Running Head: PERCEPTIONS OF NFL FANTASY FOOTBALL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

College Students Perceptions of NFL Fantasy Football Management Systems Luke Bolanos & Justin Holt Belmont University Research Methods in Sport SAM 6060 (01) Dr. Peetz & Dr. Shin November 28, 2012

PERCEPTIONS OF NFL FANTASY FOOTBALL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Background and Introduction

While research has been conducted on the rise in popularity in the National Football League because of the rise in fantasy football online, no research has been done on fantasy sport management systems. Fantasy football is basically where every manager drafts individual players from the National Football league to create their own fantasy team. The amount of teams in each league range from 8 to 16 and there are two types of ways to draft players. Most teams start 8 players and those 8 players make up your starting lineup to compete against another managers or opponents starting lineup. The scoring works slightly different for each position but basically scoring is based on how well each player performs in the game relative to statistics. Mainly players are offensive players because they record the yards and statistics, as defensive units as a whole are one player. The research question this study is examining is, W hat are college students perceptions of Internet based NFL fantasy football management systems? There are multiple popular websites to play fantasy football online including ESPN.com, yahoo.com, NFL.com, and cbssports.com, but there are many discrepancies and inefficiencies with the overall management of fantasy football online. We want to find out from fantasy football managers from the college demographic, what they like and dislike about each online management system they use. With this research information, exiting fantasy football management systems can improve and even new management systems can be created to better target the college demographic. Our hypothesis on this research question would be that college student managers will prefer systems that are more consistent and defined throughout. Another hypothesis is

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that college student managers will not prefer systems that have a subscription fee and arent always consistent. They would not want to pay for a system or change the current system they are using even if a new management system came out that fixed most of the flaws found in the study just because of their familiarity with their current system. We believe this study is important because this is a growing market and interest and not much study has been done with the college demographic on what can be improved. Fantasy football has grown so fast that not many systems and websites have had time to catch up and make the proper adjustments with their management systems. Adjustments need to be made to make sure they keep their customers (the fantasy football managers) happy and keep the game consistent and fair across the board. With the information this research uncovers with college fantasy football managers, a management system could improve its fantasy football management system to set itself apart from the rest of the competition. Also, important information that could be uncovered throughout this study is if it would even be worthwhile for the fantasy management systems to improve or upgrade. We may find information that shows fantasy football managers would rather just stick with what management system they are familiar with, even though another system may suite what they are looking for better. The information from this study would help the overall business of fantasy football at the management level regarding the college demographic. There are several limitations to this study being fairly specific and realize these limitations. One limitation would be that we are only surveying the college demographic of fantasy football mangers. Although the college demographic makes up a large part of fantasy football owners, it does not even cover the majority of the fantasy football

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owners. This study is only limited to fantasy football in the National Football League even though fantasy is available to play in almost every sport. Another limitation is that we dont get to survey or ask the opinions of the creators of the fantasy football management systems on how this industry has shaped through its increase in popularity. Another limitation would be that there are countless amounts of variations to each league and how that league is run in regard to the scoring system, draft, free agency waiver wire, and several other things. Most leagues vary in the way they are run, so the type of leagues that the college fantasy football managers that we survey play in will not be consistent. We cannot survey all the different types of leagues and how each league would prefer their management system to be set up. Review of Literature As we have mentioned above, there has been a huge increase in popularity and a large growth of online fantasy football. This large growth has spawned various problems across the management systems of online fantasy football. Online management systems and websites of fantasy football have not been able to keep up or update with the rapid increase in growth. In particular, online management systems of fantasy football are not as efficient and easily operated for the managers in their fantasy football leagues and teams. There can often be confusion and discrepancies in the operation of teams and players by the managers in these fantasy football management systems and websites.

