It’s been a while since the screenbum has appeared, and unfortunately it’s because screenbum doesn’t pay. It’s a labor of love. So your favorite video-phile has to work to keep the lights on. I am proud to say that I’m back, and just in time for my favorite time of year. It’s football time.
The NFL kicks off its 90th season bigger and better then ever. Professional football has become the most watched sport in the country, surpassing baseball as America’s favorite sport. I can talk about and watch professional football 24/7. Sure, there are a lot of people out there that love college ball more then pro ball, but I grew up in Brooklyn. New York has always been, and will always be a pro sports town. Some of the college fans are people that cheer for their alma maters, but most are individuals that grew up in a part of the country that didn’t have one of the few pro sports franchises in the states. It’s understandable, but I’m proud of my pro sports roots.
The game has grown in popularity year in and year out. I think the thing that has catapulted football over everything else was the explosive excitement of fantasy football. No matter how popular football was initially, fantasy football players had a reason to not only watch their own favorite teams, but to watch every game that’s on no matter the matchup. I guarantee if you look at the numbers you will see the rise of fantasy football participants parallel the rising viewership of the game. It’s not rocket science. Whenever you have something invested you’re going to pay more attention to it.
There are fantasy games now for everything, including baseball (which started all of fantasy sports), nascar, and golf. There is even a fantasy fashion game, where players try and figure out which designer certain stars are going to wear on the red carpet, but its football that trumps them all. Believe it or not there are still plenty of people that have no idea how it works, including plenty of women that hate when their husbands and boyfriends completely ignore them while watching a game, or trying to figure out who to start in the next game. So let me give you a quick tutorial.
You pick players, and then you get points based on how those players perform in their respective games. That’s it….it’s simple. Then, just like any other game, the guys with the most points win.
This is the most exciting time of year for me, and after years of confusion as to why I love this game so much, my loving wife has finally adopted a “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” attitude and now she watches my games with me. I couldn’t have gotten any luckier to get a woman like her. I would love to know what the statistics are of divorces and breakups due to fantasy football. Oh, yeah I’d bet you 100-1 that it’s happened plenty of times.
This isn’t like baseball where there are a ridiculous 162 games. With football each team plays 16 games over 17 weeks, that’s it. Every game counts. Compared with most other sports the entire regular season is like the playoffs. From kickoff of the season, to the final whistle of the Super Bowl the NFL’s season is by far my favorite time to bum around in front of the screen. It doesn’t matter if I’m relaxing watching a game on my own or with a huge crowd cheering for their favorite team, getting to watch football is always the ultimate time to be a screenbum.
