Fantasy sports is a game format that gives sports fans a chance to engage with the sport by making a virtual time with real-life players for upcoming matches while scoring points on the player’s on-field performance. Fantasy sports also allow sports fans to compete against each other with the teams they have formed.
The history of fantasy sports dates back to an era without the internet. Wilfred Wilkenbach devised fantasy golf in the late 1950s with players selected from a team of pro golf players and the winner was selected with the lowest number of strokes. Wilkenbach was also credited for creating fantasy football in 1962.
The contemporary fantasy sports version was created by Daniel Okrent in the 1980s with baseball. He was the founder of Rotisserie League Baseball. The members of Rotisserie League Baseball would draft virtual teams from a list of active players, following the players’ performance to score themselves at the end of the season.
The advent of the Internet in the 1990s ushered in offerings on American online platforms. CDM Fantasy Sports, SportsLine and Prime Sports together formed the first industry body called the Fantasy Sports and Gaming Association in 1998. The transition from fantasy season leagues to daily fantasy sports led to the next boom across the world. While fantasy sports was existent in Europe in the 2000s, the boom came in post-2016. India jumped on the fantasy sports bandwagon in 2001 when Star Sports and ESPN launched Super Selector.
The first fantasy sports platform, Dream11, was launched in 2008. The fantasy sports platforms saw different models spanning from ad-driven models to freemium over the last decade. The verdicts of Punjab and Haryana high courts and subsequently, the Supreme Court presented the online skill gaming with legitimacy to grow, attract investors and users.
Federation of Indian Fantasy Sports (FIFS) was established in 2017 to represent the industry and creating a self-regulatory framework. Technological developments contributed to the boom of fantasy sports with the boom of smartphones as well as 4G network. As per industry estimates, India is the biggest fantasy sports market with approximately 13 crore users which is higher in comparison to USA where the format originated from.