Each fall, while Michael Nyman鈥檚 friends debate whether to draft Peyton Manning or Tom Brady for their fantasy football teams, Nyman digs into the numbers on Lindsey Vonn and Ted Ligety for his own league: . Nyman started FSR in 2010 with his brother, Olympic downhill racer Steven Nyman, because they both like geeking out about the sport.聽
Over the past few years, broadcast networks, niche publications, and clutches of obsessed fans like the Nymans have developed leagues for everything from cycling (NBC鈥檚 ) to fishing (Fishing League Worldwide鈥檚 ) to surfing (Surfer 尘补驳补锄颈苍别鈥檚 ) in an attempt to replicate what has long been a big part of the growth of mainstream sports.
鈥淚f you can measure statistics, you can have a league,鈥 says Megan Van Petten, executive director of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association.聽
Lacking the resources of a CBS or an ESPN, which run their own fantasy leagues, action-sports upstarts have struggled to develop slick interfaces and intuitive scoring systems. 鈥淚t has been hard to refine our game and have it make sense to the general public,鈥 Nyman admits.聽
Indeed, most Americans are familiar with how scoring in, say, football and baseball works, and the fantasy versions of those sports are structured accordingly. But developing rules for solo endeavors like ski racing can be difficult. In Fantasy Cycling Challenge, players are given a virtual budget to sign riders and are awarded points based on how they perform. FSR tried that model but found that it confused people. So in 2012, the rules changed: predict the top finishers, rack up points for being right.聽
Then the Nymans developed a mobile app to take advantage of the rules鈥 simplicity. Today, the FSR app looks nearly as slick as those from Fox or Yahoo, and the league鈥檚 user base has doubled to 12,000 since last season.
It isn鈥檛 just about fun, though. Fantasy leagues are a chance for the sports to reach a broader audience. 鈥淐ompetitive skiing gets decent ratings in the U.S., but the networks don鈥檛 show many races,鈥 Nyman says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e getting people exposed to that world.鈥澛
Which is exactly why Phill Gross, a hedge-fund manager and trustee of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, invested an undisclosed amount in FSR in 2012. Last year, Nyman was finally able to give himself a full-time paycheck for his work on FSR. And this year, Olympic skier and Universal Sports analyst Doug Lewis came on board as an expert blogger, a move that could help build the kind of end-to-end, 24/7 fantasy universe that mainstream leagues offer fans. After all, the more time they spend on the site, the more engrossed they become.
鈥淵ou want to win, you want your name ranked,鈥 says Lewis. 鈥淭o do that, you鈥檝e got to do your homework.鈥
Draft Guide:聽Three Athletes with Promising Cost-to-Performance Ratios
厂耻谤蹿颈苍驳:听
The Australian flies under the radar while racking up quarter- and semifinal finishes, leaving him in good position for end-of-season contention.
Cycling:
The Team Sky rider collected a string of top-ten finishes last year鈥攍ook for him to improve on his surprise performance at Paris-Roubaix.聽
厂办颈颈苍驳:听
American GS specialist Jitloff went on a tear of top-ten finishes last year, including first in the GS at the U.S. Alpine Championships.聽
2015 Payouts for Winning It All
:聽Sponsored trip to Oahu鈥檚 North Shore (worth $5,000)
:聽Trip to the FIS World Ski Championships in Colorado (worth $5,000)
:聽Santa Cruz V10 mountain-bike frame (worth $3,600)