PERCEPTIONS OF NFL FANTASY FOOTBALL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Looking at several pieces of literature and studies that have been conducted already in the areas of fantasy football, NFL fantasy football, and the perceptions people have of fantasy football we learned that over 15 million people participate in online fantasy sports (Farquhar & Meeds, 2007). In 2003, 7.2% of all American Adults

participated in online fantasy sports (Davis & Duncan, 2006). Another source claims that there are now approximately 30 million participants in leagues for fantasy sports (Shipman, 2001). Fantasy sports itself was created long before the internet age and was originally done using pencil and paper, created almost forty years ago (Shipman, 2001). These original fantasy sports leagues were called, Rotisserie sports leagues (Davis & Duncan, 2006). The online fantasy sports are now growing very rapidly

compared to the beginning due to the ease of the internet and being able to easily organize and track players online (Shipman, 2001). According to Farquhar and Meeds, the majority of fantasy sports users are between the ages of 18 to 34 years old and are males. Fantasy sports users spent approximately $175 each year on various things like fantasy sports leagues fees, fantasy sports information sources, and add-ons like live stat-tracking programs. In 2003, CBS Sportsline reported that their billings for fantasy football and baseball went up by 40%, which brought their total fantasy football and baseball billings to $14.4 million. The rapidly increasing fantasy sports in terms of time and dollars spent annually on them warrants research on the users, the providers, and the general role of fantasy sports in the community (Farquhar & Meeds, 2007). In this particular research study we will be taking a look and exploring more specifically, the NFL fantasy football management systems and how college students

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perceive these NFL fantasy football management systems. Not much, or no, particular research is out there on specifically the perceptions college students hold onto about NFL fantasy football management systems. This brings us to two different hypotheses. The first is that college student managers will prefer systems that are more consistent and defined throughout. The second is that college student managers will not prefer systems that have a subscription fee and arent always consistent. As we conduct this research study, we realize that there are some outlying limitations. We realize that we are conducting this research study on just the college demographic of fantasy football management systems and that college students make up just one part of all fantasy football users. Also, we know that there are other areas of fantasy football and that NFL fantasy football is not the only fantasy football management system that is popular today. Through our research, we have found out that there is not much research that has already been done on actual college students perceptions of NFL fantasy football. However, we have found research that was completed on fantasy sports,

fantasy football, participation in fantasy sports and football, and the motivation behind fantasy sports. It is the area of motivation in fantasy sports that we will explore next through one good source we found. Research in the actual motivation for fantasy sports is lacking but there is plenty of research that has been done on internet use and the motivation and intent of sports fans. It is the motivation and intent of sports fans that can give us a good idea of the motivation for online fantasy sports users. There are three motivation scales and nine

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different sports fan motivations. Three of these sports fan motivations include physical attributes of athletes and the games themselves, which are not applicable to a game that is based in a virtual environment. However, a handful of motivations from sports fan research do seem applicable for online fantasy sports. The motivations most

frequently found in uses and gratification research on sports fans are social interaction, surveillance, escape, arousal, and entertainment (Farquhar & Meeds, 2007). In the study we found by Farquhar and Meeds, they examined how exactly these motivations could operate among fantasy sports users in a virtual environment. Another really good article that we found explores several questions that could really help us to uncover the perceptions that college students have about NFL fantasy football management systems. This could be done by examining the questions, having to do with fantasy sports, that the research article and study looks at. In the article, the study examines the relatively new type of electronic medium that offers a different kind of spectatorship in sports. The questions that are asked and researched through the study in this article are: what are the appeals of fantasy sport? How are fantasy sports experienced? To whom are fantasy sports directed? (Davis & Duncan, 2006). I

believe that we could use this information and this particular study to examine these questions asked to get a better understanding of what type of people are usually the users of fantasy sports and more specifically NFL fantasy football. We found another article that addresses fantasy football leagues and how they utilize simulation to enhance sport marketing concepts. I believe that this could be a valuable source of information to our study because we can see what type of impact that fantasy football can have on college students. The use of simulation in fantasy

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football leagues offers marketing educators many instructional opportunities that would normally be unavailable to students without this simulation. Andy Gillentine and Jeff Schulz put it this way, The operation of a fantasy football league offers a simulation that encompasses many of the factors that occur in day-to-day marketing operations in the sport industry. The article explains the different advantages and also the different disadvantages of using a fantasy football simulation like NFL fantasy football. The development of fantasy football simulation, as in NFL fantasy football, is planned out in nine steps. First, there is the selection of a league commissioner and then the

determination of scoring/playing procedures. Third and fourth are the recruitment of owners and the identification of particular cities. Next, is the player draft and then the development of scenarios. After that, it is the creation of agencies and the assignment of agencies. Lastly, there is the incorporation of simulation (Gillentine & Schulz, 2001). I think that we can use this information about simulation and the development plan of NFL fantasy football simulation to examine more closely NFL fantasy football management systems. Methods We are going to use both qualitative and quantitative methods in our research study. The research we are going to do in this study is both descriptive research and exploratory research. It is going to be descriptive research because we will be using surveys and interviews with the intention of finding out what exactly is going on in NFL Fantasy Football users minds with their perceptions of the management systems they use. The research will also be exploratory because with these surveys and interviews, we are focusing more on the development of our two hypotheses more than the actual

