Adrian Peterson and his wife, Ashley Brown, at the Montgomery County municipal building on October 8, 2014 in Conroe, Texas. Credit: Getty Images
HBO’s Real Sports did an interesting piece last week on daily fantasy sports sites like FanDuel.com, showing that the relatively new industry is booming.
In the feature, pro athletes were often described as “stocks” and many industry figures described fantasy sports in general as a different form of stock trading – the common link being lucrative payouts. (FYI – Daily fantasy sports are legal in the U.S. because it is considered a “game of skill” and has a special exemption from the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.)
With so much money on the line on a daily basis, it’s no wonder that many of those who play fantasy sports have little time for the “human element” when it comes to their “stocks.” Vikings running back Adrian Peterson is simply seen as the biggest bust of the fantasy football season – drafted in the top five of most every draft, but inactive since Week 1. That’s it and that’s all.
It has been interesting to see how the fantasy football world has handled the ongoing saga of Peterson’s child abuse case. There were some fantasy owners, like myself, who were so outraged by the details of the allegations that they wanted to drop Peterson from their keeper leagues to grandstand out of pure spite. Of course, in the end, I didn’t. It seems like no one else has either.
Peterson appeared in court for the first time Wednesday in regards to the child abuse charges and a tentative trial date of Dec. 1 was set. That, no doubt, made a ton of fantasy football owners out there angry as Peterson is barred from all team activities until the case is resolved.
Fantasy football host sites like Yahoo!, ESPN and, yes, even NFL.com operated on Wednesday as if the news of Peterson’s court date was the same as a fractured tibia. Here are what the thumbnail updates looked like:
Here’s what Twitter looked like Wednesday in regard to Peterson and fantasy:
As of late Wednesday afternoon, Peterson was still owned in 63 percent of all Yahoo! leagues and 84.5 percent of ESPN leagues.
Follow Metro Boston sports editor Matt Burke on Twitter: @BurkeMetroBOS
