects via facebook and send them messages demanding they attend their school, but the recruits and players themselves can now tell us exactly what they think usually via Twitter. For example, 2012 recruit Yuri Wright thought his fans might want to know that his “pops just drove by and splash some jewish lady with mad water” and that he intends to “marry a badass white women someday” in addition to to a plethora of tweets discussing the five letter word which starts with P.

Of course, it was NFL RB Arian Foster who let his fans know he didn’t appreciate that the only concern fans had for his injured knee was whether or not he’d be able to produce in fantasy this year. His tweets on the issue were a major discussion point prior to the 2011 season. C’mon, Arian, it’s called draft prep.

As stud high school players start ramping up their Twitter accounts before they are eligible to drive a car, this is only going to intensify. Fans can literally participate in the recruiting process via facebook and twitter. Fans can also hold professional players accountable for mediocre fantasy production via the same means. Hey @EliManning10NYG, 3 picks and a fumble? You’re killing me!