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testing of our hypotheses (Andrew, McEvoy, & Pedersen, 2011, Chapter 1). We are using these types of research because we feel that it will best describe and give us a picture of what the perceptions of NFL Fantasy Football users have about their management systems. We really think that these types of research designs will show a better understanding in this area since all previous research has a left a gap in perceptions of NFL Fantasy Football management systems and how they are viewed by users. What we hope to uncover, is a better understanding of why exactly do users have the perceptions that they do of particular NFL Fantasy Football management systems. Our researchs population will be NFL Fantasy Football users who are student s at SEC East Conference schools; the population will include both males and females and will include all ages over 18, as long as they are a student. A student is anybody who is either a full-time or part-time student currently enrolled at the university, traditional daytime or non-traditional nighttime student. We will be using a non-

probability sample that will be a convenience sample. The sampling technique that we will use is considered a non-probability sample because we are attracting people who play or are familiar with NFL Fantasy Football. We consider it most closely related to a convenience sample because we are handing out the surveys and conducting the interviews at large, SEC East schools where college students who play NFL Fantasy Football are plentiful and these are the closest large schools to our region (Andrew, McEvoy, & Pedersen, 2011, Chapter 4). The way we will carry out our research study is by placing a table and booth in various high traffic places at all SEC East Conference Schools. We will operate these

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booths from 1p.m. until 3p.m. two different days of the week. Before establishing what these high traffic places are, we will contact the student union at each university we are conducting the research study at. From the student unions, we will ask to receive their clearance for setting up our booths and find out from them which areas on campus have the most traffic at the particular time of day we have our booths set up. Most likely, these high traffic places will be two or three areas on campus where most students walk through, like the in front of the cafeteria and main walkways in the middle of campus. We will brightly label and advertise the table and booth as NFL Fantasy Football!!! This will gain the attention of many NFL Fantasy Football users and we will be giving away $5 gift cards to Panera to all participants who complete the entire survey and interview. This will hopefully attract many students to participate in our surveys and interviews. Participants will first take the survey, by hand, which should take only about 5-10 minutes and then complete a 5-10 minute interview with us through open ended questions that they are asked. In conducting our surveys and interviews in this manner, we hope to attract NFL Fantasy Football users and we will not allow non-students to participate in our study. The way we will go about making sure every participant in our research study is a student is by asking and checking their Student ID to make sure they are a current student at the University. Under normal conditions and to the best of our knowledge and expertise, our research study will not in any way, shape, or form harm or put any human subjects in jeopardy of their health and safety. We are simply handing out our surveys and then conducting a short, in-person interview with participants. No physical contact will be used, nor will any mental, physical, or psychological damage be caused to human

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subjects. The survey and interview will be completely voluntary for all potential subjects and no coercion or forcefulness will be used, even through words, to get potential subjects to participate. We will have gift cards for all participants to entice potential subjects to participate in the survey but no deceit or luring will take place. All participants will sign a waiver form saying that they will allow us to use the information they provide for our research study and that we will not use any personal information for any other purpose (see Appendix A, part 1). Additionally, we will include a statement that participants must read and sign (see Appendix A, part 2). This

statement will say that we will not manipulate their minds in any way, shape, or form and that they have the freedom to leave at any point in time during the survey, and we are not forcing in any way, shape, or form to participate in the study. All of the items discussed above will be explained and submitted in our report to the Institutional Review Board at Belmont University for approval. We will submit a full report to Belmont

Universitys IRB once we have completed making our surveys and questionnaires. Our report will include both our questionnaire and our survey that we will use, along with the statement and waiver, which will be handed to participants. The same report and

explanation of all the items used in our research study will also be sent to each SEC East Conference schools Institutional Review Board for approval of use, since we will be conducting the actual research study at those Universities. We plan to use a mixed methodology plan by using surveys and interviews of college fantasy football players asking about their management systems (Andrew, McEvoy, & Pedersen, 2011, Chapter 4). On the surveys, we plan to have this very structured with at least one of each: open questions, closed questions, Likert scale

