Today there is an estimated 27 million fantasy players in the United States, in which 85% participate in fantasy football, and 40% participate in fantasy baseball. That would make the overall number of fantasy baseball players in the United States about 10.8 million. Even though this might not seem like an astronomical number, it is a very large increase from the number of participants in 2000 when the total number of fantasy players in the country was just 2 million according to Chris Russo, who is CEO of Fantasy Sports …show more content…
He told me that over his five high school years at American Heritage the attendance for the games rose every year. “Last year every game was nearly packed, when I was a Freshman it was usually almost empty but over the years we got supporters and even the students started to come out and show their support for us.” He then went on to compare it to football games and basketball games. “You know our school heavily favored the football team and obviously more people would go to their games because they’re on Friday, but we had more fans than basketball and the field was usually full with either our fans or our opponent’s fans.” Villar is now one of the best freshman players at the University of South Florida and he says that he is ready for the new fans that await him. “I know that college games are insane, they’re all filled with fans and most people say they’re a whole lot of fun.” I then went on to talk to him about the negative assumption that many people have about baseball and he did admit that the game can get tedious at times but he also knows that there are fans that appreciate the slow nature of the game and the skill that every position requires. “In baseball every player has a purpose, and it’s a skill based sport, in other sports it’s either based on athleticism or just strength but not in baseball. Every player needs to be great at what they do and when you add