So you want to be the next Jerry West, Al Davis or Kevin Malone, running your own sports team, making trades and cutting deals, but you don't want to haggle with troublesome stadium contractors, city councils or, worse, free agents?
One solution is to join the fantasy sports world, a parallel universe, of sorts, where, if you're among the lucky few, you can weave fantasy into a very real career option.
Take Steve Goldstein of online sports channel CBS Sportsline in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., for example. Goldstein, 30, earned his MBA from Nova Southeastern University in March and joined Sportsline in June. For the last four years he has managed his own fantasy teams. Now he is products and service manager for Sportsline's fantasy sports division, a position he landed after applying to a want ad in a local newspaper.
"I never thought I'd get paid to go after my passion," says Goldstein, who supervises a team of six responsible for handling customer support for the fee-based fantasy games and services Sportsline provides.
Competing in fantasy sports is a passion for thousands of people around the world, who play a wide variety of games based on rules originally conceived by a group of baseball fans in the early 1980s. Here's how it works: Several people get together to form their own league with teams that "compete" against one another using the statistics of real-life professional players.
The thrill comes from simulating ownership of a professional sports team--negotiating trades with fellow team owners, or scouting and drafting the next phenom--all with the goal of taking home the championship at the end of the season.
Baseball and football are the fantasy sports of choice, but fantasy hockey, basketball, soccer, golf and even NASCAR racing are growing in popularity.
Traditionally, team owners get their players in a draft or auction and earn points based on how these players perform in their real-life competitions. Standings are regularly updated and determine the league champion at the end of the season. Until recently, standings were disseminated within each league by either mail or fax once a week. Now, thanks to the Internet, owners can track their team performance daily or even hourly.
"The Web has revolutionized the game," says Bill Mayer, president and owner of USA Stats, based in Baltimore. "It's like what the microwave did for cooking."