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questions, list questions, and filter questions (see Appendix B for a sample of each from our survey) (Andrew, McEvoy, & Pedersen, 2011, pp. 82-83). With the interviews, we plan to have them structured but with open-ended questions so it will feel like more of a conversation with the participants (Andrew, McEvoy, & Pedersen, 2011, Chapter 8). We need the mixed methodology plan because with just the survey, we will not get all the information and opinions of college students fantasy football players on their specific management systems. The surveys are still important though because we still do need a base structure to get the data from college student fantasy football players. The interviews will be more of a conversation with the fantasy football players and their opinions of the managements systems they currently use and in this way, we can dig deeper than just a short survey with data. Our dependent variable in this study is the college student fantasy football players perceptions on their fantasy football management systems. The independent variable in this study is the fantasy football management systems that the college student fantasy football players use. We plan to use three measures of variability, which are range, standard deviation, and variance. We plan to use a standardized instrument, surveys and interviews, but with questions customized to what will give us the most information about college student fantasy football players perceptions on their management systems that they use. Using a standardized instrument would eliminate the reliability and validity issues for the most part, but our customization of these standardized instruments may give issues of validity if they are not done correctly at all times. Some biases of the instrument may be that the open-ended questions in our interviews will carry some positives because of the conversation feel to it (Andrew, McEvoy, & Pedersen, 2011, Chapter 7-8). We may get

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carried away in a conversation and not realize we are creating a bias, but we are aware of this potential bias and are instructed to be cautious of this. Our dependent variable in this study is the college student fantasy football players perceptions on their fantasy football management systems. The independent variable in this study is the fantasy football management systems that the college student fantasy football players use. The dependant variables could be biased themselves because of outside factors. The surveys will be nominally scaled and scored in that manner. Our data analysis plan will be to use a general analytic strategy to help treat the findings objectively, produce strong conclusions, and rule out alternative explanations. We will use three main general analytic strategies, which are relying on theoretical propositions, creating a rival explanation framework, and developing a case description (Andrew, McEvoy, & Pedersen, 2011, Chapter 5).

PERCEPTIONS OF NFL FANTASY FOOTBALL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Appendix A (Part 1) I hereby,

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, am allowing Luke Bolanos and Justin Holt to use all

the personal information I provide them with for the purpose of their research study on college students perceptions of NFL Fantasy Football management systems as part of their affiliation with and work for Belmont Universitys Masters Sport Administration program. Additionally, I hereby, , understand and confirm that Luke

Bolanos and Justin Holt will only be using the personal information I provide for the purpose of their research study and absolutely for no other purpose.

Signature:

Date:

PERCEPTIONS OF NFL FANTASY FOOTBALL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Appendix A (Part 2) **Please Read the Below Statement** You are invited to participate of NFL is in a research Football to fantasy (2) to find project regarding

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to better target the college demographic. There is no risk of harm to you physically, mentally, or emotionally. Your mind will not be manipulated in any way, shape, or form. You may choose whether to participate in this study or not. If you agree to participate, you may withdraw at any time without penalty or loss of benefits to which you might otherwise be entitled. You may also refuse to answer any questions you do not want to answer and still remain in the study. Participation in

this study may not give you any direct benefits other than the $5 gift card to Panera upon completion of the survey and interview. However, if you want

to know the results of my study, I will be happy to share my findings with you after completing my study. **After reading this statement in full, please sign and date below** Signature: Date:

PERCEPTIONS OF NFL FANTASY FOOTBALL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Appendix B Open Question:

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What would you change to improve your current/past NFL Fantasy Football management systems? Closed Question: What college year are you? Freshman Sophomore Junior Senior Graduate Student PhD

Likert Scale Question: How satisfied are you with your current NFL Fantasy Football online management system? Very Satisfied Mostly Satisfied Somewhat Satisfied Somewhat Dissatisfied Mostly Dissatisfied Very Dissatisfied

Neutral

PERCEPTIONS OF NFL FANTASY FOOTBALL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS List Question: What online NFL Fantasy Football management system did you use?

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ESPN.com CBSSports.com Yahoo Sports NFL.com Other (please specify)

Filter Question: Do you currently play NFL Fantasy Football? Yes (go to next question) No (skip to question no.13)