Fantasy Football and the Parasocial Relationship Theory

      When I got back to my apartment Thursday evening after a choir rehearsal I was greeted with my roommate in the living room with the football game on and a question.

     "Hey do you think I should play rg3 or blahblah"

      I say blah blah because frankly I had no idea what he was talking about. You see, my roommate is a big fantasy football player and I....don't follow sports. After an extended weather delay where my roommate became increasingly distressed the game started. 

     Apparently he was "playing"Torrey Smith. When the ball was never thrown to him my roommate started to yell at the tv telling the quarterback to throw it to Torrey already. 

     This got me to thinking of the relationship between people playing Fantasy Football and the Parasocial Relationship theory. As we learned in class the Parasocial Relationship Theory describes one-sided relationships where one party knows a great deal about the other party, but the other does not. Fantasy football players are great examples of people who are in these relationships. They look up stats about the players in their fantasy team and seem to know incredibly detailed information about them. Meanwhile the players do not know anything about the people who have them in their team.

    One game down...only a lot more to go. The parasocial relationship continues!

    What is your opinion on fantasy football and the parasocial relationship theory? Do you play fantasy football? If so post a comment below about your relationship with your players.